Ten Tips for Great Mentoring Relationships
As a former Bible college dean, I’ve had many young people ask for mentoring. For clarity’s sake, I learned to ask back what exactly they were looking for in a mentoring relationship.
Here’s some of the answers I received:
- I don’t know what I’m looking for, isn’t that what you are supposed to decide?
- Well, I just know I am supposed to have a mentor, so whatever you think is right is good by me.
- I need someone to tell me how to grow spiritually.
While I applauded their initiative for spiritual growth and there was some value in their ideology, in this paradigm the responsibility for their development was all placed on me. I felt I was supposed to design a pathway for their spiritual growth. They wanted me to discern what their next steps would be. And in some cases, there was a hope that I would use my influence to connect them with a ministry position. Their perspective was one where I would be the leader, the teacher, and the guide and they...
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