One of my favourite passages in the bible is Luke 10:1-24 because it shows an entirely different side of Christ: he is overjoyed at the success of his disciples. Today I learned that Jessica, whom started as a secretary in a Chinese NGO around the same time I did, recently took a high flying job as a lead project manager for another non-profit organization. Far be it to say that I was solely responsible, it largely rest on Jessica’s own shoulders, as well as the shoulders of others who spent time teaching and mentoring her; however, she is an important example of what the Bible calls each and every one of us to be, a mentor!
Mentoring isn’t easy, you need to be purposeful, fearless, and loving to mentor others. Purposeful because you must set time aside to instruct, coach, train, and listen to the person you are mentoring. Fearless because you have to accept that those you mentor can and should have every capability of replacing you. Loving because they will fail, frequently, and need kindness, compassion, and understanding to rise back up and learn from their mistakes.
How does one choose who they mentor? It would seem that the people we are meant to mentor cross our paths in life in one way or another. Paul seemed to randomly meet the people he mentored. You may end up mentoring people you meet at church, work, or other social interest. What all situations have in common is we must view people the way that God views them. Much like when I spoke of historical Roman and Greek adoption being about the potential of the adopted, when we seek to mentor others, we must see the potential which God has placed within them.
That may mean looking crazy. When my department picked Jessica to be a project manager, there was a lot of negative reaction from others in our organization who felt she didn’t have the background. However, those of us in the department saw amazing leadership potential, intelligence, and a heart for God.
After you’ve been led to mentor someone, they don’t magically become all they are called to be without any effort on your behalf! You see, Christ spent countless hours teaching and modelling for his disciples, a behaviour we are called to emulate. I spent at least 30 minutes every morning on teaching/discussing biblical topics and an hour every afternoon teaching topics ranging from project management, to business, to budgeting, to HR, to church administration, to marketing, and everything between. I had her work as the #2 on projects where there was someone experienced to watch and learn.
Later, as she became more proficient, she partnered with other managers or myself to complete jobs and worked to exegete bible passages. Later she ran projects and coached others herself, running things past more senior managers when she needed and I sometimes left her to plan out and run morning bible devotions. Finally, she was able to run things without intervention alongside even the most seasoned project managers and develop and lead devotional studies for groups of people. She had progressed in her church ministry from running things essentially alone to training leaders in her church as well.
At that point in time, people no longer looked at our department as being crazy, they looked instead with envy. After all, our team had one of the most capable indigenous staff members in the organization! People spoke of her as being smart, capable, confident, and possessing leadership qualities, but that wasn’t new news to us because we had already seen her through God’s eyes.
It sounds as though this process takes years… and in some cases it very well does; however, this all occurred in around 6 months! I can tell you that until you see the people you mentor succeed you can’t possibly fathom the joy which Christ was filled with in Luke 10:21-24.
My sincere hope is that each and every Christian find a young Christian to mentor, the author of Hebrews points out that when we have been believers for some time then we ought to be able to teach others (Hebrews 5:12). To do anything less stunts our Christian development!