Mentoring
I am attending a Bible study at church on mentoring. It involves a better-than-average book and some good discussion. I don't know if we will all end up being mentors, but it's food for thought. Many more women should be in the group, and I am only there because my summer teaching schedule allows it, for which I am glad.
Mentoring can be a lifestyle, I think, more than just a role, a short-term position, or a "relationship" (one of our most overused words). I don't think a mentoring partnership can be forced or really assigned either. Deep calls to deep, iron sharpens iron. Praying for a mentoree to be led to you might be more effective and efficient than being assigned one. There's a serendipity to these things, and at the same time there is proactivity.
The main question is, however, should I mentor? Being outwardly someone older, wiser, more advanced on the Christian path (as if it were linear and not always looping back on itself) should qualify one, but it's not that easy. A person needs time, patience, humility, and a flexibility. You can be a mature Christian and not have a version of these qualities that meshes with a younger person. And that is the question for me--can I mesh with someone? Will it be forced, mechanical? I can identify problems I would have in mentoring more easily than I can see my strengths in it. That may be a bad sign, or it may be a sign of realism.
In reference to the above comment about "relationship," the word has become a cliche to me. "Develop a relationship with Jesus" is such an egregious one that I plan to write a book about it. One, it sounds like we are the important, initiating ones in the two-some; second, it lowers the cosmic dimensions of our conversion to a series of dates; third, Biblical relationship are unique and all based on the absolute inequality of the sinner and savior. "I am in a relationship" is an excuse, not a description of someone's life status. It's a generic, anemic substitute for courtship the same way partnership stands in for marriage, supposedly.
Mentoring is important to teaching. The only problem is a teacher cannot mentor 150 students a semester. One can only mentor a handful of people over a period of time, if that many. The person one mentors should be a former student, not someone currently in class, because that could lead to ethical problems and accusations of favoritism (something I would resent as a student). And opposite sex mentoring should be done very, very carefully. Mentoring is not, however, "reproducing oneself." That's another cliche. The world doesn't need two copies of anybody. Unfortunately too many people want a clone; that's creepy.
Mentoring can be a lifestyle, I think, more than just a role, a short-term position, or a "relationship" (one of our most overused words). I don't think a mentoring partnership can be forced or really assigned either. Deep calls to deep, iron sharpens iron. Praying for a mentoree to be led to you might be more effective and efficient than being assigned one. There's a serendipity to these things, and at the same time there is proactivity.
The main question is, however, should I mentor? Being outwardly someone older, wiser, more advanced on the Christian path (as if it were linear and not always looping back on itself) should qualify one, but it's not that easy. A person needs time, patience, humility, and a flexibility. You can be a mature Christian and not have a version of these qualities that meshes with a younger person. And that is the question for me--can I mesh with someone? Will it be forced, mechanical? I can identify problems I would have in mentoring more easily than I can see my strengths in it. That may be a bad sign, or it may be a sign of realism.
In reference to the above comment about "relationship," the word has become a cliche to me. "Develop a relationship with Jesus" is such an egregious one that I plan to write a book about it. One, it sounds like we are the important, initiating ones in the two-some; second, it lowers the cosmic dimensions of our conversion to a series of dates; third, Biblical relationship are unique and all based on the absolute inequality of the sinner and savior. "I am in a relationship" is an excuse, not a description of someone's life status. It's a generic, anemic substitute for courtship the same way partnership stands in for marriage, supposedly.
Mentoring is important to teaching. The only problem is a teacher cannot mentor 150 students a semester. One can only mentor a handful of people over a period of time, if that many. The person one mentors should be a former student, not someone currently in class, because that could lead to ethical problems and accusations of favoritism (something I would resent as a student). And opposite sex mentoring should be done very, very carefully. Mentoring is not, however, "reproducing oneself." That's another cliche. The world doesn't need two copies of anybody. Unfortunately too many people want a clone; that's creepy.
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