Mentorship

Every year, on or around my birthday, I would receive a card in the mail from my Grandma Ruth. I would begin looking forward to that card weeks before it was supposed to arrive. I would check the mail every chance I got, hoping to see my grandmother’s handwriting on an awkwardly sized envelope. It was, without question, the highlight of my birthday every year!

Before you get too sentimental, my excitement and anticipation of the card is probably not as heartwarming as you might think. While it was great hearing from my grandmother, wherever she was in the world at the time, my primary focus was not on her well-crafted, heart-felt words of love and affirmation. To quote a twentieth century street scholar, I had “my mind on my money and my money on my mind.” I knew that card contained a personal check for $40 with my name on it!

Eventually, I would come back and read the card. I even saved most of them. The value of the card didn’t actually rest in the card itself. Those cards now sit in a box somewhere in the recesses of my attic. The value of the card didn’t really rest in the check it contained. Those checks were immediately cashed and the money spent. The value of those cards, and the messages they contained, rested in the one who sent them. Further, the value of the card emanated from the relationship I had with my grandmother. She had spent time with me (presence). As a result, she knew the truth about who I was (familiarity). And, through her cards, her personal presence, and her giving me permission to become familiar with who she was and what she was about, my grandmother continues to have a profound influence on my life. Those cards continue to have value today because of who my grandmother was in my life.

The word that is often associated with relationships like the one I had with my grandmother is mentorship. My grandmother took an interest in who I was and who I was becoming. She went to great lengths to show me she loved me. She also went to great lengths to teach me that Jesus loved me. And, she worked diligently to teach me to love Jesus and showed me how with her life. Many of us have or had loving relationships with our grandparents, but not all of our grandparents serve as mentors in our lives. A person is a grandparent by blood. A person has to put in relational work to be a mentor.

What would happen if the mature adults who love Jesus decided to do the hard work of loving the young people in our churches and communities?

What would happen if the mature adults who love Jesus decided to do the hard work of loving the young people in our churches and communities? What would happen if our relationships went beyond our weekly attendance at a place of worship and spilled into our daily lives? A great deal of research has been done on this topic in recent years, so we have an answer.

1. Young people who are involved in mentoring relationships with mature Christians are much more likely to develop faith that will last. Kara Powell, Brad Griffin, and Cheryl Crawford write, “Our research has shown that the more adult mentors seek out a student and help the student apply faith to daily life, the better.”¹ This seems like a fairly obvious statement, yet many times, the relationships young people have with adults is limited to their family and ministry leaders. The research notes that more is better. The investment mature, Christ-following adults, make in the lives of emerging generations will pay dividends long into the future.
2. Positive influence is a natural biproduct of mentoring relationships. We’ve all heard the old saying, “Monkey see, monkey do.” Relationships provide a context through which faith can be seen in action. Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings are really a poor sample set as people tend to function differently during “church” than they do when dealing with the stuff of everyday life. Andrew Root notes, “Being in relationship with an adolescent, the adult models a personal relationship with Jesus and therefore personally influences the adolescent in a similar direction.”² These relationships must move beyond the glossy images we often present to others. Emerging generations need to see the truth of our lives and how Jesus integrates into the mess of our reality. When they see Christ in our lives, they begin to understand how to look for and live out that truth in their own lives. Influence isn’t the primary goal of the relationship, but it is a valuable biproduct.
3. Mentorship leads to full integration in the family of faith. Author and Scholar Kenda Creasy Dean writes about mentorship as spiritual apprenticeship. She writes, “Spiritual apprenticeships offer effective venues for introducing young people to a language of faith, as families and congregations become safe zones where people speak Christian as their native tongue.”³ While the idea of Christianity as religion has become unpopular these days, the fact remains that there is a language and a way of life that is central to being a follower of Jesus. We often make the mistake of trying to teach these things in formal settings, but as has been the case from the beginning, the faith is more caught than taught.

My grandmother was a mentor in my life because she took the time to develop a relationship with me. She knew me and allowed me to know her. As a result, I saw her faith in Jesus in real-time and learned how to live that faith myself. It would be easy to argue that my relationship with my grandmother is an exception because of our familial connection. Allow me to share another example with you.

What we invest in others through mentorship is often returned to us in kind and overflows into the lives we live every single day.

There is a young lady who attends our church every Sunday. She comes in and sits on the third row and listens as the worship teams run sound check. She constantly looks to the door to her left. Eventually, an older gentleman with his wife enter the sanctuary and make their way to their seats approximately eight rows back on the far right of the sanctuary. When this young lady sees this man, she immediately and excitedly jumps up and runs to him. She gives him a hug, and he gives her a piece of candy. This relationship formed as a result of this older gentleman taking an interest in this young lady’s life when he was the janitor at her elementary school. He has made an impact on her life by knowing her and inviting her to see him in his.

This kind gentleman was absent from church for several weeks a while back. The young lady was concerned and asked why he was gone. She learned that his wife had been ill. So, she sat down and wrote the man a very sweet letter letting him know he was missed and appreciated. She modeled back to him the very love of Christ that he had demonstrated to her. What we invest in others through mentorship is often returned to us in kind and overflows into the lives we live every single day.

1. Kara Powell, Brad Griffin, & Cheryl Crawford. Sticky Faith: Practical Ideas to Nurture Long-Term Faith in Teenagers. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011, P. 89.
2. Andrew Root. Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2007, P. 72.
3. Kenda Creasy Dean. Almost Christian: What the Faith of Teenagers is Telling the American Church. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010, P. 152.