Saturday 21 April 2007

Mentors

There have been a number of people in my life I would call a mentor. I owe them a great deal of gratitude. All of them have been Christians and many of them christian leaders. Even today, I will contact one of these good people when something strikes me as needing another opinion.

Let me encourage you to find such people in your life. The relationship need not be formal or even scheduled. It can resemble a friendship. The accountability and counsel is invaluable, and if the right person is chosen, will glorify God in you.

Isaiah 54:13 (MSG)
13 All your children will have God for their teacher— what a mentor for your children!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Commish! Thank you and your great wife for being wonderful mentors! I think I need to use a saying that you have said to me on a number times "you are a wonderful tonic, refreshing!" Thank you for being people of God, ready, willing to share of yourselves.
Missing you, but know that God is using you in a wondeful way "down under", I can see you being a blessings and being blessed!
Tim S.

Lieutenant Jo said...

I have quite a few people I look up to and who genuinely care about helping me along in the journey... but no one I catch up with regularly enough to be a 'mentor' (maybe my definition has been a little skewed by official mentoring programs). I also wonder if there are any older, experienced people that are interested in catching up with us younger guys... people who really want to catch up with us, rather than us feeling like we're 'bugging them'.
I struggle with this a little bit, wanting a mentor who I genuinely connect with, but dreading the artificiality of the pursued 'mentoring relationship' I've been programmed with!

The challenge here is to actively invite/look for 'mentorees'...
as well as mentors...
this is a challenge for me too.

Jim Knaggs said...

T - The mentor is dependent upon thestudent's authentic interest.

Jo - Your point is well taken and one of the reasons I have resisted these relationships...hence the informal mentors work for me.