Mentoring is one of the greatest things you can do in your life, but you should be clear on the length of the commitment. Jesus mentored his disciples actively for about 3 years. How should you think about it? Consider this:
Mentoring is a lot like parenting
When kids are young, parents are very involved in their lives. But as they grow older, the parents are less active in their lives. That’s how mentoring works, too. At some point the mentor releases the student to become a mentor – and the relationship changing into more of a coaching thing.
There are a few other things to consider:
Your student might bail
Mentoring isn’t always a smooth road. Your student might bail on you, and you’ll just have to deal with it. You can only help someone pursue God; you can’t make them.
Your student might bail and then come back
Don’t forget that the pursuit of God is a journey. If your student bails, he or she might come back down the road. That’s great! Don’t give up on people when they bail on you.
Your student might never want to leave
Sometimes mentoring goes so well that the student wants to stick around forever. No good. Don’t raise a bunch of consumers. Kick that bird out of the nest and challenge them to get in the game and go full circle by mentoring someone else.
- Watch the video together or invite someone to summarize the topic.
- What is your initial reaction to this video? Do you disagree with any of it? What jumped out at you?
- Were you mentored? If so, for how long?
- When do you think is the ideal time for a child to leave the home? When do you think is an ideal time for a student to be released from active, weekly mentoring?
- How would you handle it if a student bailed on your mentoring in their life? How hard would you push to keep them engaged? Explain.
- What would you do if a student just wanted to keep taking from you over time – and was unwilling to go out and make disciples?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
