Last year I had the joy of publishing Growing People Relationally, a book that tried to put together my main convictions about spiritual mentoring and discipleship after 40 years of ministry. This July, 22, I will be teaching a course by the same name for Trinity Theological College’s Equip programme. I am hoping many will sign up for this course — two hours an evening for seven evenings. I am receiving many invitations to speak on this topic and I don’t have the time and the energy to accept all of them. I am hoping that if folks take this course, then I can follow up and discuss implementation rather than go over the content again, something they can get from the book and from this course. (Have you signed up?)
After practicing, teaching, and training mentoring for 40 years, I noticed that many mentors were not comfortable with the term “mentor”. It seemed to imply a level of expertise that they didn’t feel they had. If you read Growing People Relationally you will know that I don’t see mentors primarily as experts, though they may very well be. I see the mentor’s role as more that of a loving guide than an expert teacher. Still, the term “mentor” was a stumbling block for many who would otherwise have made great mentors. And even if they said yes to the ministry of mentoring, they would still enter into the practice with reluctance and varying degrees of imposter syndrome. These same folks would have much less problem with the term “friend”. Therefore, I am now thinking of developing something that I tentatively call “friendship-mentoring”. It is still mentoring but in the context of a friendship. This is an approach that is not meant to replace a more programmatic, hierarchical approach to mentoring, or the practices of coaching and spiritual direction.
What would make friendship-mentoring different? Here are some thoughts that come to mind:
- Mutuality replaces hierarchy — the mentor is also being formed, not just forming others. This does not mean that a mentor does not have more knowledge and experience. It is the recognition that both mentor and mentee have yet to arrive, something that only happens when we see Jesus face to face. In the meantime, mentor and mentee help each other on their shared journey to Christlikeness.
- The relationship has room for silence, doubt, and slow change, not just goal-tracking. Instead of a strict pursuit of prescribed growth goals, the mentoring journey is not forced, and there is the understanding that there may be times when mentor and mentee may not have the answers but they do have a commitment to journeying together whether the answers are forthcoming or not. That’s what friends do.
- Trust and shared vulnerability matter more than expertise or programme adherence. We may still need the framework that programmes provide but the heart of the mentoring journey is the relationship between mentor and mentee. It will take time to build and the mentor may have to lead the way, but there is an intentional desire to root the mentoring in trust and shared vulnerability.
- It resists reducing people to “projects” that have to be completed. A friend is not a project. He/she is a person we care for and who cares for us. While there is an understanding that they are on a journey to a shared destination — Christlikeness — they are pilgrims on a journey, friends who help each other along the way. While churches and organisations will have mentoring programmes, it is understood that the friendship-mentoring journey begins with the forging of a friendship.
If you have read Growing People Relationally, you will know that explicitly or implicitly I already adhere to the principles of friendship-mentoring I mention above. I like to believe that the saints I have had the privilege to walk with and am walking with will testify that friendship-mentoring has been my approach to mentoring all along. In the days ahead I plan to flesh out more of what is involved in friendship-mentoring and maybe come up with a book and an approach to teaching and training friendship-mentoring. And of course we must model this. Indeed, Bernice and I have been committed to practicing this for some time now and continue to do so.
I think that spreading this message will not be easy. There is still a strong understanding of mentoring as hierarchical, with an expert guiding the development of someone less experienced. The hierarchical nature of much of Asian culture will also be one possible hindrance to the adoption of friendship-mentoring. Still, I note that Jesus loved His disciples as friends (John 15:12–15) and wanted them to love each other as He had loved them — as friends (John 15:12). And in I Thessalonians 5:11, Paul calls all believers, not just leaders, to encourage each other and build each other up. In a sense, friendship-mentoring is also hierarchical, with mentor and mentee submitting to the Mentor with a capital M — Jesus Himself.