If a resume is necessary to be involved in the mentoring ministry, the most essential guideline should be that perfect people need not apply. Mentors are not superheroes or champions. They are those who stand alongside one another with unending curiosity, inexplicable faith, and patience. You might be considering a mentoring relationship yourself and wonder if special qualities, such as a highly successful spiritual life, are required.
What kind of person is best for this ministry? The more time we spend on scripture, the more we realize that there aren’t really heroes of faith or perfect people.
- They are only ordinary people willing to come alongside others to listen together for God’s grace and goodness.
- They are flawed and finite; perfect people need not apply. Those aren’t excuses for anyone. They are honest words about every mentor, every mentee, and everyone you know. Abraham lied freely, Jacob was a serial deceiver, David was an adulterer and murderer, Saul/Paul was a violent man who sought to destroy Christians, and Peter betrayed Jesus in his greatest hour of need, even after confessing him as Lord. The list is as long as the story of every so-called “hero” of the faith.
We all have failed and tried to do better, and maybe we have failed again. We live in repentance and redemption. And we know grace because we have experienced it firsthand. Brennan Manning called us all ragamuffins, a ragged bunch of ordinary people bound together by a common faith on a shared journey. Paul’s insight is breathtaking in Romans 2:4: “Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Shocking, yes? Kindness is God’s means of grace!
The culture of Christian faith for many in North America is the gated community of incomplete truth. We show each other our only very best culturally approved self, but not our fears, anger, deception, lust, anxiety, jealousy, or pain.
Mentors are not perfect people.
My mentors were those who understood their own failed, flawed, and finite humanity. Why would I seek such a person?
- We are all that person.
- We need someone who understands their shadow self to be able to help others understand theirs.
“…we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” [i] Effective mentors are honest about their own brokenness and the holes within. They don’t impose those on others but practice the art of mentoring with a whole canvas and not only landscapes of sunrise and beauty. And they are never surprised by the brokenness of their mentees. They do not sit in judgment. They are those who offer a pathway to redemption.
So, I say to you, whether thinking about being a mentor, already a mentor, or thinking about finding one, don’t wait to find a mentor who is perfect. My best have been those who still “smell the failure and taste the sweetness of forgiveness” because it is fresh every morning. Like Paul, there are the best teachers of redemption.
Practice: Do these words free you in any way as you consider whom to ask to be a mentor to you or as you consider saying yes to another who has sought you as a possible mentor?
[i] NT Wright, Reflecting the Glory, p. 32
3 Comments
Wise words from a wise man. Thanks for doing these posts, Keith!
These invitations of thought are very affirming. Sometimes the word “mentor” can impose a false belief that somehow that person needs to know more or measure higher in the human standards bank. The key words in this for me are “listener,” shared “brokenness “ and this unfolding redemptive story through “grace.” David Brookes uses a wonderful phrase that stuck with me from his book, “How to Know a Person.” He invited the mentor/ person walking alongside to “mine the transcendent spark,” in the other. Be a “spark spy,” and help people see the Lords design within their story. VP3 invited me into this intentional mentoring way of life. I never thought about how critical this is or was before. I was so keen I asked my church to make a list of people to help me explore spiritual mentorship further. It was discouraging at first because my first 3 requests turned me down. Ha ha! They didn’t feel they would be a fit for what I was hoping for. But, I learned also, the importance of “the right fit,” or season. Some people have come and gone from that roll in my life, but they have left their shaping influence because they had the qualities and the connection God wanted for me. One of the key shaping characteristics for me now is to look at the people God puts on my path as “teachers,”. All of them! What can I learn? What am I invited to notice? There are so many contemplative invitations within the theme of “ mentorship.” Thank you for this inspiring post.
“…the gated community of incomplete truth.”
I’m going to need a minute…
stirring words