I remember when I heard Eugene Peterson tell the story of Reuben Lance, a surprising candidate for mentoring. Eugene decided he was headed to seminary. I think the elders in the small-town Montana church were a bit worried about what might happen to the hometown boy off at Biblical Seminary in NYC. “We better have someone get him ready,” they said. “Who could do it?”  

 

And this is the part of the story I love most. They asked a local handyman, Reuben Lance, to become Eugene’s mentor. The two met every week for the summer in a Sunday School classroom. 

 

They talked about life and God. Eugene said, “We got on very well. Neither of us had a name for what we were doing, but I learned a lot, and Reuben never took over. He was my first and one of the best spiritual directors I’ve ever had.” 

Have any of you had an experience of finding a surprising candidate for mentoring?

Mine, I guess, was Cliff Broderick, the church softball team coach. He was my father’s age, an insurance man, and he sat me down before I went off to college with one message: “Don’t blow it; don’t take it for granted; you get one good shot at college and remember what we taught you here at First Baptist Church.”  

 

Although he was not a pastor or trained in spiritual mentoring, he knew me, and I trusted him. He also didn’t hold back on his deep longings for my life.

This is my sanctuary, this holy ground.

Author Gordon MacDonald commuted by bus often. One day, the bus driver said to him, “I am envious of you. You get to write, speak, and teach people, and all I do is take people from point A to point B.”  MacDonald said, “Let’s try an experiment then. Every morning, before anyone gets on the bus, stand up and say to God and yourself, ‘This is my sanctuary, and this is my ministry.’”  

 

Some months later, they met again on the bus. MacDonald asks, “How has the experiment gone?” The bus driver said, “You know it has changed my life because it allowed me to become attentive to the words I hear every Sunday. Now I know the sermons on ministry include me, too; I feel included in the preaching each week. This is my sanctuary; this is holy ground. And every day, God gives me opportunities I never thought about before.”

 

I offer those stories as grounding for our conversation. We’re talking about a ministry available to almost anyone in the church. We’re talking about the sanctuary of each of our lives: clergy, handyman, carpenter, insurance salesman, bus driver. 

I pray that we can be part of the movement to return our communities to a vibrant listening of the living God through this anointed ministry of spiritual mentoring.

Practice: What is your sanctuary, your altar in the world?

As you continue to think about the ministry of spiritual mentoring, this PDF may help you: What Spiritual Mentoring Is and Isn’t 

2 Comments

  1. When I decided to quit farming and go to seminary, there was a wise hog farmer who suspected that I was getting a bit full of myself because I was going to go away to seminary. He kindly and gently said to me one day, “Gregg, degrees and titles are kind of like a pig’s tail. People can see ’em. Everybody knows they are there. But they don’t add any weight to the pig.” I’ve never forgotten that and this wisdom continues to provide a helpful guardrail for me in life. This was a powerful mentoring moment for me.

  2. I love these sorts of surprises! Since 2006 I have been working with vulnerable women recovering from exploitation, trafficking, abuse, addiction and various mental health challenges.

    Firstly, I never imagined myself working with women , I always thought my life would involve coaching athletes or teaching children. Back in 2006 my community group joined the Mayor with a city initiative called Mission’s Now. This involved raising funds with all of the local Christ- centred churches to renovate our low barrier women’s shelter. I was visiting the shelter to sort out some details when I was invited to sit among the women in the shelter. This was a very uncomfortable scene for me at the time because I experienced some harmful interactions with women in addiction back in my home town; I carried a fear and a bias around women who embarked on such risky behaviours. I soon realized that Gods plan wasn’t a renovation on the building, but rather one on my heart. I have been facilitating the essentials life skills program for these women since and each one of them has walked alongside in recovery , taking a deeper look at our lives and how God has weaved His hope, love and restorative power through all of us. One woman, who we had to kick out for a season as she was still actively involved in some risky behavior, ended up to be the biggest surprise for me. She came back to us with conviction , she asked me to do The Journey and spend time together. She has since given her life to Jesus and has restored her health, got her son back and is a leader in her local church She and I continue in the mentoring relationship to this day. She is an invitation to Jesus in every way for me.

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