Description

In this final episode in this series, Dr. Phil leads the listener to consider doing a relational inventory to determine if they have a healthy balance of relationships in their lives. Are you a mentor to others? Do you have various mentors in your own life? The series wraps up with the New Testament narrative of Barnabas in the book of Acts, someone who opened doors for others. It is unlikely he would have done this without understanding Jesus’ teaching of servant leadership. He investing in others like Paul and John Mark, and likely many others not specifically mentioned in the Scriptures. Without his selfless efforts we likely would not have had much of the New Testament including one quarter of the Gospels. Phil’s final challenge is for all of us to be like Barnabas. Being willing to be the unsung heroes in the background, investing in others without caring who gets the credit. This is the real influence and authority of leadership. If we do this we will be amazed at what God will do through our lives.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 16 Intro: Be the Unsung Hero

You likely may never have done a relational inventory, but if we are going to finish our race well, our relationships are arguably our most valuable asset. In this last episode I am going to challenge you to consider your current relationships to see if there are obvious gaps. Do you have peer mentors? How about upward mentors? Are you functioning as a mentor to someone else? As we wrap up, my hope is that you will take practical steps in your life and ministry to be a Barnabas in your generation.

Your Relational Network

As we grow and progress throughout the stages of our life and ministry, to be effective leaders at every stage we need many types of relationships. Having a variety of relationships that form a balanced relational network is one of the most strategic indicators of a leader who will finish well. This network includes spouses, family members, senior leaders, ministry team members, mentors, mentorees, as well as various levels of peer relationships.

I’d like to provide you with a few steps to manage your relational network. I understand we are usually not this intentional in evaluating our relationships, but I would suggest that the relationships in our lives are arguable our most valued resource. We manage our money, our time, our stuff, so why not be intentional in managing our relationships? How would this help us finish well? The reality is that in order to achieve our full potential, while remaining healthy spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically, we must have a varied network of relationships.

The first step in this process is to identify what stage of life we are in and make an assessment of our own developmental needs. As with doing a Timeline, this requires introspection and self-awareness. Next we need to make a list of all our relationships and identify if we have a variety of mentors and determine where we are functioning as a mentor. Then we need to identify the opportunities that exist for new relationships or ways to enrich current relationships.  If there seem to be few options, an individual needs to look beyond one’s own church or group or organization and prayerfully ask the Lord to lead them to those relationships that can produce mutual benefit. As we increase our own interpersonal skills we will be able to better relate to others. As we go through this exercise, do we notice gaps in our existing relational network? Do we have those who we gain strength and are investing in us. Are there those we are mentoring? Do I have peer relationships who I am on the journey with?

A Tale of Three Leaders

As we wrap up our series on mentoring, I would like to spend a few moments with likely one of my favorite characters from the New Testament. He did not get much press in the early church, but without him we would not have had most of the New Testament, or a quarter of the Gospels, not to mention far fewer church plants. You may be thinking that I am referring to the famous Apostle Paul. Good guess but I am thinking of someone else.

In Acts 4 we see an early church firing on all cylinders. People are coming to Jesus, they are living in community, exciting things are happening. Almost as an afterthought my favorite character is introduced, he was a Levite from Cypress. Need another hint? Okay his original name was Joseph? Hmm. How about this, his nickname was “son of encouragement.” Of course, I am speaking of none other than the illusive Barnabas.

After Acts 4 we don’t hear from Barnabas for a while. Before we hear from him again, the author introduces us to who was to become the main character in the early church. This guy was busy imprisoning and killing the followers of the new sect called The Way. He felt that it was his duty to stamp it out. He had actually just witnessed its first martyr. These were also heady days for this Pharisee of Pharisees, this expert in the law, this all around smug guy. Of course that was all before that fateful ride to Damascus. You know the story I am sure. In Acts 9 a certain Saul is on his way to persecute  those who were  part of this Christian sect.

Well we know what happens next. There was a bright light, an unceremonious fall off a horse, followed by darkness and a visit from a local prophet. The day was not really going the way he expected, to say the least. Within days,  Saul has a dramatic conversion, sees the light and goes to the synagogue proclaiming that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Well as you can imagine that did not go over very well with his employers. Meanwhile, those he had only days earlier been persecuting were scared spitless of him. For good reason, they probably all had friends and relatives still in jail because of him. So he tries to join the disciples in Jerusalem, which was ground zero of this new sect, but they were all too fearful of him and likely questioned his intentions.

It is at this point that Barnabas enters the narrative again. I actually think this is one of the most consequential verses of the Acts narrative. In Acts 9:27, Luke writes, “But Barnabas.”  We know that Barnabas was recognized and had credibility in the early community of believers. Remember he was known as the son of encouragement. Now he lays all his capital on the line. He obviously sees something in this gifted, yet flawed, upstart and risks his reputation. He vouches for Saul and personally introduces him to all his buddies, the higher ups in Jerusalem. He was taking a substantial risk on this new guy. What a model for us.

At this point Luke continues to follow the exploits of Peter. It is not until Chapter 11 that we see Barnabas again. Now he is in the church in the city of Antioch. He needs some help and he remembers this guy Saul that he vouched for and invites him to join him. They teach there for a year and then in Chapter 13 they are sent by this church to do foreign missions work. Now Barnabas, being the networker that he was, thinks it would be a good idea to take his young cousin, John Mark with them. At first, things were are going well, but at some point between Paaphos and Perga things went sideways. Not sure if Saul made Mark carry his bag or if he was expecting to do more of the preaching, but for whatever reason, he deserts the team and heads back to the familiarity of Jerusalem. In this chapter there is another subtle change that is worth noting. Up to this point the team is known as the Barnabas and Saul ministry team. But after giving his first recoded sermon, he is known as Paul and from verse 46 onward Luke  referred to the duo as the Paul and Barnabas missions team, not the original Barnabas and Paul team.

I am sure Barnabas could have been thinking, Who does this guy think he is? Why am I now having to play second fiddle to him? After all, where would he be if I hadn’t stuck my neck out and introduced him to my buddies in Jerusalem?  Now that may have been what I would have thought, but it seems Barnabas got the memo of what kingdom leadership was all about, serving others, not self. He never wrote a nasty email to all the Jerusalem leaders saying, “Ya, I made a mistake with Paul, look he is now taking over!”  In 15:36 they embark on their second missions trip and true to form, Barnabas has a great idea. “Hey let’s give young John Mark another chance.” Well as you know that did not go over very well with Paul. Of course with all his talent and ambition he had a lot of lost time to make up for, he had places to be, people to teach, Epistles to write. Actually there was such a disagreement between them that they went their separate ways – Barnabas with John Mark and Paul with Silas. Again, though, there was no name calling, questioning motives, nasty messages on the social media of the day. So there is a side lesson there for sure.

Full Circle: Barnabas, Paul, Mark

I don’t think it stretches the meaning of the text to see that they did not share the same values when it came to developing others. Barnabas was a mentor at heart. He had opened doors for Paul when he was still Saul no one would give him the time of day. Now he was doing the same with John Mark. Who knows how many other leaders in the early church he mentored that we do not even know about. Now to Paul’s credit, much like Peter eventually coming around, he eventually did get his priorities and values sorted out. Throughout his Epistles we see Paul with team members like Timothy, Titus, Onesimus, Epaphroditus, and the list goes on. He realized that ministry was a team sport and you have to build your team.

At the end of his life, when Paul is in prison, there is a passing reference (2 Tim 4:11) that I think speaks volumes. Apparently, many had deserted him by this point and only Luke was still with him. So he asks Timothy to bring Mark to him, “for he is helpful for me in my ministry.” Interesting. Now how do you suppose Mark became helpful for the mighty Paul in his ministry. My guess is had something to do with a guy called Barnabas… a guy who faded from the limelight of Acts, but continued to develop young leaders like Mark. He opened up doors for him, training him, mentoring him. The same thing he did for Paul all those years early. A guy willing to work in the background, but whose life had great influence. How much of the New Testament would we have without Barnabas opening doors for a mistrusted Paul? How many church would not have been planted without the leaders he mentored?

Be a Barnabas!

Are we willing to be a Barnabas? Yes it requires a heart and mind transformation to view leadership differently than others in our culture and our church. We have to be willing to see others go beyond us. We have to risk our own ministry and reputation to open doors for the next generation. But if we are not concerned about who gets the credit, we may be amazed one day what God will be able to do through our lives. Remember God’s plan in our lives encompasses more than just our generation, he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Ministry and life is a marathon, let’s play a good long game, not focus so much on our short game. Developing others through mentoring will not only provide you with a fulfilling, meaningful life but will ensure you will leave a legacy in this life and the life to come.

We began our series with the question, Why is mentoring not as common as it could or should be? Why is it not the go to means by which to develop the next generation of leaders? We discovered that we needed to define our terms and clarify the Kingdom values as taught by Jesus. We also discovered that it is virtually impossible to mentor someone else and see them develop even beyond us, without the heart of a servant. A final discovery has been that mentoring is really difficult when our church and organizational cultures are based on values that hinder such relationships. Even if there is a lack of mentors, I hope you have been encouraged with the possibility of peer mentoring. I hope this series will help you develop your teams and be even more effective for the Kingdom.

Thanks again for joining me. You may have noticed this topic is a bit of a life passion of mine and has informed most of my ministry and leadership activities. If you missed any episodes, I would encourage you to check them out as each episode builds on previous ones. Any feedback you have is appreciated. I look forward to having you join me in one of my other Leadershipmatters Podcasts. God bless.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What did you discover through the Relational Network exercise? Are there gaps you need to prayerfully consider filling?

What did you learn from the story of Barnabas? How could you be a Barnabas within your spheres of influence?

In what ways can you create a lifestyle of mentoring in your ministry and leadership?

Description

Continuing from the previous episode, Phil continues his teaching on the four phases of mentoring relationships and how an understanding of this dynamic leads to healthy peer mentoring. The key to the four phases of a mentoring relationship is understanding that a separation is necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. The separation phase is a time to redefine the relationship. This redefinition stage leads to several levels of peer mentors, from mere contact, to close, to confidants. He describes each of these and what some of the factors are that determine what level of peer mentoring can be expected after a more intensive mentoring relationship. Using examples from his own life and ministry he illustrates how these close intimate mentoring relationships need to transition to a new type of peer relationship as the mentoree grows and develops.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 15 Intro: Redefining the Relationship

In our last episode we discovered that upward mentoring relationships have a shelf life, so we need to be prepared to transition the relationship into more of  a peer mentoring one. This will require an intentional separation and redefinition of the relationship. Failing to do so will be unhealthy for both the mentor and the mentoree. In this episode in the series, we will conclude our discussion on peer mentoring by asking, “What determines what level of peer relationship will develop?” and “What are the options possible for a peer mentoring relationship?”

 Breaking Up is Good to Do

Even if one has been fortunate enough to have an upward mentoring relationship, it will eventually need to transition into a peer mentoring one. The nature and purpose of the mentoring relationship, as well as how complementary both parties felt the relationship was, are strong indicators as to the success of the transition to a peer relationship.  The type of peer mentoring relationship that will develop is dependent upon many variables. Peer mentoring provides many of the same benefits as other mentoring relationships, but there are also certain additional benefits. One advantage is that each party can be both the mentor and the mentoree at the same time. It is also the case that peer mentors are usually more available in each stage of life and ministry.

“Throw me the Keys!”

The Four Phases of a mentoring relationship that we looked at highlight the importance of preparing to redefine the relationship. Perhaps I can illustrate it this way. I don’t know if you have ever taught someone to drive a car, but if not I am sure you can relate from having become a driver yourself. I remember first teaching our daughter to drive while still living in Berlin.

Like many, we first began by driving around parking lots. She eventually progressed to the road and was able to go pass her driving test. What happens the first weekend after she gets her license? Let’s assume she comes to me and says, “Hey Dad I want to go out this Friday, can I have the keys to the car.” Well, you see I am still thinking old phase and so I say, “Sorry I am busy, I won’t be able to go.” She then states the obvious. “I don’t want you to go, Dad, I want to go with my friends. All I need is your car!”

Well my hands might get clammy, my blood may run cold as I realize a serious flaw in my plan in assisting her to get her licence. I hadn’t connected the dots that this meant my “little” girl was going to be out there on the dangerous roads in a metal weapon on four wheels all by herself. But wasn’t that the very reason for her to have a licence in the first place? So that she can drive a vehicle independently on her own?  So now all I need to do is “Throw her the keys.” Now, at that point, I can fumble around in the my pocket and mumble something about, Sorry, I don’t know where the keys are, you’ll have to stay here were it is nice and safe.” Well if you’ve had kids, you know how good that will go over!

At some point in the mentoring relationship, our mentoree is going to ask the equivalent of “Throw me the keys.” We will then have a choice to make. If it was about control we will hang on to them and not allow the natural separation and redefinition phase of the relationship take place. Is not the whole point of the mentoring relationship to equip them in order to release them? If we understand this separation phase as healthy, then we will not fight it or fight them. We will take the initiative to redefine the relationship, just like we do with adult children. This is the flaw of the spiritual fathering model that seeks to hang on and keep someone under our control. The reality is that they will eventually get someone to throw them the keys. If we don’t, someone else will and we will no longer have any influence in their lives. At that point we’ll wish we had given them our keys. We can be part of the transition or force them to tear away from us. Those are the only really two options.

Back to my driving analogy.  Let’s assume my daughter went on to become a famous driver on the Formula 1 circuit, obviously becoming a very proficient, famous driver. So I invite some buddies over on a Saturday night to watch her on TV. When she wins the race that takes the trophy, what do you think will go through my mind? Will I be thinking, “Who does she think she is, driving faster than me? And by the way, when she took the trophy, she did not even mention my name, and I taught her how to drive!” No, of course not! I am more likely going to brag to my buddies, “Yup, that’s my girl, taught her everything she knows!” Okay the last part may not be totally true, but I am going to be proud of her and take as much credit as I can!

Isn’t that what we should do with those that we mentor? We should be proud when they surpass us, when they go beyond what we were able to do. The last thing we should be doing is trying to hold them back. Yet, you and I know that this unfortunately happens all the time with threatened, insecure leaders. Part of this is due to wrong leadership values and a wrong understanding of the mentoring relationship.

Peer Mentoring Continuum

Not only is life a marathon, but it would seem this series is also become a marathon! Thanks for coming along for the ride. If your eyes are glazing over keeping track of the material, why not download the free workshop notes by following the link in the description box or on the website as was just mentioned. It is all organized and easy to follow and best of all its free. You might also want to share this info with someone else.

As we saw last time through the story of King Saul, , even if we can’t find a mentor, we can take a page from David’s playbook. We can develop our own team that can potentially walk the rest of the journey of life and ministry with us. Referring back to our diagram, in the redefinition phase of a mentoring relationship, the relationship can transition to three different types of peer relationships.  After a healthy separation both of us need to discover what new form the relationship will take. Let’s look at three levels or types of peer mentors: Contact, Close or Confidant. These range from the lowest level of commitment to the highest level.

The Contact Peer demands little time and provides information regarding organization and ministry/career. There is typically limited personal experience shared and generally provides perspective related to ministry or work. Since there is limited trust there is minimal personal feedback. On the other hand, the Close Peer begins to share direct and honest feedback and there is more self-disclosure. There is more trust and self-expression. Since there are moderate levels of trust, there are widening boundaries of sharing. However, there is still limited exploration of family and work issues. In a lifetime most people usually only two to four such relationships.

Now the Confidant Peer is equivalent to a best friend where there is a strong sense of bonding with a wide range of support for family and ministry/work issues. One is most vulnerable in this relationship and free to share dilemmas, both personal and professional. We are the most open to share who we really are at this level, as it has the greatest self-disclosure and self-expression. These relationships are rare and we usually only have one or two of such relationship in our lifetime. While these type of relationships are resilient, they take great effort and years to develop. It’s important to note though that relationships that begin as Contact peers can develop into Close or Confidant relationships over time.

But what determines the movement along the continuum from Contact to Confidant? What are some of the factors at play in this happening? Do we have control in this process? Well, yes and no. As with other mentoring relationships, the needs of the individual affect the movement of the peer relationship from Contact to Confidant. Stages of life is also a factor. During the earlier stages of life and ministry the needs are different than for someone in the later stages of life and ministry.

Besides ministry/career needs, the level of intimacy of the other relationships in one’s life also determines how close the peer relationship will become, as does the level of interpersonal skills impact how quickly the relationship will develop along the continuum. Another factor which we have also previously discussed is the culture of the group of which we are a part. Are we part of a structure, or wineskin, that encourages or discourages the development of these types of relationships?

If throughout the relationship there has been a strong bond that has been mutually beneficial, then there is a high likelihood that the peer relationship will be in the range of close or confidant on the continuum. If there has been less of a connection and little chemistry, then it is most likely that the relationship will transition into merely that of an acquaintance with only occasional future interaction, what I am calling a contact peer.

For example, I have mentored many young men over the years. I have lost contact with some of them, while others like Karl have become part of our team and I consider them close friends and colleagues. As a peer mentor, I learn from him and others on the team. To be honest, I am getting the better end of the deal, as I gain more from them that I give to them. These relationships, many in our MCNetwork,  have been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Peers and Life Stages

Throughout the various stages of our life, peer relationships can meet different needs and offer varied functions. Let me just briefly go over these. You can refer to the chart on the screen.

Our 20’s are generally considered the Establishment Stage of our life. During this season, the Contact Peer provides info as to how to learn the ropes of navigating life. A Close Peer typically focuses on the need to get ahead and develop a professional identity. They are peers, but we are still in some way “looking up” to them. The Confidant Peer is more rare. They can help us to develop a sense of competence so there is still a certain amount of looking up to a peer for guidance.

Now during the Advancement Stage in our late 20’s & 30’s, the Contact Peer provides help in advancing in ministry opportunity and increased visibility. The Close Peer assists with opportunities and feedback , while the Confidant helps with dealing with family and work dilemmas. The level of commitment is such that they can provide help in progressing in one’s life potential.

During the Middle Stage of life, in our 40’s and 50’s, the Contact Peer is not as important as most of the peer relationships are younger at this point. Those in this stage generally are reworking old issues and learning new ways to approach life and ministry; beginning to depend on others to accomplish the tasks and ministries. Close Peers during this stage can provide valuable feedback in how to mentor others as well as teach how to be coaches. Confidant Peer have a greater trust and so can help at a personhood level, managing fears of obsolescence and the reassessment and redirection that may need to occur.

Yes, we still need peer mentors during  the Late Life Stage, which is typically in our 60’s and beyond. Contact Peers can help by providing information to help us stay connected with the church/organization so that we remain effective.  A Close Peer assists the person in this stage of life transition to a consultative role and pass on responsibilities to colleagues. Confidants have a unique role to play by providing emotional support and help in the preparation for retirement. Confidant peer relationships are rare, but essential during this stage.

Understanding these dynamics can help us remain healthy and productive throughout our entire life. Of course there are other factors, but our relationships are an extremely important factor in a successful, fulfilling life. Since many will not be able to find an upward mentoring relationship, the only option may  be to develop peer relationships that fulfill these needs in our lives.

In our last episode I will wrap up this series and provide a few more thoughts on developing your relational network. This is something you likely may never have thought of, but doing a relational inventory could change the trajectory of your relationships as you run your race. I’ve enjoyed our times together sharing these principles and some of my stories. Hope you’ll join me for the wrap up next time.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What has been your experience in releasing or not releasing those you have been mentoring?

In what ways will the principle of separation and redefining help you in your mentoring relationships?

What kind of peer mentoring relationship do you have? What steps could you take to foster new ones?

Description

What do you do if you cannot find an upward mentor or if the previous generation is throwing spears at you? In previous episodes, Phil observed that existing leaders often throw spears at the next generation rather than empowering and releasing them. Using the biblical story of King Saul and David, Phil provides some insights for young leaders who may be in this situation. How does one ensure that they have a heart like David’s instead of becoming like King Saul, a threatened, insecure leader? From this Old Testament narrative, we discover that David developed his own team before he was in the palace. Phil encourages young leaders today to take a page from David’s handbook and be intentional to invest in others along the journey. This is the practice of peer mentoring, which is then continued in the next episode. The episode concludes by outlining the important subject of the four phases of mentoring relationships.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 14 Intro: When There are No Mentors

What do we do if we are in an organization that does not encourage mentoring? Worse yet, what if we are having spears thrown at us by the very leaders who should be mentoring us? There was a young man exactly in that situation many years ago during the period when the Israelites wanted a king like the other nations. Well, they got their  king, but discovered that kings like him don’t have their best interests at heart and don’t leave a legacy – they make terrible mentors. But how can we make sure that we do not become like King Saul?

A Viable Option

Often emerging generations find themselves looking for someone to mentor them, but discover that the previous generation is too busy or too threatened.  What is the answer for an emerging generation that wants to be mentored, but cannot find those who will be willing to mentor them? The lack of those from previous generations willing, or able, to be mentors, is why peer mentoring can be a viable — and often the only — alternative.

Peer mentoring is often the only option, particularly when there is a lack of leaders willing to be mentors. Let’s revisit the story from 1 Samuel of King Saul and the young David. As we saw in Episode Four, the people wanted a king like the other nations and so even against God’s objections, they got what they thought they wanted. But we see that as Saul aged, instead of mentoring the next generation, he tried to pin him to the palace wall with a spear…. and yes if you are wondering, this is usually fatal.

As I have taught on this subject in many different cultures I have consistently had young leaders share a similar story as they would talk to me after the session. I can now pick them out of a crowd. They all had that same fearful yet hopeful look in their eyes, a hesitancy that one gets by looking over one’s shoulder, wondering where the next spear is coming from. These are classic indicators of young leaders who are dodging spears thrown by leaders they thought they could trust. They had signed up for leadership, but were now in a “palace” that was controlled by leader who had no interest in helping  them fulfill their calling.

Dodging Spears

Young David was in such a situation. Remember he had just killed the main enemy of the country, a giant of a man. And this did not go unnoticed by the songwriters of the day. They had written a catchy little number that had two verses.  Now the first verse of the song really appealed to the narcissism in King Saul. It went something like, “Saul has killed his thousands!” Has a nice ring to it, what’s not to like about that. But then – wait for it – there was a second verse. Same tune, different words: “And David has killed his tens of thousands!” Ya, that didn’t go over too well with King. Power driven leaders don’t like sharing the limelight. My guess is that the song writers never ran that by Saul first, not sure what happened to them. But we do know that Saul got predictably angry, which may explain all the yelling and spear throwing. Imagine, he was the king for 40 years and yet was threatened by an young upstart. Pretty sad. It’s unfortunate isn’t it that this still happens today, yes, even in the church.

A couple things I’ve learned that I tell young leaders from this story. First thing, never  throw the spears back. Having killed a bear, lion and a giant, do you not think David could have skewered an aged King Saul to the wall? Probably, likely. But if he would have done this, the story we know would be quite different. Instead of becoming a leader after God’s own heart, he would have become like King Saul. We reproduce who we are. There are some people who you don’t want to allow to mentor you. Who they are will rub off on us. Opening our hearts to the King Saul’s in our lives will mean being mentored in how not to be a leader. It’s a tough test for an ambitious young leader.

Not My Kingdom

David never did become a leader after the pattern of King Saul. How do we know that? Well years later when David is an older man, his own son tries to take the kingdom from him. As a young leader David resisted taking the throne by force and in his old age he was not willing to keep the throne by force. Unlike Saul, he fled the city and would not raise his hand against Absalom. As a younger leader I kind of thought this was rather weak look for David. “Come on David, stand up for what is right!” But David knew that the kingdom was not his to own or to fight for. He was merely a steward of it. At his heart he was a worshiper and knew he could go back to that. His identity did not rest in his position, track record or title as king. Imagine if we all held our positions and ministries that loosely.

Young David was willing to wait for God’s timing. He was called, but God still had some preparation to do in this life. This is the second thing I tell young leaders. You may be gifted and called, but do you have enough character to sustain your gifting at this point. It’s important to wait for God’s timing. But what did David do while he was waiting for God’s plan to unfold?  (If you can get your hands on a great little classic book by Gene Edwards, A Tale of Three Kings, it will be one of the most thought provoking books you’ll read on leadership.)

In 1 Samuel 22, we find a David running for his life from his potential mentor, the King. Not a pretty picture. But it was in the desert and the caves that God taught him many valuable lessons. It says in verse two that all those that were in distress, or in debt, or discontented gathered around him.” Great  team eh? Try that out next Sunday, “Hey we are going to start a small group of leadership training, but we only want those who are distressed, in debt of discontented to join.” Many will likely sign up. And that is exactly what David had to work with. I would suggest that as they were living, eating and running together David was mentoring them. They saw what he did when he could have killed Saul on several occasions, but did not. I am sure they even heard him pour out his heart as he sang his psalms.

Developing a Team

So years later when David later stepped into his role as king of the nation, from where did he populate his top government positions? Well I know it was not from the existing experienced politicians who had been around Saul….because their heads had already been detached from their bodies. No, it was from these same men that had been with David in the trenches. In those years of running he had developed his own team, way before there were  any palace perks to offer. It was these men who were in distress and debt that one day became known as “David’s mighty men of valor.” Unlike Saul, David’s band of brothers had been mentored with a different set of values. Peer mentoring, like this, can be a powerful tool as we develop others to form a team so that we can together fulfill God’s purposes.

So, to begin with,  I tell these shaken, often insecure young leaders to not throw the spears back. Secondly, to wait for God’s time and thirdly, while they are doing that, develop others even if they seem unlikely leaders now. One day they may be the very ones who are part of our core support network. This is the power of peer mentoring. This biblical account is a ray of hope for us if we find ourselves either alone, or having to run from a leader who is narcissistic and an egomaniac, intent of keeping us in your place. To do this we have to find those who share our values and these will likely be peers who we can develop and run the race with.

Now there are times, that we have to get out of Saul’s palace. This may not be an easy decision but it is not necessary godly to stay in an unhealthy situation. On one hand we don’t want to run from what God wants to use to make us into the leaders he wants us to be. But on the other hand, there are times to re-evaluate our situation and make a change in order to run the race with those who share our values.

Phases of a Mentoring Relationship

Next episode, I will spend a bit of time exploring the peer mentoring relationship. But before we do that, I need to spend a few moments to explain the Four Phases that all mentoring relationships go through. To try to maintain this type of mentoring relationship at an intense level forever becomes counterproductive  for it can lead to one person controlling another and this will cause frustration in the other person. Relationships like this become unhealthy. To receive the full benefit of a mentoring relationship we have to plan for a healthy separation.

Mentoring relationships provide various functions for both the mentor and the mentoree. Healthy mentoring relationships need to transition into one of four types of a peer relationship. But for this to occur, we need to understand the four stages through which all mentoring relationships progress. These are: Initiation, Cultivation, Separation, and Redefinition.

Initiation Phase

Initiation Phase is the first predictable phase of the mentoring relationship. This may last from a few weeks to several months and is the time when the relationship becomes important to both individuals. During this phase, motivation is high and expectations of what each party wants from the relationship are strongest.

Cultivation Phase

The Cultivation Phase is the second and last the  longest. It is the time in which the mentoree benefits the most from the mentoring relationship and the relationship is generally seen as positive with the fewest conflicts and uncertainty. This is when the growth occurs. This period can last from a year to several years. As the bond develops, the mentor is able to provide guidance in both ministry and personal functions as we have been looking at.

Separation Phase

Now the Separation Phase is third and often overlooked necessary phase of the relationship. As the mentoree grows and gains more confidence, there inevitably emerges a change in the dynamics of the relationship. It is a period of change which signals the ending of the relationship as it currently is. This transition can be damaging to both parties, particularly if it is not anticipated and prepared for. During the separation phase the mentoree typically assumes greater independence and autonomy, which normally will lead to a reassessment of the relationship. But if we don’t prepare for this, it can lead to misunderstanding and harm the development of the emerging leader.

Opinions vary regarding this, but it is my view that these intense mentoring relationships should have a limited duration and transition to slightly different type of relationship. If we try to maintain them at an intensive level forever, they can become destructive for they begin to no longer meet the needs of the individual. Within a Christian context, it is the failure to understand this dynamic that can perpetuates the unhealthy approach of “fathering” as a model for mentoring.

Redefinition Phase

The separation phase then leads to the fourth phase, Redefinition. Most mentoring relationships develop into peer relationships during this phase. It is at this point that the relationship can take on even more meaning and purpose. From an intensive mentoring relationship, often a friendship is formed. This leads to several options of peer mentoring that we will look at. Healthy, intensive mentoring relationships will naturally go through the above four phases. To the degree that we do not fully appreciate this, is the degree to which we will not be prepared to make the necessary transitions as the mentoring relationship begins to change.

While the duration of each of these phases will vary, the general progression through each of them is rather predictable and important to consider. As a mentoree grows and becomes more autonomous, he no longer looks to the mentor for the same kind of guidance and support he or she used to. Intensive mentoring relationships seem to have a lifespan and so the question becomes what happens after such a relationship. My experience has been that one person can usually not sustain this level of relationship with another over a lifetime. This is why we have multiple, varied mentors at any given point in our lives.

So to keep the relationship healthy, during the reevaluation phase, the choice should be made to embark on more of a peer relationship.  These peer relationships offer some of the same functions as other mentoring relationships and in most cases are more available. Peer mentorship can be a viable alternative if upward mentors are not available. As with other mentoring, though, there are many types and levels of peer mentoring. Yet they are available at every life stage. They can last decades, rather than the intensive mentoring relationship, which tends to last for only a maximum of several years.

As we saw earlier, these mentoring functions can be divided into Personhood Functions and Ministry/ career functions. This is also the case with peer mentoring. Personhood functions include emotional affirmation for each other as we share our perspectives, values and beliefs through the various stages of life. They also provide support as we listen and counsel each other through transitions and stress. Some even progress beyond work related issues and become a personal friendship.

The Ministry or Career functions of a peer mentoring relationship include sharing information with each other regarding how to navigate ministry, organizations and so on. In this context we can discuss and learn from each other’s spheres of responsibility and ministry. It provides the opportunity for feedback concerning ministry-related matters that help to clarify our own strengths and weaknesses.

In this episode I have suggested that peer mention is a viable option if someone cannot find an upward mentor. This can provide us hope if we are in organization that is not conducive to mentoring relationships.  Having introduced the phases of a mentoring relationship, in the next episode I want to provide a few more thoughts regarding peer mentoring. I hope you’ll join me.

 Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

Have you been dodging spears? What have you learned from David’s example?

Do you have peer mentors? How would you describe what you receive/give in these types of relationships?

Considering the phases of a mentoring relationship, do you struggle with the need to separate and redefine the relationship?

Description

This episode continues on the subject of organizational culture and why this is as critical factor in determining if mentoring relationships are fostered or hindered. The key principle is that it is virtually impossible to change culture of a group without changing the values and underlying assumptions. He points out that changing values is a transformational, heart issue, not just adjusting external activities. In Jesus’ analogy, the wineskin needs to be appropriate for the new wine or the new vision will be lost. In many circles, servant leadership and mentoring is like new wine. Just trying to fit this into existing inflexible organizational structure never works. Organizational culture or structure are more influential than even new ideas and vision. The episode is concluded by looking at specific characteristics of organizations that encourage mentoring types of relationships.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 13 Intro: Changing Organizational Values

We are continuing our discussion from last time on the impact of organizational culture on mentoring relationships within our churches or organizations. Without understanding the dynamics of structure and its importance we will inevitably be controlled by something we do not even recognize or understand. Unlike King Saul, we should not create an atmosphere – a culture if you will – that makes it acceptable to throw spears at the next generation. But to change the culture of an organization, you can’t begin by changing the outward activities or just what is visible, without changing the values that are underlining those actions.

Changing Culture

The culture of a church is based upon the values, beliefs, and assumptions of the leaderships and the members. It is also based upon the combined experiences of the members as they deal with life together. As new members and leaders join the church, their new beliefs, values, and assumptions affect the development of the culture within the group. This then affects mentoring relationships. Without the right kind of ministry structures and corresponding culture, succeeding generations will not have the opportunity to receive the full benefit of mentoring relationships. We need to view all of our activities through the values of a servant-leadership model as well as the various factors which affect a mentoring culture in our organizations/churches.

Changing Values

These values and assumptions must first be understood if we are going to be able to make the changes necessary to foster mentoring relationships. To just force change, as I mentioned, rarely works, because it’s a heart issue, it’s a values issue. Again, this is why we spent all that time discussing the values of servant leadership and how this impacts mentoring. Without transformation at a values level , mentoring becomes just another program and not life-giving. To force widespread change overnight usually results in church splits, chaos in the organization and wounded people lying in the ditch along the road of yet another great idea by the leadership. This happens because  leadership did not take the time to understand what the assumptions and values of the group were that caused the problems. Having not understood this, it is impossible for them to begin a healthy process that is needed to help move people in a new direction.

Let me illustrate it like with this simple diagram. Value and underlining Assumption are unseen which is why they can be frustrating, as they act upon us and we don’t know what is happening. So let’s say we belong to the “Rectangle” Group. The values and assumptions of everyone is Rectangles. We believe in Rectangles. This is reflected in our visible actions or culture. We have a culture of Rectangles based on our values. Now suppose we want or need to change from a group believing in Rectangles to a group who believes Triangles is the way of the future. What we typically do at this point is focus our energies on changing the outward actions of the group….the stuff above the line in the diagram. This usually leads to conflict and church splits. Why? Because at a deeper, even an unconscious level, people are still believing Rectangles are the way to go. They have been committed to Rectangles for years. Remember, culture eats new vision for lunch — unless we approach things differently.

How do we make a change from a Rectangle to a Triangle culture? To begin with, we need to focus on the values and assumptions of the group, not the outward culture. Once the values change, then changing the corresponding outward activities, or culture, is not that difficult. But this takes time and intentionality. If a group is based on hierarchal, power driven leadership, even if nice biblical terms are used, and we try to force these relationship, mentoring relationships like we have been talking about will almost be impossible. People don’t share those values, they see ministry as competitive, or a zero sum game, or a means to climb the ladder of success. The leadership values have to first change. Only then will mentoring be possible.

A Transformation Process

Trying to change the way we do things without changing values only causes frustration. This is why inserting mentoring in a rigid top down organizational structure never works. So changing the culture of a church requires unlearning certain values and assumptions and relearning new ones – it is a transformation process. Just an Christ does this work in the life of an individual through the sanctification process, so leaders are called upon to facilitate such transformational change in the churches and organizations which God has called them to serve.

For example, when a person joins the church or organization they hear what people say, they observe how people interrelate with one another, and they intuitively “feel” certain feelings. These are the visible aspects of the group and reflect how it views the mandate of the church. They are the most obvious aspects of the culture of the church. However, these observable actions are not the foundation of the culture, but merely what is visible above the surface, as we saw in the diagram. What is not so obvious are the values and assumption upon which these activities are based.

Through repetition, often over decades, the assumptions  and values of the group become the norms and beliefs that guide the church. Assumptions are at an even deeper level. Underlying assumptions are values that have been so taken for granted that there is little variation within the group regarding these. The “way we do things around here” is based upon these unspoken assumptions. They are not open for debate; they have become the non-negotiables of the group.

Essential Cultural Characteristics

If a culture has developed that hinders mentoring relationships, then as leaders we need to work on first changing the values and assumptions. Leaders who are not even aware of the culture of their church can be frustrated by the “way things are done around here,” without understanding what is behind these actions. They are then controlled by what may seem to be abstract forces which they cannot define. As you’ve probably noticed, this is what I have been trying to do in this series. It’s not effective long term to just try mentoring without having certain change of values.

Well the obvious next question is what are the characteristics of an organization that encourages mentoring type of relationships? While the details and mechanics of a mentoring relationship are important for it to be successful, we also have to deal with the underlying values, both in our own lives as well as the organizations in which we are embedded. Certain characteristics are essential in order to encourage mentoring types of relationships within a church or organization. There must be open and frequent communication and interaction between leaders at different ministry stages must permeate the organization. This fosters cohesive teamwork, rather than a competitive culture.

Low trust and minimal communication make mentoring types of relationships in the organization virtually impossible. When there is a culture of closed or superficial communication and lack of trust for leadership, mentoring relationships will struggle. If there are distinct levels of superior/subordinate relationships which allow for minimal communication, there will likely not be the level of trust necessary for open and authentic relationships.

How the transition of leadership occurs is also an indicator of the type of relationships that are valued in the church or organization. If those currently in power attempt to retain their position as long as possible, they will thwart any attempt by the next generation to become involved. This leads younger leaders to have to prove themselves and expend great amounts of time and energy in order to push past these obstacles. Many just give up in the process.

King Saul’s Palace: Accepted Practices

Unfortunately, many of our churches and Christian organization share more of the values of King Saul’s court than we would like to admit. But as leaders we can make a positive impact on the culture of our churches and ministries. This begins with our own values being transformed to line up with Jesus’ teaching of Kingdom leadership. Then we can be change agents in our organizations through teaching and modelling kingdom values.

This includes being aware of what we focus on and what we pay attention to, as well as what we measure and what behavior we reward publically and privately. What do we reinforce and give exposure from the platform or in our leadership meetings? How does what we do in a crisis reflect our values? How we allocate resources, both financial and human, speaks volumes as to our values. Is investing in others and releasing them into ministry financed and championed throughout the church or organization? What we model as leaders makes a huge impact on our organizations. The only way people will know our values and what kingdom leadership looks like is through our actions.

Eating with the Masses

I used to travel to Russia several times a year to teach young leaders at a seminary in Moscow. On one occasion, I had just finished teaching on servant leadership and how the relationships in the Body of Christ are to be different than what we observe in the culture around us. Well, we then had a break for lunch and went to the cafeteria. I was ushered into a separate, special room, just for the professors and our international team. It was on an elevated area of the room behind glass French doors. From there we could see the students and they could see us. Well if you know anything about me, you’ll know how uncomfortable I felt, particularly since I had just finished teaching that relationships in the body are to be different than the world, not hierarchical.

Well I only lasted one meal. The next day I mentioned to the school leadership that I recognized the honor they had bestowed on us, but would be okay for our team to sit with the students? Again, they were not necessarily hierarchal, it was just a culture that had developed for whatever reason. But in my opinion it was sending the wrong message – a disconnect between my words and my actions. With their blessing – I did not want to offend our hosts — our team began to sit with the students. Did it change the world. Probably not, but how are others going to see what Kingdom leadership looks like except through our actions. Considering everything we do through Jesus’ grid of servant leadership. The next day I even got our international team into the kitchen to wash the student’s dishes.

The only way we can communicate what kingdom leadership looks like is to show it in practical ways. Serving means getting your hands dirty. Whenever I am in Africa they like to frequently throw my doctor title around, carry my bags and basically make me feel like a chief. I understand that being respectful is part of their culture, but it can go too far. When does respect cross the line so that others no longer see us as the type of leaders we see Jesus being in  Philippians 2. Words are not enough, actions are needed and there is often pushback as these often are counter cultural. Not much different than Jesus experienced with his disciples.  I may not be able to change the whole world, but I can change my world. So while I am still able, I carry my own bag and do whatever I can to metaphorically “step off the platform,” so to speak, so that my sinful nature doesn’t get used to it and I don’t feel entitled and expect it.

Back to the cafeteria in Moscow. On a subsequent trip I noticed that the special room was empty and the leadership was interspersed with the students. In a simple way the leadership was breaking down the natural barriers and power differential. It did not negatively impact their teaching authority, but hopefully made them more accessible and credible on the topic of servant leadership. As we translate our values into our actions we can change the culture of our organizations.

But what happens if you are in a church or organization that has a culture of throwing spears and is not conducive to mentoring relationships? What do you do if you are in a situation that you cannot find a mentor? These are real world challenges we have to face. There was once a young man in this very situation — dodging spears in a king’s court. Next time we are going to look at what he did and what we can learn from him. I sure hope you’ll be able to join me next time.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What are some of the assumptions and values of the organization/church you lead or are a part of?

What are some of the accepted practices that are actually working against members developing mentoring relationships?

What practical actions can you take in your group that will communicate you value mentoring relationships?

Description

Phil begins this episode by providing a foundational understanding on the subject of organizational culture and how this impacts the dynamics of a mentoring relationship. He specifically explains Jesus’ illustration regarding new wine and new wineskins and how this highlights the need for structure or culture (“how we do things around here”) to reflect the group’s values. He shows that even though the Church has an eternal, mystical quality, on this earth – in time and space – it is also impacting organizational laws that affect all groups of people gathered around a common purpose. Specifically, the values of a group, expressed in their culture, will positively or negatively impact the quantity and quality of mentoring relationships. Not taking this into consideration results in frustration and both leaders and members being controlled by something they do not fully understand. The warning is that “Structure eats vision for lunch.”

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 12 Intro: Creating a Mentoring Culture

Last time we were discussing how where we are at in life impacts both what we have to offer as well as what we need in a mentoring relationship. We also discussed several suggestions as to what types of functions can accomplish this. But it is hard to overestimate the incredible impact organizational culture can have on mentoring relationships. Often our good intentions are thwarted by the forces outside of our control that are working against these authentic type of relationships.  So in the next couple episodes I want to spend some time on this important topic.

Organizational Culture and Mentoring

The Culture of the organization or ministry determines the level and intensity of mentoring relationships. For example, hierarchical structures inhibit mentoring relationships, while empowering, releasing models of ministry  encourage them. This is why we discussed Jesus’ model of leadership in previous episodes. What the leadership of the organization values will be valued by the whole group. Are people encouraged and given permission to mentor others? Who holds the power and is it shared by a few or by many? Is open communication encouraged, particularly across levels of leadership? These are all issues of organizational culture.

Just to clarify, Culture can simply be defined as “just the way of doing things around here.”  Recognize it or not, we are all influenced by culture. Some of these influences is neither good nor bad…..it’s just the way it is. When I was in China a few years ago I asked them why they used chopsticks. Of course they looked at me like I was crazy. But after they got over that, it become clear they had no idea. It’s just the way it’s always been done. That’s culture. Even if we don’t know how it developed we are impacted by it.

There is ethnic culture, but there is also organizational culture. Each organization, from a business to a church is impacted by the culture that has been developed within that organization. All culture is based on certain values. And these change over time. However, what often happens in organizations is this. As their values change, there becomes a competition or even open war between the existing culture and the change that needs to happen in order to realign the organization’s actions with its values. A leader who underestimates the power of culture – the way we do things around here – does so to their own peril, and often results in their eventual unemployment.

Within some church circles, often due to a faulty theology, organizational structure has gotten kind of a bad name. We think that since the Church of Christ is an organism, not a man made organization, culture will or should not affect us. As God’s character, the Gospel should never change right?! But when this divine mystery that the Apostle Paul writes about, of Christ with his Church, interfaces with our humanity on this earth, it is inevitable that some structure or organization will need to be developed. We see the early church struggling with this also as they had to come up with ways to function without any direct teaching on the matter from Jesus.

So it becomes an issue of how are our values are reflected by our culture – the way we do things around here. This is why we have spent quite a bit of time in this series discussing values regarding leadership, for it is these values that establish the culture of any group of people seeking to achieve a common purpose. Our values will impact our mentoring relationships.

New Wineskins Needed

Now before you think I am getting too far into the weeds here, let’s look at Matt. 9:17. Here Jesus uses the analogy of wineskins. He states what was obvious to his listeners, but might be missed by those of us used to seeing wine in bottles. He says that if you put new wine in old dried up wineskins, as the wine ferments and expands, the brittle wineskins will burst and not hold the new wine. He seems to indicate that it was not a problem with the new wine, it was a structural problem, a wineskin problem. We have to get our heads around the difference between the new wine in the church which is divine and never needs changing, with the structures or culture necessary in the human expression of the Church that needs to adapt in order to be an appropriate vessel for this new wine.

The Church has been ordained by God as the vehicle for this new wine, but since it is made up of us humans, it also has the attributes of any human organization made up of groups of individuals. Of course, at its very essence, it is the invisible, mystical, community of God’s people.  Yet this community is expressed in human made forms, which can be described as the “wineskins.” But these are not sacred in and of themselves, which is why they need to be regularly evaluated as to their usefulness in achieving the unchanging purpose of the Church.

The problem becomes when we ascribe to the structure (the wineskins) the same unchanging nature as the Gospel or the Body of Christ (the wine). Local church structures vary over the centuries from culture to culture, this is why the details of how we do church various over the decades and varies by country and denomination. But ministry structures should always serve to fulfill the ultimate purpose of the community of God’s people, the Church. It is therefore possible to modify the structures without damaging or invalidating the very essence of the Church or God’s people.

In order for the leader of a local church, a fellowship, or a denomination to prepare the next generation of leaders and release the Body to fulfill its calling, they need to understand the dynamics at work within groups of individuals and how these result in organizational structures that either facilitate growth or hinder growth. This is why it is so important to consider what aspects of our organizational structure may be working against the development of the very mentoring relationships we want to foster in our church. Trying to fit the new wine of mentoring within inflexible structures that work counter to these types of relationships always results in the new wine being spilled on the ground.

The Power of Organizational Culture

In the Organizational Development field there is saying, “Culture will eat vision for lunch every day of the week.” In Jesus’ words, the condition of the wineskin is as important as the wine when it comes to fulfilling the organization’s purpose.  Leader’s seldom want to admit it, but the reality is that the culture of the group is more influential than even the leadership’s new vision or intentions of change. This is why we need to make changes at a values level as to what biblical leadership really looks like. Only then will our structures or culture be conducive to mentoring relationships.

The Culture of the organization or ministry determines if mentoring relationships are encouraged or discouraged. The reality is that a hierarchical culture inhibits these relationships, while an empowering and releasing culture will encourage mentoring relationships.  Are people encouraged and given permission in the organization to pursue these types of relationships? Other questions we need to consider are, Who holds the power and is it shared by many? Is open communication encouraged, particularly across levels of leadership?

Understanding Culture

The culture of a group is often outside of our control, but nevertheless it has a crucial impact on our ability to form mentoring relationships. In order to be effective mentors, we need to understand the dynamics of the contexts within which mentoring relationships must function. The reality is that one of the main functions of leadership is to create the conditions within our organizations that encourage this type of relationships.

This begins with the personal values of the leaders and the leadership team, as well as the culture and organizational structure of the ministries within which they serve. Within our shared human experience, we are dependent upon the relational structures that are necessary for individuals to interact and accomplish common goals. To prepare the next generation of leaders and release them to fulfill their calling, leaders need to understand the dynamics at work within groups of individuals and how these result in organizational structures that either facilitate or hinder mentoring.

Mentoring Failures

As mentioned, this is a component that is overlooked in leadership training. Usually within the first few years of ministry young leaders often become frustrated as they keep hitting their head against structural limitations that they do not fully understand. Over the years of teaching on this subject I have discovered something. When I began teaching on this subject, after my initial seminar I would leave and come back to do a follow up seminar. Invariably I would discover a bunch of frustrated young leaders. They would say something like this, “I went back to my church and shared with my pastor about mentoring and I wanted a mentor or to be a mentor, but the leadership either ignored me or completely shut me down.”

What was going on? Well my young friends were coming up against a structure and culture that was based on values that were working against the empowering and releasing type of mentoring relationships. They didn’t have a chance. Remember, culture eats vision for lunch every day. If you missed last episode you might want to take a listen to catch up on the foundation I laid there.

I believe this is the key reason for the failure of mentoring relationships in so many churches and organizations. Remember, organizations are just groups of people organized around a common purpose or vision. But so often the values, which are usually unspoken, are working contrary to these types of relationships. If leaders are threatened, co-dependent, focused on gathering followers or yes-men, it is very unlikely that mentoring and releasing others will be a high priority. These values will stifle mentoring relationships.

Mentoring Culture and Values

The culture of the Church or Christian organization is based upon certain values and activities that the group thinks are important.  More specifically, the culture of a group is the sum of the basic assumptions that are shared by the whole group. These assumptions are learned by the group as it adapts to the needs around it. The actions which turn out to be effective in meeting these needs are then seen as valuable and are taught to new members.  This is how new members learn the correct way to perceive, think, and feel, in relation to the challenges which they face as a group.

Leaders who are not conscious of the culture in which they are embedded, will be controlled by that culture, rather than learning how to manage that culture. Understanding these dynamics can help the leader understand what is happening and what values are motivating the behavior of the members. As with other organizations, the culture of a church is based upon the values, beliefs, and assumptions of the pastor, its leadership team, and the members. I have discovered that whatever country I am in, this dynamic is pretty consistent.

My young friends really didn’t have a chance. Values and the resulting culture needed to change. As we saw with King Saul, he had developed a culture in the palace that made it okay to throw spears at his protégé. I wish I could report that this no longer happens, but you and I know that it unfortunately does. In our next episode I will provide some insights into what young leaders can do who cannot find a mentor or find themselves in unhealthy life-killing organizations. As always, I hope you’ll be able to join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What have you learned about culture from this episode and how will this help you develop mentoring relationships?

Do your actions reflect leadership Kingdom values or is there a disconnect between what you believe and how you exercise leadership in your family or organization?

Reflect on the culture of the group you are part of as a member or leader. How does it encourage or discourage mentoring relationships? Are new wineskins needed?

Description

In the final few episodes of the series, Phil discusses how the stages of life that we are going through impacts both what the mentor has to offer as well as the needs of the mentoree. We all have different needs in the various stages of life and these need to be taken into consideration in order to assess what the needs of the mentoree may be in the relationship. He also outlines the various functions that a mentor can offer someone they are mentoring. These are divided into Personhood Functions and Ministry/Career Functions. To conclude the episode he summarizes the three main factors in play in determining which functions are necessary. This includes the individual’s needs, the level of interpersonal skills of both mentor and mentoree and the culture or organizational context in which the relationship is embedded.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 11 Intro: Influences on the Mentoring Relationship

We have discussed the heart attitude necessary to be a mentor as well as some of the practics of a mentoring relationship. But how do we know what the mentoree actually needs? As we go through the stages of life how do our mentoring relationships change? How does what we offer also change? In each stage of life what are some of the functions we can offer someone we are mentoring? If we are aware of them or not, there are factors that influence the quality of our mentoring relationships and this is what we want to discuss in this episode.

Mentoring and Stages of Life

In the last few episodes we have been drilling down into some of the real practical issues of finding a mentor and being a mentor. This is from my material Developing Others 1 workshop which you can get as a free download from the links below. In our final episodes I will be discussing principles of mentoring from my Developing Others 2 workshop. It’s kind of the advanced seminar. I would typically teach this material after my initial seminar and then I would return after attendees had already begun to mentor someone. In our remaining episodes, I will introduce you to some of this material which includes, What to do when we can’t find a mentor and how can peer mentoring help you build a team. I also discuss the important issue of how to develop a culture of mentoring within our teams and organizations.

But before we get there, in this episode I would like to help you in your mentoring relationship by discussing how our stages of life impact the relationship and the various functions we can provide those that we mentor. Both of these are impacted by our organizational or church context. We began our series by asking, “If mentoring is so important, why is it not a more common way to train others in the church?” We have discussed some of the reasons up to this point, such as having a wrong definition of leadership which we’ve borrowed from the world, to a wrong understanding of what the mentoring relationship is really like. Remember, we mentioned that  it’s not just about spiritual growth, or being a parent, guru, or “spiritual father” as we defined it.

To state the obvious, as we transition through every stage of life our needs change. Early on in our life and career or ministry our needs are different than they are later in life. Understanding what these needs are will help us determine what mentoring functions we can offer someone. While we all have specific needs at certain times in our lives, it’s amazing how we tend to have similar experiences in every stage of life. Bob Biehl wrote a great book on mentoring in the mid nineties and more recently wrote a book called, Decade by Decade. He shows that in most cases, our lives are more predictable than we often think. Most of us go through similar experiences during the same stages in life.

For example, when we are in the Early Stage of development in our lives we are more concerned with issues of self and our career or early ministry. It is a period of exploration and initiation when we are establishing our identity and competence. Then during the Mid-Stage of our life we tend to re-evaluate the past and modify the present in order to reconcile our past aspirations with the current realities. There is a shift of our identity in this stage as we adjust to no longer just being a novice and we begin to grapple with the idea of what it means to have seniority.

I clearly remember this transition in my own life. When in my forties I would teach or say something and people would actually think about it and take it to heart. At first that was a bit shocking and sobering, because was still functioning as I did in my 20’s. It seemed at that time people didn’t’ take much of what I said very seriously. I could express thoughts that maybe were not quite ready for prime time, but it didn’t really matter since no one was listening to me seriously anyway! Then in my late thirties/early forties, I began to realize that I could not just spout off topics that were not clearly thought through, because people were actually listening and may even begin to act o what I was saying! Was kind of scary at first. But that is a transition we all go through.

In the Late Stage of life we begin to face the fact that our main career or ministry is coming to an end. Individuals at this stage often struggle to maintain a sense of usefulness or relevance. In my Finishing the Race podcast, which is based on my workshop materials, I go into greater depth on this topic. But as it relates to mentoring, it is usually at this stage that there is extra time and energy to be a coach and mentor – it’s never too late to begin. So we can see that in each of these stages of life the person we are mentoring has different needs and this provides varied opportunities for a mentoring relationship.

Mentoring Functions

Before the break we were looking at our needs in the various Stages of Life. But in our mentoring relationships we can also provide varied functions that will enhance the mentoree’s growth and development. To keep it simple, let’s divide these into two groups of functions: Personhood Functions and Organizational  Functions.

Personhood functions are those aspects of the relationship that enhance a sense of competence, clarity of identity and effectiveness in a professional role. These affect the individual on a personal level, building self-worth inside and outside the organization. Interpersonal relationship that fosters trust and intimacy are conducive to this type of personhood growth. Now, Organizational Functions can either be Career or Ministry orientated. These are aspects of the relationship that enhance learning the ropes and preparing for advancement in the organization. These serve to advance the individual in the organization and are usually made possible through a relationship and experience of a senior leader. Let’s look at this each of these functions in greater detail.

Personhood Functions

As I mentioned, these functions enhance a person’s identity and what it possible in their career or ministry. There are several functions that are possible and these range from being a Role Model, to Nurturing, to Counseling or even a  Friendship.

We all have certain role models in our lives. These are usually persons who are already have achieved in their lives what we aspire to. This can be an important function in the mentoring relationship.

Another Personhood function is that of a Nurturer. This occurs as the mentor supports and encourages the mentoree as they develop competence. The acceptance and confirmation that a mentor provides, helps  the mentoree develop in their personal and professional life. As the mentoree also shares personal concerns and has the opportunity to share their anxieties and fears that may be detracting from their effectiveness, the mentor provides a certain level of function as a counselor would. Remember our Triangle Diagram a couple episodes ago where we discussed the importance of Fundamental Tendencies.

A final important function is that of Friendship. While I have mentioned that the mentor/mentoree relationship is not necessarily just being a buddy, the opportunity is there for the relationship to develop more into one of mutual affection which can carry on beyond the organizational context.  In the next episode I will be detailing the phases of a mentoring relationship and how true friendship can be a natural development in some mentoring relationships. Okay, so those were some Personhood Functions, lets now turn our attention to some Organizational Functions.

Organizational Functions

In either a ministry or career context these functions can help the younger leader learn to expand their own influence. It also provides the senior person an opportunity to leave a legacy, giving them meaning as they transition to the latter stages of their life that we talked about.

The first of these is that of a Sponsor. As a sponsor we actively help a younger leader obtain ministry or career opportunities. We can help them build a reputation and gain ministry opportunities that they may not be able to normally have at that stage of their lives.

Another function is that of being a Door Opener. The mentor can help the younger leader work with more experienced leaders within the mentor’s larger spheres of influence. This helps the mentoree gain exposure to other aspects of ministry and prepares the less experienced leader with greater spheres of responsibility. Again, by coming alongside of them, we are exposing them to relationships that they are not yet part of and may still beyond their experience level.

The additional function of Coaching helps the mentoree navigate the organization, be it in the church or marketplace. This function describes how we can help the mentoree answer questions such as, “What does it take to be successful in ministry/business?” Again,  Coaching provide access to other key leaders who may still be beyond the mentoree’s sphere.

Another important function is to provide challenging opportunities to help the mentoree grow and gain a sense of accomplishment. This will help them move forward as they tackle greater challenges.

The final key function that usually only mentors who are servant leaders provide is that of Protection. The mentor can help to point out pitfalls and common errors to avoid as one begins ministry  or in the marketplace and help them navigate the relationships in the organization. This may also involve taking the blame in controversial situations in order to protect younger, weaker leader. As the stronger leader, we likely have the capital to weather such storms, whereas they don’t. So at times we may have to step to the plate on their behalf.

I introduced you to Karl a few episodes ago, who was one of the young men I mentored while living in Berlin in the early 2000s. Karl was starting out in ministry and was a youth pastor. At the time his senior pastor leveled some serious accusations regarding Karl’s motive in ministry. He then sent an email to all the ministers in Berlin making these unfounded accusations. I knew Karl and knew that it was all bogus, but this immature senior leader went public. Pretty devastating at any time, but particularly for a young leader starting out.

At the time I was recognized as a leader within the Berlin church and missions community and as someone who knew him, sent an open letter to all the leaders vouching for Karl.  Of course, as most lies, it all went away and actually this senior leader was seen for what he was and fired, but that took a couple years. But for a young leader starting out it was brutal. Providing the function of protection means that we have our mentoree’s back and use our greater influence to protect their reputation from the “Saul’s” throwing spears at them.

Three Main Factors

We have been looking at how our needs throughout the  Stages of life impact which functions are most important at any given time in a mentoring relationship. Both the mentor  and the mentoree are affected by where they are at in life and what their own concerns are regarding self, career/ministry, and family. Over time the range of functions change as the individual’s needs also change. For example, a young minister may need less coaching and more sponsorship as they develop. The level of effective communication skills also have a huge bearing on what is offered in the relationship. Can both the mentor and mentoree effectively listen, give feedback, manage conflict and competition, and so on. Another factor that impacts the level of the mentoring relationship is the person’s attitude towards authority, the opposite gender,  and their own mentoring experiences.

To summarize, there are three main factors at play in determining what functions will be provided. First, the level of the individual’s needs will determine what functions are desired, Secondly, the interpersonal skills of both parties will also have a direct impact on the range of possible functions. But there is a third factor that has a significant impact on mentoring relationships. Unfortunately, in my experience this is often overlooked. This has to do with the context or culture of the organization in which the mentoring relationships are embedded.

This has such a significant influence that I will spend the next two episodes unpacking this subject. Mentoring relationships are impacted by the kind of relationships that are valued in the organization or church, or if there a spirit of collaboration versus one of competition. What is rewarded in the organization, individualism or team? It is the answer to these questions that gets to the heart of the importance of the context of where  these mentoring relationships are embedded. For example, the level of opportunity of relationships between different levels of leadership is a important indicator regarding if mentoring relationships will be fostered and encouraged. You may not have realized the connection between organizational culture and mentoring, but that will be the focus of our discussion next time. As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What stage of life are you at and how does this impact the needs you have for a mentor?

How does your stage of life impact what you have to offer as a mentor?

Which of the functions listed have you been able to offer to someone else? What new areas do you see you could offer someone?

Description

There are three components to the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships model: The Connection, The Content, and the Cohort. In this episode Phil provides some more practical suggestions for the mentoring relationship, such as clarifying expectations, how often to meet and what to discuss, some of the necessary boundaries in the relationship and the need to periodically evaluate the relationship. He also concludes his interview with Karl, who he first mentored in the early 2000s and who is now on the Ministry Coaching Network (MCNet) team. Finally, he discusses the Cohort, or small group, which can be a helpful addition to the one-on-one relationship if someone is mentoring several people at the same time.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 10: New Wineskins Needed

In the last episode we offered some thoughts about how to find a mentor, as well as introducing a Mentoring model that many have found helpful. Without a structure or some tangible actions to facilitate the relationship, my experience has been that many will not know where to start or how keep the relationship on track. Today we will discuss two more aspects of this model: The Connection or one-on-one relationship, and the Cohort, or accountability group.

Clarifying Expectations

As we know, in all relationships it is important to consider and discuss the expectations each person has in the relationship.  For the mentoring relationship, we need to discuss the following questions: How often will we meet? How will we handle confidential matters? How often will we evaluate the relationship? What particular areas are they wanting to grow in (as mentoree)? What do we particularly feel we have to offer (as mentor)?

Some of these seem rather obvious, but I have found they are very important to articulate in one of the first meetings together. For example, it is important to determine the degree of accountability desired by mentoree ahead of time. Also do determine how often we will meet. As we have mentioned, it is important to have regular times of re-evaluating the relationship to ask,  How is it going? Are you achieving your goals? What do we need to change? and so on.

Duration and Frequency

This one-on-one relationship is focussed, but at the same time it should be informal. It should not be a lecture or even a formalized teaching time. It is a conversation around specific topics with the focus of life application. Last time we looked at the Content of the Guides and I mentioned that I use the discussion questions to lead the conversation in the direction that the mentoree wants and needs to grow. The same chapter can produce a different emphasis depending upon the person being mentored.

In determining how often and how long to meet, we need to be realistic. Meeting every day is likely unrealistic, meeting once every six months, probably not enough. Our experience over the years has been that most people using our mentoring model meet once a week or once every two weeks. The challenge is to keep the relationship fresh and not let it stagnate. To do this, you can do related activities together and follow up issues that arise from the readings.

Boundaries in the Relationship

Without some boundaries, the danger of these intense types of relationships is that they can spiral downward into an unhealthy relationship if we are not careful. From the mentor’s perspective, it is important to remember that we are not the boss or resident expert. So I try to never give direct answers or advice, I am not trying to create a following or yes men, someone dependent on me like what happened in the Shepherding Movement.  I want someone that I am mentoring to become more dependent on Christ, not me. I am merely in their life for a time, to serve them as they grow.

Additionally, it is never justified to be overbearing and controlling and to overstep the permission a mentoree has given me in their life. Maintaining this boundary preserves the principle of mutual respect and equality in the Body. Lording authority or position over someone is never godly or particularly helpful to their growth. Fear and coercion can produce outward obedience or compliance, but never true spiritual growth that lasts. That requires being an example and laying down our own life and seeing this reproduced in others. The agenda for the relationship should be driven by the needs of the mentoree.

Periodic Evaluation

As mentioned, periodic evaluation is essential in maintaining a healthy mentoring relationship. Over time the our life situation changes and so the relationship will likely also need to change. We will see in a later episode that all mentoring relationships go through phases and so we have to be aware of that and change how we relate with each other as the dynamics of the relationship change over time.

So every three months or so I will typically have a conservation that goes something like this, “So, how are things going? Are we addressing the issues you want to address? Do we need to make a change in frequency or duration of our meetings?” and so on. What this does, is provide the mentor the opportunity to address if the mentoree is no longer growing for whatever reason. It might be legitimate reasons due to a change in their life…..you know, the dog died, house burned down, wife just gave birth to triplets, that’s going to change things. Or it could be that they have just lost their motivation or have reached their capacity for change at this point. Now that they see what is going to take to be a leader, they may not want to pay the price for change. Seeing a cross when you are thinking leadership is about a crown can be rather sobering and takes some adjustment to say the least.

Concluding Well

If this latter situation is the case, then having such an intentional structure serves the purpose of focussing the relationship and the way forward, rather than just aimlessly meeting and hoping things get better. That is why I have these periodic evaluation typically every three chapters/months. As a mentor I am giving my best time to this person and so at times I may have to say, “Hey, let’s take a break for now and revisit getting together in six month” or whatever timeframe you think appropriate. What this does is free up my best time to spend with others that I am mentoring or freeing up some time to begin to mentor someone who actually wants to grow and move forward in their life.

However, what it also does, is not create a situation where the person I am mentoring feels like a failure. I do not want to further discourage them, but rather provide them a breather to reconsider if they want to continue. Again, this is a specific type of relationship to help someone grow in leadership. We want to create the conditions whereby we can conclude well in the relationship. Without specific evaluation, the relationship often will reach a plateau or just fizzle out. This usually leaves a bad taste in everyone mouth and cures us from ever wanting such a relationship in the future.

So, it’s important to make changes if necessary and not leave things unsaid so that the relationship doesn’t drift. In a future episode we will discuss the stages of a mentoring relationship and one of these options is the development of a ongoing peer relationship. This is actually what happened in Karl’s case. On the other side of the break I’ll continue by finishing my conversation with him.

Interview with Karl Continued

In Episode 8 I began a conversation with Karl, one of the first guys I mentored in the early 2000s in Berlin using this model. Let’s finish my discussion with him now.

[Phil] It’s great talking to you again and you know, we’ve been talking in this series about servant leadership and how that’s such a foundation to a mentoring relationship. If you believe in power structured leadership, it’s likely you’re not going to mentor anybody right? Why would you want to help someone get beyond you, but like what have you seen about the servant leader model and how has that impacted your mentoring relationships?

[Karl]  I think the first challenge has been to discover what God wants me to do and then realizing part of that is fulfilling his call, but part of that is just serving others and it’s not about me. I have found that other people are open and want to learn, they want to grow. Investing into them and just seeing it’s not about my own personal call, but investing  into other people and seeing how God is going to use them.  And how I get to be a part of that journey and walk with them, understanding it’s not about having power in the local church or in ministry, but having an influence that impacts the generation I’m in, but also the next generation. Some of the people I mentor are peers, are people my own age, sometimes they’ve been even a little bit older, because of their life situations and how they grew up, and sometimes they’re quite a bit younger than me, 10, 20 years younger, But it’s realizing you get to invest into somebody and they’re going to serve others, and you get to be a part of that. And it’s not about power, it’s not about, This is what God has shown me and now you need to do it so I can reach my goals. It’s more about them and their goals really.

[Phil] Exactly, yeah, I mean or not just creating yes men.

[Karl] You know I had a mentor and when I am on a video call with him,  he kept joking around saying God loves you and I have a plan for your life right, because that’s how so many people treat ministry. We talk about the love of God, but for a lot of leaders it’s all about fulfilling their own calls and purposes and not helping people mature and discover what God has for them,

[Phil] If I can just jump in, how do you not feel threatened in that? Because with a lot of leaders, you get the sense that if I open myself to others and I even share some of my failures, some of things that didn’t go well, or whatever, that they feel threatened in their own ministry or not respected. How do you deal with that?

[Karl]  I’ve noticed transparency increases trust. Just opening myself, in my own shortcomings or my own humanity, not necessarily confessing everything or just having a low self-esteem, but just openly sharing what one is going through increases the trust and my own credibility. Like when I’m talking to them about something, they know I’m not just trying to fulfill my own purposes, I’m really interested in them, walking through what God has for them.

[Phil] How do you see it now as you’re mentoring others? Are there maybe similarities or differences between, you know 25 years ago?

[Karl] Well looking at my church, we’re a very intercultural church, so we have Germans, Ukrainians, Persians, Africans, people from India, from the Caribbean and South America. I kind of focus on the common denominator and that is people’s desire for relationship, for authentic, transparent relationships, regardless if they’re a Boomer, regardless if they’re Millennial Generation, Z generation, whatever. People want relationship, they want to be taken seriously, they want transparency, living leadership without masks. Saying what leadership is really about not trying to pretend, not trying to act successful, but just living life and letting them be a part of that life. I think that’s what’s also helped my leadership, investing into others and serving leadership is living life with them actually, having them part of our life. At our house, or when I’m ministering and traveling somewhere, I’ll take them with me so that they don’t just see the stage persona, but that they also see normal life. Getting ready in prayer, getting ready, or maybe even being a little bit nervous before one gets behind the pulpit, and say, You know, let’s pray together because I’m really nervous about this sermon or about this church — it’s a different setting — and just sharing those moments with them.

[Phil] Hey listen, thanks, I know it’s late there again, but thanks for taking the time to chat. You know I think maybe I owe you one now for doing this, or maybe at least I can decrease the amount of lattes that you owe me! I’m looking forward to getting together in person next year when we meet for our CLI meetings.

[Karl] Definitely.

[Phil] Sounds good, looking forward to it.

 

The Cohort

We have discussed the content of the Guide as well as the one-on-one relationship. Another facet of this mentoring model is a cohort or small group meeting. This can help provide some external motivation and varied input for the person being mentored. Typically these are held on the alternate week to the one-on-one sessions.

Though the frequency of these meetings vary, from weekly to monthly, to be effective they should be held regularly. Whenever I personally mentor several guys at one time in an area, I meet with them as a group on the alternate week to discuss the issues. Mentorees usually find this helpful as they are able to discuss with their peers the same issues discussed in the meeting with the mentor. When we were living in Berlin my wife also then met with a group of ladies she was mentoring. Meeting as a mixed group can be helpful to gain further insights, but there are some subjects that are best discussed in a group of the same gender. Another option is leaders in a local church meeting together in a focussed  cohort or groups of students in educational settings.

Life Application

Whatever the context, the goal is to make sure that it is not a one-way dialogue or even a “teaching session.” The goal of the cohort is to facilitate discussion that leads to life application. The facilitator is more of a guide and does not need to be an expert. It can actually be a great learning experience for every participant to have each one take a turn at facilitating the discussion. The materials also include lesson plans with questions as well as other resources. The most important task of the facilitator is to create a grace filled atmosphere where participants feel free to learn from each other.

In the last couple episodes I have presented a model that we have developed to facilitate a mentoring relationship based on servant leadership values. While there are many materials on the topic of mentoring, I have found fewer that specifically help to mentor someone. Whatever wineskin you use, I would encourage you to take the initiative and begin investing in others. It will take intentionality and a plan, but well worth the effort.

Next time we will look at the different stages of mentoring that occur over a lifetime. I don’ think we ever outgrow or age-out of the opportunities to be mentored as well as being a mentor. It’s a job with built in security. We are getting to the end of our series, but in the last few episodes there is some important mattes that  I’d like to share and so I hope you’ll be able to join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

In your mentoring relationship how do you implement the principles of clarifying expectation and having regular evaluation.

Why do you think boundaries are important in a mentoring relationship? Does this mitigate power-based leadership?

How does a foundation of servant leadership affect the principles of a mentoring relationship as discussed here. Why is this important?

Description

While the last episode focused on being a mentor, in this episode Phil provides some suggestions as to how we can find a mentor. He makes the point that we all need a variety of mentors throughout our lives. What kind of questions should we ask ourselves in terms of finding a mentor? Questions such as, Who seems interested in me and my growth? Who do I see that I would like to emulate their values and life qualities? The reality is that most of us will have to approach someone, as most people, even leaders, do not feel qualified to be a mentor. The episode wraps up with Phil presenting the Mentoring Model designed to help guide a mentoring relationship. This begins by outlining the contents of the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships guides which are available for purchase on the website.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 9 Intro: Suggestions for a Mentoree

The unfortunate  reality is that in most cases the person wanting to be mentored will have to approach a potential mentor. While this is a reality, it should not discourage us in our quest to find someone who can help us move ahead  in our life and ministry. So what are some of the key questions we need to ask ourselves in finding a mentor? And what is the best way to actually approach someone who could be our mentor? I would also like to then share a model that has been assisting many leaders as they mentor others.

Key Questions

As with finding someone to mentor, there are several questions that can be helpful to identify a mentor. To begin with we need to make a list of those who are relationally closest to us. With these individuals in mind consider the following questions: Who do I already know who shows an interest in me? Who seems interested in my growth? Can I imagine this person committing themselves to me? Are they someone that I see as a model? What do I admire about them? Do I want to develop these same qualities in my life and ministry? Are they someone who will be humble and willing to be transparent with me?

Of course there are certain people you don’t want to mentor you. Some, like a King Saul of old, only have a model of power and position –that’s all that they have to offer. Actually, if we spend too much time with them it is likely that we will become like them – after all, like it or not, we reproduce we are. So if we want to be a servant leader, we need to find leaders that share those values. Remember, we are not looking for someone who is perfect, but someone who is walking out their lives and influencing others with humility. Walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

Feeling Unqualified

The fact is that most potential mentors do not feel qualified or capable of mentoring someone, regardless of their position or accomplishments. Most have never been mentored themselves and so don’t know where to start. As we saw in Episode 2 they were just dumped in the deep end. They may even have a misguided idea of what mentoring actually involves. Again, since you are not looking for a spiritual father or all knowing guru, I find it best to approach someone more casually and ask them if they would consider spending some time with you. It’s important to let them know that you see qualities in them that you would like to learn from.

I know this level of intentionality in our relationships is not typical and at first can seem a bit awkward, but remember we are looking for a specific type of relationship that is going to help us move forward in our life and ministry. In order to mitigate some of the potential weirdness, I like to frame the conversation more like this. Instead of saying “Would you be my ONLY mentor,” a better approach is, “Would you consider being ONE of my mentors.” We all should have several mentors in our life at any given time. I actually don’t even use the term “mentoring,” just in case that raises barriers in their mind.

Expectations of the Relationship

When it comes to expectations, it’s important to remember that the role of a mentor in our life is not to make our decisions for us. Only we can take the steps to grow and develop. We are not in the role of a small child with a parent – regardless of the age difference between us. The goal is that they will provide accountability to help us grow in the areas that we need and want to grow. Also I should add that the mentor is not a best friend or buddy. Yes there should be friendship, but their main role is for them to challenge us to grow — and sometimes that is not always so easy.

Blind Obedience not Required

There are also a few practical matters that may be helpful to mention at this point. The mentor is giving up of their valuable time to spend time with us and so we should be appreciate of their time and efforts and never monopolize our mentor’s time. The greatest motivation for a mentor is to see their mentoree growing and developing. So if we miss scheduled meetings and do not follow through with learning activities, it is likely that our mentor will not be too motivated to continue. This is also why it is important to communicate the areas that we want to grow in. The beauty of such a relationship is that it is targeted and focused, so it facilitates the greatest growth in the shortest amount of time.

As we discussed in previous episodes, a mentor is not the Holy Spirit in our life, or a spiritual giant with the goal that we must  obey their every word. This is the fallacy of the spiritual fathering model which I talked about in Episode 7 which creates a dependence on a person rather than on Christ. Having said that, when disagreements arise, it is always important to be respectful, it is possible to disagree agreeably.  By the way, it is never appropriate to increase our own ministry through the contacts of our mentor without their permission. It is also never okay to build our sphere of influence at the expense of our mentor’s ministry. Finally, if significant, unresolved differences do arise, it is best to peacefully end the mentoring relationship – without belittling or talking negatively to others about it.

A Mentoring Model: A New Wineskin

Since many have not been mentored, they don’t really know where to begin. Sure we meet once and get to know each other, but then what do we talk about in our other meetings. It is for this reason that I wrote the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guide, the content of which I will like to spend a few moments here to describe.

Models or structures are important, particularly for something like a relationship that can be someone abstract. For example, I have been married over forty years. In our marriage series I somewhat jokingly say that I am a survivor not an expert. As we know, the wedding is easy, it’s the marriage that takes work. But in order to maintain a healthy relationship we have to have certain guardrails in place and patterns or structures in our schedule and lives to keep the relationship healthy. It just does not happen due to good intentions and years spent together.

In the same way, I have found that we need a structure or model for a mentoring relationship to be healthy. However, these wineskins, the term Jesus used, must remain flexible. In our marriage we have certain regular activities or patterns to keep the love alive, but over forty years these have changed and adapted as we grow personally and together. Our love today is not the same as it was in year one or year twenty, or even ten years ago,  it changes.

There are three aspects of this mentoring model designed to help a person be a mentor or be mentored. These include: 1. The Connection – A one-on-one relationship; 2. The Content – the two Guides; and 3. The Cohort – a small accountability group. When I first put this together some twenty-five years ago in the early 2000s, I was just trying to create some notes to share with a group of young Christian leaders in Berlin. I had an outline of what I wanted to discuss with a young leader to help them see who they were, what biblical leadership was, and what their role was in fulfilling Jesus’ mandate to the Church.

Purpose of the Mentoring Guides

The purpose of the Mentoring Guide is to provide some direction for the mentoring relationship. Often, even leaders, don’t know where to start or don’t have the time to develop an outline for the regular mentoring sessions. As in our marriage, I may want to keep the love alive, but I have to move beyond good intentions and create space in my schedule to do things that foster that marriage relationship. That takes, time, effort and knowledge.

Using these materials can help someone kickstart their mentoring relationships. It is just a beginning, though if you have nothing else it can be significant. In one way, it is like training wheels on a bicycle. Remember those? They usually attach to the back frame of the bike and made sure you did not fall down and hurt yourself while you were learning to balance on two wheels, which seemed impossible at first.

Not sure if you ever used them, but the purpose is not to keep them on forever. As your bike riding skill  increased, you eventually took them off. These Guides started as just my notes, and so it was a bit of a surprise that others were interested. Now they are in several languages and being used by many around the world. If you’ve watched multiple episodes, you are probably tired of hearing them presented in the middle of every podcast, but that’s what fast forward is for!

So while they provide a basic outline for the mentor, they also provide a mentoree with a reason to approach someone and say, “You know, I see some qualities in your life I would like to develop in my own. I know you are busy, but I’ve come across this Guide and if you could give me a few hours every couple weeks, I would like to discuss the concepts outlined in the manual.” Kind of takes the pressure off of a potential mentor to develop their own material or have a detailed plan before mentoring someone. However, it does not limit them from using their own supplemental materials and so on as the training wheels come off.

 

There are two Guides, and each guide has two Sections with three chapters in each section,  for a total of twelve chapters in all. The first Guide has two Sections discussing issues related to us as a Person and a Disciple. While some work their way through the materials, one chapter per month for a total of a year, it often takes a bit longer than that.

Guide 1 Overview

Guide 1 begins by discussing three areas of our personhood: Our Personality, our Giftings, and our Calling. These are rather fundamental to who we are and several assessments are provided to help the mentoree discover these aspects of themselves.

Using a simplified DISC assessment the mentoree will discover their basic personality, but we don’t take the approach that puts people in boxes or resigns them to being victims of their personality. Rather it help them see their default style and how they can learn to adapt and grow depending upon the situation. The Gift assessment then takes an approach of looking at our personal desires and motivations and what we have already been interested in doing, in determining what our likely gift set may be. Finally, in this first section, we provide a tool to help someone discover potential ministry involvements based upon their personal calling.

The Second Section also includes three chapter discussing the fundamentals of Personal Disciplines such Bible reading and study, as well Bible Meditation and Prayer, journaling and some of the Church community disciplines. The second chapter in the section focuses on three challenging areas that have historically tripped up leaders: Money, Sex, Power. We don’t have to have a lot of money to have a problem with our attitude towards money. I know materialistic poor people and selfless rich people. Jesus taught that the real issue was that our attitude towards money was directly related to our trust and relationship with Him.

Besides their approach to financial matters, another area I discuss with a potential leader is the area of sexuality. From these topics you are likely beginning to see why this must be a trusting confidential relationship. We often shy away from talking about these areas, which is why we see situations in the church like we saw with my analogy of Bob the musician in Episode 6. If we are honest, we all need the help an accountable relationship can provide in these areas. To finish well we all must establish life disciplines in our personal life.

However, this is not a legalistic, pull yourself up by your bootstraps approach. Living out the disciplines in our lives must be seasoned with grace, because none of us are perfect. This is why it is so important for the mentor to be vulnerable and share how they personally dealt with temptations in these areas. What a  valuable gift we can offer to someone. It can help them understand that they are not alone and that God has always used broken, imperfect people, not those who have necessarily have it all together and  “kept the law since birth.” Besides the issues arising from Money and Sexuality, this chapter also deals with our understanding and use of Power. Why do we want influence others? What will we do with that influence and authority? Have we allowed God to break us of our pride and selfishness? As you can see, this material is more than just a nice little bible study, it deals with deep life issues.

The final chapter in this section, covers the rather abstract idea of how we perceive God’s direction in our lives. What does it mean to be led of God? How do we live a life of faith without falling into the ditch of extremes. On one side, we can over-spiritualize our relationship with Him so that we don’t value gaining wisdom and making our own decisions, and on the other side is the ditch of undervaluing God’s leading in our lives through his indwelling Holy Spirit. This is an important balance for all of us, but particularly those who are going to serve the Body of Christ by teaching others.

Not all are Willing

The layout of these materials naturally lends themselves to evaluating how things are going every three chapter or three months or so. Our experience over the last few decades is that the materials have a way of identifying those who are serious in their desire to grow in their capacity as a leader. I believe we all have the potential to be a leader – influence others – but not everyone is willing to put the work in and pay the price to a be a leader. We do not have control over how much influence we ultimately will have, only God knows that, but we can all increase and grow from where we are to where he wants to take us.

So what typically happens is that not everyone who completes Guide 1 – the first six chapters – continues with Guide 2. And that is okay, actually it’s the way it should work. It’s designed to weed out the men from the boys so to speak.  Building on the foundation of Guide  1, Guide 2 transitions to discussing the mentoree as a Leader and Minister. Again, each of these sections have three chapters for a total of six chapters.  But not everyone we mentor will be able or want to continue on. We may have seen great potential in someone, but what we cannot see from the outside is their motivation, or their willingness to pay the price to serve others, and so on. This will likely be evident as we spend time with them.

If this turns out to be the case, at this point I have a conversation that sounds kind of like this. I’ll say something like, “Maybe w should just take a break at this point and we can circle back in the future when life is less crazy, or when you are ready to continue.” My goal is to give them a way out without making them feel like a failure. It’s good to remember that God is not finished with them. It may be just that he needs to do some remedial work in their lives before they are ready to carry on considering leadership and God’s plan for their lives. By not be judgemental and regularly evaluating the relationship I provide an off-ramp that preserves the relationship so future onramps remain open.

Guide 2 Overview

For those who want to carry on, in the first three chapters under the Leader Section, we discuss the principles of Kingdom leadership, based on a servant model, some of which has been introduced in this series. As a potential leader it is also important for them to learn how to grow themselves. What I mean is that instead of relying on other’s materials, sermons etc, a leader of others needs to learn how to connect with God and hear from him themselves. I also introduce the importance of them developing others, introducing principles of mentoring so that they are well equipped to develop their own teams and be effective in the Body of Christ.

Then in the final three chapters of Guide 2 we focus on them as a Minister. This covers topics related to their service and calling in the Body of Christ. It begins with helping them analyze their own heart and why they want to do ministry. This is essential to one day finishing the race well. We then take a overview of God’s heart for the world  and what he has been up to throughout history. The purpose of this is to help the mentoree discover their part in his big plan. Finally, the last chapter discusses how God’s mission applies to the local church and what ministry is all about.

The Real Goal

The goal of the Guide is to help the mentoree put together their understanding of their personality and giftings, as well as motivations, passions and calling with a life of spiritual disciplines in order to be a positive influence with those around them, either as a Christian leader within the marketplace or more specifically within the Church. Each chapter is designed with content as well as discussion and mentoring questions in the margins. Typically the mentoree reads the chapter and answers the questions and then during the mentoring session, discusses issues with the mentor. As a mentor I tend to focus on the issues they are dealing with, rather than just “getting through the material.” The emphasis and questions discussed vary depending upon where the mentoree is at and what is going on in their lives. But the goal is always life transformation not just downloading information.

This model has helped many convert the good intention of mentoring into tangible action. In our next episode, we will look at a few more issues relating to the personal relationship and then discuss the third leg in the stool of this model: a small group cohort.  I think you’ll find it helpful  and hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

Can you think of someone within your sphere of influence that may be interested in spending regular time with you?

Take some time to consider in what areas you want to grow in your personal and ministry life.

Do you have an action plan or method to facilitate mentoring within your ministry? What is it?

Description

This episode provides some practical suggestions for the mentoring relationship. We all can influence others, but often don’t know how to begin or how to maintain a healthy mentoring relationship. How often should we meet? What will we talk about? What are some of the boundaries necessary in the relationship? Phil also interviews Karl, who was one of the first young men that went through the mentoring model he developed in the early 2000s in Berlin, Germany. All these years later he is now a pastor, father of four and committed to a servant leadership model and mentoring the next generation. The goal of this episode is to encourage you to take the initiative to be a mentor to someone regardless if you are in a position of leadership or not.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 8 Intro: Suggestions for a Mentor

We’ve been seeing that in Jesus’ upside down Kingdom the relationships are based on mutual submission and serving one another. Even those with leadership giftings and influence are to serve with humility not lord position and power over one another. I have made the point that this is foundational to a life-giving mentoring relationship. But how does this practically apply in our lives as a mentor and being mentored? How does this influence the relationship?

Making the Connection

This may be your first episode or you may have been with us for the whole series, but either way it’s great to be back with you again. This is Episode 8 and we want to focus on some suggestions for you as a mentor.  As I have previously mentioned, my experience has been that there are many more people who want a mentor than are willing to be a mentor to someone. My goal is to help you see that you have what it takes to be a mentor. This will not only benefit someone else, but will enrich your life in the process.

If we really want to be a leader like Jesus called us to be, then I would encourage all of us to consider taking the initiative and coming alongside of someone to help them grow and develop. The best way to serve someone is to forget about ourselves and help them to reach the goals and purpose God has for them.

But where do we start? The first thing that has to happen, of course, is that we need to connect with someone or choose someone to mentor. How do we do that? While there may be many people within our sphere that want mentoring, it is time intensive and so we can’t mentor everyone. Choices have to be made. For example, over the years I have discovered that there is a certain type of person attracted to my style of mentoring. This most likely has to do with my own history and experiences, likely my giftings and personality and so on. It’s likely going to be the same for you. We will not connect with everyone and that is just natural.

So to begin, it is helpful to identify those around us that have similar values to us and who we could imagine spending time with. There has to be a certain synergy or it is likely over the long haul the relationship will not end well. But just because we are not the best fit to mentor a particular person, it does not mean that there is not someone else that could be a fit for them. Remember, we all need a variety of mentors in our lives at any given time. But there has to be a mutual respect and we need to do our best so that the mentoree does not feel intimidated by us, which is why we need to take a servant posture rather than a spiritual giant or guru attitude.

Some Key Questions to Ask

So who is in your sphere of influence that you could spend some time with and see them grow in their leadership capacity? Well some of the questions that I ask myself in this process are, “Are the self-motivated?” Remember, we cannot change anyone, we can only create conditions for them to grow. Also, “Are they teachable  and willing to learn and grow?” “Do I see indications that they are motivated to make changes in their life?” And as I mentioned, “Can I imagine spending time with them and enjoying their company?” Considering these question can be helpful in determining who to spend our time with in a mentoring relationship.

As we identify someone to mentor, the next step is to actually approach them. It would be kind of intimidating and actually a violation of the servant leader attitude to say, “In my great wisdom, I would like to be YOUR mentor.” Kind of saying, “I would like to be the Holy Spirit, in your life. You are so lucky to have me!”  Of course we wouldn’t say that in words, but sometimes our actions could be interpreted as such.  I find that a more helpful approach is to say something like, “You know I see some great potential in you (you can list something specific) and I was wondering if you would be interesting in spending some time with me. I think I could help you grow in this area or that area” I actually don’t even use the word, “mentor, ” which can be intimidating.  With this approach, I have never  had someone say, “Nah, that’s a dumb idea!” Remember, many want to be mentored, but far fewer don’t know how to start. You taking the initiative could be a huge impact in their life.

A Personal Example

When we were living as a family in Berlin in the early 2000 I was asked by a fellow missionary to develop some materials to help train some of his young leaders. My initial notes eventually became the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guide. It was right around that time that I met a young man, who was in his early twenties and new to Berlin. I first met him at a Berlin ministerial meeting and as most young men, myself included, it was clear that he had a lot more answers than questions. While us old wizened missionaries smiled that knowing smile of, “give him a few months or years in the hard spiritual soil of Berlin will temper his enthusiasm.” Very encouraging, right?

I went home after the meeting, kind of glad I would likely not run into him much as we were in different parts of the city. But imagine my surprise when over the next few days, I began to get that unsettling feeling that God may want me to spend some time with this young man. You know the feeling you get when you know God wants you to do something you don’t really want to do. I kind of resisted, but fortunately for me, I gave in. If not I may have missed one of the great blessings in my life. You see this young man’s name is Karl and some twenty-five years later he is still part of our ministry network and is a good friend and colleague.

So I asked Karl if he would like to meet together. We began meeting every second Friday at a local coffee shop and began to discuss the twelve themes or chapters of the Guide I had developed. These were topics that I felt would be helpful to discuss with any young leader.  Since those early days as a young twenty something, Karl has gotten married, has four children – one nearly a teenager and is pastoring a church plant in what was eastern Germany. He has also travelled around the world with our teaching team since then. Yet I nearly missed out on all that by not seeing past his youth to his potential. Mentoring is about recognizing that someone has greater potential than where they currently may be at. And then helping them achieve that potential.

An Interview with Karl

Recently I had a chat with Karl and I think you’ll find my conversation with him interesting:

[Phil]Well thanks for taking the time Karl to share a few moments with our podcast listeners it seems like it was just yesterday we were meeting for coffee every Friday, or was it every second Friday I can’t remember?

[Karl] Every second Friday, yeah

[Phil]Course there was lots of coffee and lots of countries under the bridge since then of course me, but uh hey what do you remember about those days?

[Karl] The excitement of learning something new, that that was part of it. I remember I always had the train ride to our meeting and me being a little bit spontaneous, I would sometimes be reading the material on the way.

[Phil] Don’t tell me that don’t tell me that!

[Karl] Well the thing is I was always putting it in a context of I was experiencing.  I was a young leader at the time in my mid 20s and just that expectation of learning something about myself on how to grow, how to be the leader I want to be kind of be when I grow up, You know one’s own shortcomings as a leader and realizing there’s a path I need to take to get to where I want to go. I felt on my way over, when we were meeting, a lot of the topics we were talking about were about things that would help me, not just be a man but be the leader I wanted to be and be the leader I feel God has called me to be.

[Phil] Yeah I kind of joke you know my hesitancy, you’ve heard story as we’ve taught about this in different parts of the world about how I kind of joke about my hesitancy to meet you and mentoring initially. But what was your perspective on that or how did you kind of process that. I didn’t think I was that old, but probably to you here’s the old guy and what is he doing wanting to meet with me.

[Karl] Yeah I mean I did think you were an old guy, but then I realized now I’m your age when you mentored me or when our relationship started.

[Phil] That’s what 25 years will do!

[Karl] Exactly, I definitely don’t feel like the old guy and yet actually, just last week, I was in a cafe and a girl served me and said, “Oh, you’re Pastor Karl aren’t you?” And I’m like yeah. “Oh you’re my youth pastor’s mentor!” And I’m like, Oh man, like these are the things that make you feel really old right?  But how did I process that? How did I see it? I guess I was honored to be asked, that somebody wanted to invest in me, that somebody would take the time and, man I hate to say this, but at the same time, in the assurance of the call of God, I felt like thank you Lord that you see me and there’s somebody there for me. It was a confirmation, it’s a confirmation of the call that somebody is going to invest in you, and partially in humility partially hey that’s part of who I am. And in my carnality, yeah of course you’re investing into me I’m a great guy!

[Phil]  Well we all need that affirmation right? There’s enough things kicking us down and I think especially in the ministry and I think, what a gift. Now you’re experiencing that same gift right in your ministry, giving to others and so what’s your perspective now as you’re able to invest in other lives around you?

[Karl]  I love it, it’s I think part of me, it’s one of the greatest things in ministry to be able to invest into other people, on one hand expecting nothing in return, but just seeing people grow, seeing people’s gratitude, seeing people step into what God’s called them to do. When people call back in the middle of a crisis, talk to me with what they’re going through, their gratitude, their expression of gratitude and expressing, Hey I wouldn’t have made it without you. And again it’s not about trying to put it on me, that I’m thinking, You know, that’s right you never would have made it without me. That not it at all, it’s more I am so glad I get to be a part of your life I get to be with on that journey, because the people you impact, the people’s lives that you change, I never would have gotten to them. It’s a different generation, but you get to minister to them and I get to be a part of that through you and I I love that part of ministry, just expanding your influence, expanding I guess yes the authority the spiritual authority. But not in the sense of, you know of power, but in the sense of my reach of who God has called me to be is greater than what I expected, or the people I have just in front of me, it goes beyond that.

[Phil] Yeah and you know we talk about how it’s very important in our ministries to have those relationships and to invest in others and yet it’s never an emergency, right? If you’re not intentional it won’t happen and the series we’ve looking at that. And I think you know for you and the rest of us in the Ministry Coaching Network around the world that we’re engaged with and who share these same values.  I mean we’ve all realized that if we don’t do it, others may not realize it for a while, maybe five years ten years, but eventually not investing in others then, we don’t leave a legacy if we don’t invest in others.  I know there’s a time difference here between you now and the West Coast here, where you are there close to Berlin there and so it must be getting a little late there, so maybe I’ll let you go. Thanks again for taking the time and by the way, I think you owe me about 42 lattes, I don’t know how many it was, but I lost track! But I I think you probably owe me a few.

[Karl] Ya, one for or two for each chapter!

 

Determine Expectations

As we conclude our episode, perhaps I could also include a few other practical suggestions that have been helpful for me over the years. From the very beginning, it is important to establish the parameters of the relationship, identifying what we have to offer and what the mentoree is looking for. This also involves discussing expectations for the relationship. This is important, for as in any relationship, unspoken expectations can sabotage the process.

As we’ve emphasized, this type of mentoring  relationship has a specific goal, personal growth and change. Since it is intense, I find it helpful to initially commit for a certain time period, say 3 months or 6 months. This of course can be extended, but it is better to be realistic than to overcommit and not be able to follow through. The initial important matter is to understand what areas the mentoree wants to grow. The challenge is to keep the relationship fresh and not stagnating, which is why I find it helpful to regularly evaluate if it is fulfilling our purpose.

Of course, this means that the mentor has to have a clear understanding of what they have to offer. As I mentioned earlier I have noticed that a certain type of person typically is drawn to my mentoring style. This usually has to do with what they perceive I can offer them from my life experience, training and type of ministry I am involved in and so on. Each one of us are a particularly unique package. To be an effective mentor we have to take some time to reflect on who we are and what we have to offer someone. The better we know ourselves, the better we will be able to serve someone we are mentoring.

Who can you Mentor?

So we have to be honest with ourselves and the mentoree as to what we have to offer them. In a later episode we will look in greater depth at the various functions we can offer someone, but remember that we do not need to be an expert in every area. Just take the pressure off, we are not the only person or even the only mentor in a mentoree’s life – as we have discussed we do not have to perfect, a mini Holy Spirit or some spiritual giant or guru. Perhaps it’s easier to think of ourselves as an older brother/sister or even a peer coming alongside of them to help them grow in their personal and professional life. The reality is that we all have the potential to mentor a variety of people in our lifetime.

But as with many journey’s in life, the first step is often the most difficult. But I would encourage you to take the initiative. Even if you did not receive leadership this way or even if you have never had a mentor, you can mentor someone else. My hope is that this series will give you some of the tools as well as the motivation to take the initiative and see those around you with new eyes. Eyes that see the potential in others and how you can serve them by guiding them as they  fulfill the dreams and goals that God has given them. Leadership and ministry in the Body is a team sport, we need each other to get there.

As we invest in others, we will be able to one day look back with amazement at what God was able to do through our simple efforts of coming alongside of those looking for a mentor. Actually, that’s what it means to leave a legacy – the legacy is people. After all, that is all that is going to be carried forward into eternity. Everything else – titles, positions, accomplishments – all that is going to be left behind as wood, hay and stubble.

In our next episode, I will be providing some suggestion as to how to approach someone who you consider could be one of your mentors and then I’ll describe a mentoring model many of those in our Ministry Coaching Network  have been using for years. I’m looking forward to it and hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

Can you think of someone within your sphere of influence that you could invest some time in?

Considering your giftings, personality, life stage and ministry experience, what could you offer a potential mentoree?

Using the principles from this series, are you prepared to take the intuitive and mentor those that God puts in your path?

Description

In this seventh episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil shares some of the pitfalls and misunderstandings of what a mentoring relationship should include. He makes a distinction between discipleship – which ideally should be a relationship to help someone grow spiritually in their faith — and the term mentoring, which he uses to describe a relationship to help someone grow in their capacity as a leader. It includes spiritual growth, but also includes the development of the whole person. A wrong understanding of leadership, and past excesses and errors, have at times meant that others have used these types of relationship to control others and see them as a means to reach their vision. He also explains that mentoring is not about having to be perfect, a professional teacher or counsellor, nor is it a misguided spiritual fathering type of relationship. This means that in some way we all can be a mentor for someone.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 7 Intro: The Problem with “Spiritual Fathering”

In this episode we will focus our attention on making a distinction between the goals of a mentoring relationship and discipling someone in the faith. The term discipleship has become kind of fuzzy in its meaning and so we will define what it really is and how it differs from the goal of mentoring. Another potential area of confusion is the misconception that mentoring is the same as Spiritual Fathering. Let’s look at what guardrails or boundaries are needed so that mentoring relationships don’t go sideways.

The Discipleship Movement

As I had mentioned at the beginning of our series, my spiritual roots were deeply impacted by the discipleship movement of the 1970s. It was through the lives of those leading Genesis, a discipleship school in California, that I realize the ministry was about relationship and our life message. Life message means there is congruency between my personal life and what I preach to others. None of us are perfect in this, but this has been the lens through which I have viewed ministry ever since. At the time, this included accountability and disciplines, but I was fortunate that I was enrolled in a school that had a balanced approach.

Unfortunately, this was not necessarily the case for all. Some in the discipleship movement liked the feeling of controlling others and even used a superior spirituality to manipulate and make their disciples dependent upon them. If you were from that era, like me you could probably name names and may  even have a few scars to prove it.

Discipleship more than Teaching Doctrines

I believe these excesses and false teaching on the fringes of the movement, then and now, have made most churches want to steer clear from accountable discipling relationship. So in the last 50 years, discipleship and discipling has been reduced to  teaching a church member the doctrines of the church, often in something like a new members class. Nothing necessarily wrong with this, but discipling in the first century Rabbinic model was so much more.

Others did not see Jesus as just a guy aimlessly walking around the roads of Galilee, he would have been seen in the Jewish pattern of a rabbi. When he asked his disciples, to “follow me” he was confirming this rabbinic pattern where usually a rabbi would identify a few disciples to come and follow their teachings and lifestyle. In Matt. 28, he tells his disciples to then go and do the same – go and make disciples of all nations of all people groups. By the way, we were never commanded to make converts, but to make disciples. There is a difference. And this is not just for the professionals, but for all of us.

Discipleship About Life Transformation

The first century discipleship model was never about just information, but life transformation. The English word “disciple” comes from the Latin word “discipulus” which means pupil or learner and it corresponds to the New Testament Greek word “mathetes.” Being a follower of a Rabbi had a much broader application than just an academic or intellectual learning though, it had to do with life application.

The attempt to rediscover this first century discipleship with its focus on life change and transformation some fifty years ago had its flaws. For those of us close to ground zero, it was pretty intense. I can remember getting up by 3:30 AM to do my hours of prayer, bible meditation and other spiritual disciples, which included meeting with my disciple and small group applications, before going to morning classes with people like Winkie Pratney, Juan Carlos Ortiz. Like I said, I am thankful that I was not part of what in some circles almost became cult like. Due to those extremes, many distanced themselves and, as often happens, lost the benefits in the process. I believe this is why it was safer to just make discipleship a doctrinal class for new members.

But I do not believe this is a flaw in the rabbinic concept of discipleship, but rather a misapplication of accountable  relationships. As we have seen in the last few episodes, without the right heart attitude of servanthood, we will naturally control and use others to elevate our own spirituality, rather than humbly serve them. This of course is not limited to discipleship, but happens in many other relationships in the Body, which is why Jesus emphasized how the relationship in the Body were to be different from those in the world.

Since discipleship has become such a loaded (often negative) word, carrying varied meanings, I like to use the term “mentoring.” In many ways it carries a wider meaning, and is not as loaded a word in church circles. But at the same time does not contradict the biblical discipling process. Particularly in other countries and languages this has been helpful, as I have been able to infuse it with a more accurate meaning what for many was a new term.

A Rabbinic Model

I would make the case that the discipleship that Jesus practiced was a personal relationship that affected the disciple’s entire life. However, for the reasons I have outlined, it has taken on a different meaning. It usually means getting information, focusing on spiritual growth and knowing the facts about the faith. Mentoring, in our use of the term here, includes spiritual growth of course, but also encompasses every aspect of a person’s life. And to be effective, as Jesus was with his disciples, it requires an accountable relationship – walking together with someone.

Mentoring Includes Whole Person Development

So mentoring includes spiritual growth, but does not end there. It also should include helping someone deal with issues arising from those  fundamental tendencies, helping them grow as a leader and then have the tools to go and do the same with others. As you can see from the diagram, Evangelism produces believers – though as I mentioned this was never our initial mandate, our goal was to produce disciples. But I would suggest it does not end there. To help a follower of Jesus understand their giftings and place in the Body someone needs to then come alongside of them and mentor them. This is a relational process to help develop the leadership potential in others. I believe Jesus did both. It is not either/or but both/and. So for our purposes, discipleship is helping someone grow in the faith – hopefully through a personal relationship – and mentoring is helping someone grow in their Kingdom impact, again, through a personal relationship.

The focus is on self-discovery and creating a trusting relationship, to help someone take practical steps to establish new life and ministry patterns. In order to not create a co-dependent, or unhealthy, controlling relationship certain guardrails need to be in place. The obvious one, of course, is a commitment to the characteristics that we discussed in our last episode. If we don’t function in leadership according to Kingdom principles, the mentoring/discipling relationship will inevitably be unhealthy and even destructive.

Guardrails in the Mentoring Relationship

Understanding some of the other guardrails can also help us better define the kind of mentoring relationship we are talking about. Being a mentor does not mean having the type of relationship that a parent would have with their small child.  Though the mentor may have more experience in certain areas, treating an adult mentoree as a small child only creates dependence and eventually resentment – never turn out well. This approach actually will stifle leadership development, the opposite of what we are trying to do.

Not About Control

The mentor never has a right  to control or make decisions for the mentoree. This is different than what we saw in the Shepherding Movement of the 1970s. What became rather cultish was leaders who felt really spiritual and made their disciples dependent upon them for every decision such as who they were to marry and every other life choice. This may build the leader’s ego, but creates dependence on a person, not Christ. As we mentor someone we are to be helping them make good decisions based upon their own relationship with Jesus.

The mentoring model I am discussing here is more of an older brother or sister relationship. It is based upon mutual respect, rather than being a mother or father to someone, regardless of how much older or more experience the mentor may have. None of us likes the feeling of someone controlling us and making decisions for us, so why do we do this with others? We are to make other dependent on Christ, not us.

Not About Being Perfect

Another misconception is that a mentor needs to be perfect in order to mentor someone else. But as we have already discussed, vulnerability, not perfection, is required. Big difference. Not understanding this I think scares many people away from mentoring someone. We just have to be open and authentic – of course if we have the wrong idea about leadership we won’t do this. Leaders who function with Jesus’ Kingdom values have no reason to feel threatened, because they are not trying to convince people of their superior spirituality or perfection. We are free to be just who we are. Counter-intuitively, this actually produces respect. Authenticity with others actually means they will respect us more, not less.

The greater the respect in the relationship the greater will be the commitment. The greater the commitment the greater the mutual accountability. And the greater the accountability the greater the growth in the mentoree’s life. The focus is on helping someone mature and grow. This does not mean that you have to have all the answers, you are more a resource person directing them to the right contacts, ideas, resources etc. Ultimately, the mentoree must take final responsibility for their own growth.

Not Being Professional Teacher/Counsellor

I think another misconception is that to be a mentor means that you have to be like a professional teacher or counselor. While the mentoring process may include aspects of these functions, neither of these is the primary task of the mentor. Again, as mentors we are just those who walk alongside of someone as a resource person and guide them in the areas of growth they want and need, with the goal of helping them reach their personal and professional goals.

Another hindrance to mentoring is to think that we have to wait until we are old or older before we can mentor someone. But you don’t have to wait until you are an elder sage or matriarch before you pass on to others what you have learned. Of course the mentor needs to have a certain level of maturity and experience in the area that the mentoree want to learn, but having an older brother/sister model opens up the mentoring process to all of us.

Not Being a Spiritual Father

Actually, having a spiritual fathering model actually works counter to the mentoring model which I am suggesting. Typically in nature we only have one father and so this is a bit of a problematic metaphor when applied to mentoring. The reality is that we all need several types of mentors, not just one person as a father figure signifies. Having just one such person in our lives lends itself to dependency and abuse. I would suggest that, unlike mentoring, the fathering model is not reproducible in the long run.

One key passage from the Apostle Paul’s writing is often used to validate the concept of spiritual fathering. But I would suggest that has taken on a meaning never intended by him or by any leader in first century church. A few years ago, I was teaching on this subject  in a country in west Africa and an older pastor stood up and said, “Oh yes, mentoring, we have been doing that for years, but here we call in spiritual fathering.” By looking at the younger faces in the crowd and talking to a few of them afterwards, I realized that their meaning was quite different than mine. Instead of feeling empowered and released, the younger leaders felt that they better stay in their place, and were only going to be able to use their gifts when they were much older. For now they carried the bag and washed the car of their spiritual father. Sounded a lot closer to the old Shepherding heresy, than mentoring based on biblical values. What you call it is not that important, you can even use the term “mentoring” or “discipling” to control others if we don’t understand servant leadership.

Paul’s Understanding of “Spiritual Fathering”

So what was Paul meaning? The verse often used to rationalize this approach is 1 Cor. 4:15, “Even though you have ten thousand teachers [guardians] in Christ you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” Yet the context in that chapter of Paul’s remarks are that of a servant leader. In the previous fourteen verses, he outlines for the readers that they are to regard leaders as “servants of Christ.” Does not sound very top down does it? In dealing with the Corinthians, who were elevating some people in the Body over others, in verses 6-7 he asks them “How are you different than anyone else and so why should you boast if even I nor Apollus do?” Hmmm, good point Paul.

In classic Pauline irony, in vs. 8, he exclaims that it seemed that they were already reigning in the Kingdom, but without him and the other leaders, but he sure wishes they could lead with them! Paul knew it was hard to be full of oneself  lead while taking up one’s cross.  “Want to be a leader in the Kingdom,” he seems to say, “then join us in the end of the parade, become a fool for Christ, become weak, dishonored,” then he lays it on real heavy, become “scum of the earth, garbage of the world!” Okay Paul may not have been the master of the understatement, but does this sound like the elevated “spiritual fathering” we see in some circles? I think not.  I told my friends in Africa, as I have in other places, if your definition of fathering is what Paul is describing here before verse 15, carry on, but by the fruit I could tell it wasn’t. Actually what Paul is describing sounds a lot more like the kind of mentoring that we have been talking about.

Paul Did Not Contradict Jesus’ Teaching

Paul  was to be imitated as a servant, not as a lord or boss. Spiritual Fathering or whatever you call it, can come to mean more of a controlling type of relationship where a person has one “father” who guides them in the faith and, at worst, controls their decisions, at best functions as a personal lackey. The “spiritual children” of these relationships often do not feel free and released in ministry. This was obviously not Paul’s intention as it would have contradicted Jesus’ teaching. From his many other writings it is clear that he was willing to lay down his position, ministry, and even life, in order to serve others in humility.

But due to our fallen nature, even with the best of intentions, a fathering relationship often deteriorates into a top-down one where older leaders hold back the next generation. The Corinthian passage has sometimes been taken out of context and used to control others and keep them under the authority of their “spiritual father.” As we have previously discussed, Jesus addresses the core issue of the source of our authority in Matt. 23:8-12. He taught that we have only one Father and are not to call anyone on earth “father.”  The disciples were to be brothers and sisters. Oh ya, and then as their leader, he washed their feet.

Mutual Submission in Body of Christ

He affirms that all believers are to be equal servants. The title and position is not important, but rather having the attitude of Christ. Confronting our propensity for position and power, he sums it up this way, “the greatest among you will be your servant.” Position (however godly-sounding the titles) was never to be lorded over others. My experience has been that much of the teaching of “spiritual fathering” violates this principle. An older brother/sister model seems to me to better reflect Jesus’ attitude in Matt 23 as this produces life in others as they are directed to Christ, not to the person mentoring them.

A Brother/Sister Model

It allows the mentoring process to be more accessible to both mentors and mentoree, not just those who are considered seasoned leaders who are of a more “fatherly” age. It also allows for multiple mentors simultaneously, which we all need. An elder brother/sister model communicates a more accurate representation of a healthy mentoring model, where someone comes alongside of someone on the same journey, rather than an aloof expert who has all the answers.

My hope is that you see that each of us can be a mentor regardless of our age. Even if you are a teen or young adult there are always those who you can positively influence. On the other hand, the beauty of mentoring is that we never have to retire from mentoring others. We can offer this gift to others for as long as God gives us breath. In our next couple episodes I am going to provide some practical suggestions for both the mentor and mentoree in finding and guiding and mentoring relationship. As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

In your ministry or life, does discipling others include life transformation or merely transferring knowledge?

How do you think having a misguided spiritual fathering approach hinders life-giving mentoring relationships?

What are some of the important guardrails that you have put in place in order to keep your mentoring relationships healthy?

Description

In this sixth episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil shares the importance of personal development through a mentoring relationship. Mentoring is not just about passing on skills but helping a person grow in the areas of their life that may not be seen by others. These fundamental tendencies are at the core of our Personhood and are often at an unconscious level. He points out that people get hired for their skills but fired due to their fundamental tendencies. He also outlines three different levels of mentoring: Passive, Occasional, and Intensive, as well as three different types of mentoring relationships characterized by three biblical figures: Barnabas, Timothy and Epaphroditus.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 6 Intro: Mentoring for Life Transformation

We have been digging around hearts issues and reflecting on what Kingdom leadership really is and what it means to follow Jesus’ example of leading opposite to what we see around us. Now how does this apply to the specifics of an actual mentoring relationship? What does it mean to help someone develop in every area of their personhood and how is this rather unique to the mentoring process? In this episode we want to discuss how mentoring can be a vehicle to encourage and see life transformation.

Mentoring is About Others, Not Us

Mentoring is coming alongside of someone and helping them reach their goals, helping them become all that God wants them to be. It’s not about developing yes men who will help us reach our vision or goals! Now I hope that clicking is not the sound of people changing the channel! Hang in there with me, as I think you’ll find this helpful.

To finish well, as we mentioned last time, all leaders need those who will mentor them as well as offer the gift of mentoring to others. The reality is that as we invest in others, we will be challenged and grow in our own life and ministry. Remember, we are just one member of the Body, so we as leaders also need to change, not just dispensing truth to others.  Helping others grow will motivate us to keep up to date in our own spiritual, personal and ministry life.

But as we have said repeatedly, this does not just happen automatically. While it is very important, mentoring others will never seem urgent. It’s up to us to take the initiative. Perhaps it doesn’t need mentioning, but it’s important to remember that mentoring is not an event that occurs with the crowds, it happens out of sight, more in the background. This may explain why those who think that ministry is primarily a public activity don’t value it and don’t make time to do it.

Holistic Heart, Head, Hands Approach

Mentoring involves more than just teaching someone skills or how to do ministry. It actually should have a threefold balance between the Heart, Head and Hands. The heart signifies character development, instilling the love, values and passion of Christ in the leader. The head refers to knowledge acquisition, helping the mentoree develop understanding, knowledge and wisdom, finally there is also the hands, or some skill development. This should include life skills, not just ministry skills, so that they will be balanced as they seek to discover their role in fulfilling God’s plan for their life.

So then it’s about more than just skills or even theological training, rather it’s focus is the application of biblical truth in every aspect of a person – it’s all about life transformation—seeing the life of Christ formed in someone. This includes three different levels of Personal Development. Let me explain it like this. From the chart you can see three areas of personal development represented in the triangle. On the top are the Ministry or Career Skills. These are visible for others to see, signified by the red line. Everything above the line is visible to others, while everything below the line is not readably seen by others.

Visible Skills – Above the Line

The skills are the capabilities a person needs in order to be effective in their particular job or ministry. These are the abilities other’s see and they are specific to the job and not necessarily transferable to other jobs or ministries. Usually these are acquired through technical training and mentoring can play a role in helping the mentoree develop these skills.  However, as we know, it is possible to master the skills of a particular career  or ministry and yet fail in our relationships and other key areas of our life. Skills and gifting are seldom enough, or the best indicator of success.

Transferable Abilities – Below the Line

The first level below the surface  that we are not always aware of are what we call Transferable Abilities. These are the capabilities that we have that are useful in more than one specific job or ministry. For example, it could include skills such as listening, public speaking, making decisions, leading meetings and so on. Though a person may change jobs, these skills follow them to the next job because they are part of who they are. They are not even always listed in the resume. These are below the skill level and is an area of personal development that mentoring can be helpful.

Foundational Tendencies – The Deepest Level

At the deepest level of personal development are the Foundational Tendencies which we all have as part of our Personhood. These are habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that we all have developed from our earliest days of childhood. They are at the essential level of personhood and are fundamental to the other two areas. They are the most hidden and yet the most powerful area to develop if we are going to be healthy and effective leaders.

This includes skills such as receiving constructive criticism, relating to authority, having self-awareness, responding in conflict situations, being self-correcting, how one responds when in control and not in control, and so on. They tend to be at an unconscious level and so are more like tendencies than skills. They explain why a person does what they do in the other two areas. This is the most important area in determining a person’s success in life and is seldom dealt with outside of a personal mentoring relationship. Not too many people know us at this level and yet most of what we do in life stems from these deep seeded beliefs and values.

The goal of the mentoring relationship is to not just deal with skills, but to help a person become self aware and grow at this deepest level of their being. The mentor does not need to be an expert as we will see, but they can function as a resource for the mentoree to help them grow in areas they need.

Hired for Skills – Fired for Tendencies

The reality is that in most jobs, people get hired for their skills, but fired due to their tendencies. In the  CV or resume, and even in the job interview, it is easy for the candidate to cover up these tendencies. They may not even be aware of them. The focus in the interview is usually on skills and everything above the line. Less time is spent dealing with the candidate’s self-awareness, emotional health, and teach-ability. As this is true in the marketplace, my experience has been that it is not much different in the church. Our human tendency is to focus on the outward, skill, charisma, giftings, not these deeper issues.

So when it comes to staffing or even getting volunteers in the church we typically gather resumes for the position and we may even spend a few days with the potential candidate, seeing if they can preach, teach, have the skills to lead in worship and so on. Usually little time is spent to discover some of their fundamental tendencies. This makes sense, as this is hard to do outside of a trusting relationship.

What Happened to Bob?

For example, let’s say that we are on the leadership team at a church. A bright young man – let’s call him Bob – has just given his life to Jesus and is on fire in his new faith. Then as an added bonus we discover that he is very gifted musically. Excellent, a blessing from the Lord. So we ask him to join the worship team and man he really adds to mix. I mean the guitar chords he uses are like out of this world…..we are convinced that with him on the team the worship experience is going to incredible!

So pretty soon, he becomes the lead musician, oh, and did I mention his voice! Wow, its gotta be heard to be believed. Now since his skill level is so much above the rest of the team, it’s not very long before we ask him to be the team leader. After all our gifts make room for us and this eventually leads to greater influence and finally more authority, right? In any case, things are looking great in the worship department of the church.  He is young, but we are sure his charisma and off the charts skills will make up for any deficits he might have.

Well if you have been around church for any length of time, you know there is a “but” or “however” coming. You are right. Soon after being team leader, we begin to notice that on Mondays our phone begins to ring. You see other members  of the worship team are calling us. Some are in tears, others frustrated and at first we just think they are adjusting to having such a skilled leader. But then a few people quit the team and fast forward six months and one Sunday morning we look up and it’s just Bob up front with his guitar. Now, the problem or pending crisis has hit our radar.

The Problem of Focusing on Externals

We begin to meet with all the previous team members and discover that yes he was skilled musically, but his perfection, anger issues and unwillingness to listen to others has driven everyone away. Which is why he is now a one man show. It is likely we will have to ask him to step aside (a nice way of saying firing, but as we know it’s hard to fire volunteers). Of course the danger of this is that it may cause a church split….people like Bob are usually too gifted to just fade away stage left, biding their time until their character grows to the level to sustain their giftings. Of course this is the genesis of many church plants. He was hired for his skills, but fired for the issues under the surface. And we all have issues, which is why we need others.

Now you can insert a different names and varied positions, but I am sure you can identify with some version of this story. What happened? Well we focused on skills and not fundamental tendencies. For to do that we would have had to spend time with Bob, before making him team leader and maybe even before he joins the worship team. Mentoring is the best way of doing this. If we would have walked with him discovering areas in which he needed to grow we could have saved ourselves a world of hurt. We would have found out if he was teachable before releasing a role to him that would naturally increase his influence and authority. And we  could have likely avoided losing the rest of the worship team in the process and perhaps watching half of our church walk out the door. But mentoring is never urgent, though important. Yet our lack of taking the time eventually will create crises that are urgent.

Now I have painted a worst case scenario picture, but we have all seen some version of this play out in life and ministry. And you know, it’s not really Bob’s fault. He just needed someone to mentor him for a while. In the rest of this series we are going to look at practical aspects of a mentoring relationship, but the goal is always to help someone grow as a person. Now we can’t grow for them, all we can do is create the right conditions for them to make the choice to grow themselves. That is the power of mentoring. Yes it takes time, effort and vulnerability as we have seen, but the impact in someone’s life and our ministry can be dramatic and long lasting.

Three Levels of Mentoring

Some have outlined three basic levels of mentoring. These are Passive, Occasional, and Intensive. No need for us to get into the weeds on each of these, but let me quickly outline them for you.

The one that requires the least amount of effort and accountability is passive mentoring. In this scenario we may never even meet the mentor, perhaps only influenced by reading a book or listening to a podcast. This could be a contemporary of ours or perhaps an historical figure that has inspired us. This is helpful, but not really an accountable relationship. And without accountability there often limited growth. For the purposes of our series here, I am not primarily thinking about this type of passive relationship.

Now Occasional mentoring refers to mentoring that is not as regular or intensive and yet is more proactive than passive. Often it is for specific times or purposes.  It could take the form of being a counselor providing advice for specific problems or challenges, or perhaps like a teacher passing on specific knowledge on a particular subject. It may even take the form of a sponsor who provides guidance and protection for the mentoree as they grow and progress in the organization. While we all need these types of mentors in our lives, this again will not be the main focus for our discussions.

This Series Focus

The most intentional and deliberate mentoring relationship is the Intensive mentoring relationship. This requires the greatest amount of engagement and accountability, but also produces the greatest opportunity for growth in the mentoree’s life. This personal relationship can include teaching a person the disciplines of following Christ, which we will talk more about in our next episode. For our purposes it will be used to describe not only helping a mentoree grow spiritually, but also in each area of their personhood, from ministry skills to foundational tendencies.

As we have briefly discussed in previous episodes, mentoring is never an emergency and so without developing some kind of wineskin or structures in our life, it will likely not happen. Add to this the energy it takes to break free from the inertia of negative leadership patterns that we have borrowed from the world, and the reason not much real mentoring is happening starts to become evident. We need to have a transformation of heart to see Jesus’ Kingdom leadership values and then we need to develop models in our lives to make that happen.

Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships  Model

This is why after teaching about mentoring I went a step further and developed a one year model called Mentoring thru Intentional Relationship which you can get from our website. This provides a one to two year guide to help someone mentor another person.  As we have seen, there are several types of mentoring relationships, but what we are talking about here is a particular type of relationship that has the main intention of helping someone understand and implement Kingdom principles in their lives – so that they can be effective and reach their potential.

Three Types of Mentoring Relationships

We looked at three levels of mentoring relationships, but we each also need three types of mentoring relationships in our lives if we are going to finish well. These can be characterized by three biblical characters: Barnabas, Timothy and Epaphraditus. Barnabas is a model of someone who saw potential in others  and encouraged them. In a future episode we will be discussing his contribution as a mentor of a young, at the time, unknown upstart.

Each of us also needs a Timothy, or someone with whom we can share and help them grow in life and ministry. And finally Epaphroditus, which was a friend of Paul and part of his early ministry team. These are peer relationships we can enjoy as learn from in our own life and ministry. We will look at these in greater detail, but do you have Barnabas in your life, an upward mentor that is investing in your life? How about a Timothy, someone who you are investing in, or an Epaphroditus, a peer mentor that you are walking the journey of life with?

In future episodes we will look at the dynamics of all these types of mentoring relationships, but at this point we just need to be reminded that we need a variety of mentoring relationships in our lives if we are going to grow and continue to be effective in the Kingdom. Our focus in this series will be an intentional personal relationship, but even this type of relationship has certain boundaries as we will see.

As I mentioned at the very beginning of Episode One, when a term morphs into meaning everything than it actually  often ends up meaning nothing. If we put the label “mentoring” on virtually any type of relationship it loses its real meaning and power. While these principles are transferable to other relationships, I want to share some of the dynamics of a specific mentoring relationship, which as the purpose of developing a potential leader. We all have it within our power to mentor others. We can make the effort by taking the time to develop others, even if we may never have had this opportunity ourselves.

In our next episode we are going to define mentoring by looking at what it is not, focussing on discipling and spiritual fathering. This will be helpful in understanding what we are looking for in a mentor and what we have to offer someone we are mentoring. As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

How has the lack of focusing on the development of the whole person affected your ministry? What crises could have been avoided?

Do you, or have you had, Passive, Occasional, and Intensive mentoring relationships?

Do you have a Barnabas in your life? Do you have a Timothy? How about a Epaphroditus?

Description

In this fifth episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil shares the key five characteristics a needs to exemplify to be an effective mentor after the model of Jesus. These include focusing on people and not position, releasing rather than controlling, being vulnerable and accountable and developing others rather than just gathering a following. These are all based on a servant leadership model which is necessary to mentor others. Life and ministry is a marathon and not a sprint and these attributes will help the leader finish the race well. Without this attitude and corresponding behaviours, it is likely what the leader will burn out, blow out or just fizzle out.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 5 Intro: Applying Servant Leadership

We have been discussing the heart of a mentor and have realized that biblical leadership is based upon Jesus upside down Kingdom. He modeled how different leadership was to be from the institutions in which we as the Church – the people of God — are embedded. So this is a heart transformation issue for all Christian leaders. Otherwise we tend to gravitate towards power based, ego driven leadership, rather than servant leadership. But what does servant leadership really look like in practical terms in our lives and organizations? That is the topic of this episode.

Five Leadership Characteristics

Now before we get too deep into the episode, I would like to just encourage you to take advantage of the free assessments we have provided. These are a tool to help us reflect on our own life, as well as spark a discussion with someone that we are mentoring or being mentored by. The servant leadership assessment uses questions to get at the heart of what we have been talking about the last couple episodes and there are two Mentoring Assessments. One is for you as an the individual and helps you to discover what your current Mentoring Quotient is…..but don’t worry, wherever we are at we can always grow as this is a learned skill. There is also a Mentoring Assessment for Organizations, which addresses the need to change our ministry wineskins if we are going to create environments conducive to mentoring types of relationships.  To download them just use the link in the description box and I hope you will find them helpful for you and your team members.

So, we have been talking about the lofty Kingdom values of this upside down leadership, but what does that look like in our everyday life and ministry? As I mentioned before, NOT too many people are going to argue against the concept of servant leadership, but walking it out is where it gets difficult for most of us. Yet without some practical application the danger is that it will just be theological truth we agree with. What does it really look like? My list here is not exhaustive, but I’d like to share five leadership  characteristics that I believe need to be evident in a mentor’s life.

1. Relationship versus Position

As we saw last time, Jesus’ model of leadership had little to do with title and position. Kingdom leadership is about relationship versus position. The reality is that we can use our gifts and calling to influence others to see them succeed even beyond us. We don’t have to be the cork in the bottle! It’s about developing others, not creating a hierarchy where we are in control. As I mentioned last time, top-down leadership, with its focus on power and control eventually implodes upon itself.

At the end of the day, people don’t want to be controlled, people want to be developed and released to fulfill their potential. That is why it has a short shelf life. People may celebrate the strong man/woman in the beginning (remember, We want a King like the other nations) but eventually this gets old, because it becomes all about the leader serving themselves and increasing , not decreasing so others may increase. Kind of wears people out.

Flattening the Learning Curve

As this relates to mentoring, instead of being threatened or jealous, mentors should celebrate mentoree’s success. Now just a quick side note,  I use the term, “mentoree” not “mentee” – for no deep theological  reason, I just like the way it sounds and have used it for the last 25 years…..of course use whatever you like, protégé, mentee.

Our goal is to flatten the learning curve of the person we are mentoring, so that they will not have to make all the same mistakes we did….remember we all have to make our own mistakes, but none of us have a long enough life (even if we live to 100) to make all the mistakes possible. This is why we need mentors who have walked the road ahead of us. The goal is to help those we mentor mature in less time than it took us. Often though, existing leaders have the mentality, “It took me twenty years to get to where I am, I am going to make sure it take you at least that long!”

“Going to School” on Someone

For you armchair golfers out there, let me use a golfing analogy. For example, we talk about  “going to school” on someone else’s putt. If the path of my ball is close to my opponent, and they are ahead of me, I can get behind them (I don’t recommend getting in front of them!), and watch them putt and see how their ball reacts to the slope, the grain of the grace and so on. It’s called  “going to school” on their putt. I like that. In life, I am always looking for those I can go to school on, those who are ahead of me in some area of life or ministry. Clearly, power based leaders are too threatened to open their lives for others to learn from, which is why it is unlikely that they will mentor anyone. Why would they want to allow you to go to school on their life….they want to keep that a secret so that they can either impress you or maybe keep you in your place.

2. Releasing versus Controlling others

Another Characteristic of mentors is a willingness to open doors for others, not close them. Mentoring is all about releasing not controlling others. However if we have the wrong understand of leadership, we will feel threatened in our position and so will fight to keep it — kind of like children playing who is King of the hill. A pyramid structure of leadership fosters this attitude. These type of leaders have never allowed the Lord to break them of their pride, ego and ambition. Like I mentioned before, not the type of person I want to be mentored by.

A servant leader though never has to fight in their own wisdom and strength for what God has given them. The reality is that someone can take our position, church or organization….but it is impossible for them to take our ministry or influence. Once we realize this, we don’t have to fight to keep our position or place in the Body. Now, full disclosure,  I still have printed business cards, I know some of you may not even know what these are, they are kind of a left over from the 20^th century. But on my card it states our organization, my name, and title, President  and even a PhD behind my name. Very impressive.

So every morning when I wake up and am figuring out what to do for the day, do I have to refer to the card? You know, look at it read my title and position and then think ….ah yes I should do something befitting a president with a doctorate today! No, not really, actually I don’t even use these any more. The card is a reflection of what I do, not the driver or motivation of what I do.

Mixing up Position with Function

If we get position and function backwards, we’ll expend lots of energy and fight to keep our position. But as I said, someone can wrestle the organization and even my title from me (trust me it has been tried)…..but what would I do the next morning. Likely the same thing I have always done….write, teach, invest in others….you see these things are who I am, I don’t need a position or title to do them.  People can take our church or our organization, but they can never take away your God-given ministry. Once we realize this, we will never need to feel threatened and have to fight to keep what God has given us.

This means holding the trappings of leadership loosely. If we hold them too tightly we will likely hinder the development of the next generation rather than releasing them. This is particularly true as we age and fear becoming obsolete and irrelevant. How many leaders do we know who out of fear are not letting go? If we mentor others throughout our life and release them, as with my discussion regarding true authority, we will never run out of a meaningful function – even if we no longer have a title or business card! That should all be kind of irrelevant for the ministry God has given us.

3. Vulnerable and Authentic versus Pride

A third characteristic of a mentor is to be we willing to be vulnerable as we  authentically live out our lives and minister to others. Last episode we went into detail on this point but just a reminder here, Paul taught us in Phil. 2 to follow Jesus’ example and take on the nature of a servant. Peter followed this up by teaching us that it is our responsibility to humble ourselves….we must step off the throne, even if  others are chanting, “We want a King like the other nations!”

Jesus’ impressive authority was balanced by his equally impressive vulnerability. It’s interesting that it is said of Jesus, that he made of himself no reputation – he was not too concerned about what others thought of him. If you missed the last episode on this topic it might be worth going back and listening to it. Not sure about you, but I need to almost daily be reminded of this! The old fallen man keeps raising his proud, wizened head! I don’t want to make it sound like it is easy to pull this off, it’s not. As we saw last time, without Christ living within its impossible and even with his help we may have to fight the battle between the old and new man that Paul talked about, for the rest of our lives.

Risky Leadership

I probably should also mention at this point that this type of leadership is pretty risky. You don’t have to look any  further than what happened to Jesus. Betrayed by a close confidant, misunderstood, his reputation in tatters, oh ya, and then he dies an humiliating death by his enemies on a cross. None of that sounds like fun or particularly grand leadership activities. Yes, it’s a risk to step off the podium and take up our cross, particularly dying to our own ego and pride! But that is exactly where Jesus is asking us to join him.

But I would suggest that the flip side is also true. It is a real risk to our physical and emotional health and spirituality to hide who we are behind achievements, titles, positions and even pseudo-spirituality. In that scenario, we have to hide our faults, weaknesses and even failures….living a rather artificial existence. And because we were never meant to live like that, it eventually falls apart. In time the cracks show and if we have not humbled ourselves — others, circumstances,  or our own weaknesses will do the job for us. My experience is that’s usually a lot more painful. Not allowing others to put us on a pedestal saves us from a spectacular fall someday.

4. Accountability versus Independence

The danger for many leaders, and actually all of us, is to avoid accountability at all costs. You see it is accountability with others that will keep our feet firmly tethered to reality so that we can focus on people not our position or accomplishments. It is accountability that will help us stay vulnerable and authentic. Bobby Clinton’s classic leadership study years ago indicated that 70% of leaders do not finish their race well.

This race of life is a marathon not a sprint. I think I’ve mentioned that when I started out, I thought it was more of a sprint. I was 17 when I went to college and man was I going to change the world. Well most of my 20s were spent on the proverbial shelf….I had the training, was ready to go, but God seemed to forget where I was. And for the record, his school is much tougher than any schooling I have been through. I was ready to change the world and make my mark but God was more interested in changing me. This did not happen on a sandy beach,  but exiled to doing construction, mostly in rain, on the west coast, oh yes, and sprinkled with a generous dose of personal tragedies. If you are interested in some of those stories, you can get our book, Roads less Travelled.

Life a Marathon – Not  a Sprint

I am sure like me, you have also noticed that life is more of a marathon. Everyone starts the race, but not everyone finishes it with their faith or sanity intact! That is why we have to willing to enroll in God’s school, the curriculum is tailor made for each of us. It is there where he forms us into the person who has the character that can handle our giftings and authority, without spiritually abusing others or making it all about us. As we discussed last time, authority in the Kingdom does not make us aloof or distant from others, but rather willing to lay our lives down for others, as Jesus modelled for us. That takes more than gifting, that takes character….which takes a lifetime to develop. God is more concerned with who I become than what I can do for him.

But to develop accountable relationships, we have to be intentional….they just don’t happen because we get out of bed in the morning. The wise leader will not wait until the waters of crisis are upon them before developing such relationships. Now this takes more than just being part of a small group that talks about sports….or even theology. As me, I am sure you know leaders who have fallen morally – or some other way – and yet many of them we discover we even part of a small group. How can this be?

Being Real with Others

Like learning to preach without walking the walk during the week, it’s easy to get proficient at looking accountable, but not really be open to others speaking into our lives and allowing them to really hold us accountable. Do you have someone, besides your spouse, who can ask you the tough questions? If not you are on real dangerous ground as a person and as a leader. I have a few guys in my life who I give the permission to ask me the tough questions of  even my personal life. While this is not always comfortable, the alternative is much more dangerous.

We are all imperfect, so we may as well own it, accepting God’s grace and the grace of a few trusted others. This is a safety for me and I would encourage you to cultivate this same safety net in our life. It is the only way to finish the race well. A couple years ago I wrote a personal study on Finishing the Race and if you would like to go through that you can download it from our website. You can also check out that podcast series as it is available. Are we fostering accountable relationships in our lives as a preventative measure for ourselves as well as those we lead? Remember, it’s too late to dig a well once we start to feel thirsty.

5. Developing Others versus Gathering a Following

A fifth and final characteristic of effective mentors that we will look at today, was also touched upon last time a little bit, but let me expound. This has to do with developing others, versus just trying to gather a greater following for ourselves. This is what I always have found interesting about Jesus’ ministry. He only had a short time – about three years — but instead of focussing on developing a following or gathering crowds, he took a very unconventional approach to leadership.

In John chapter 6 we see Jesus feeding the 5000 and the food was so good that that they wanting to make him King on the spot! I wonder how many of us would have willingly consented, I mean perfect timing, right, there is a crowd and they want us. But as was his habit, Jesus disappears into the mountains by himself. Later on that night he walks across the lake only for the crowd to follow him the next day. In 6:26 He tells them that really all they are after is the free food, not relationship with him. He saw right through their motivation.

He then continues by explaining that he is the Bread of Life and then ended with the rather cryptic verse 51, “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Of course this started a firestorm of arguments by his Jewish listeners. In classic fashion though, Jesus, instead of trying to clear things up and settle things down, he makes it worse by saying, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.” I am sure at this point, Peter was doing the first century equivalent of rolling his eyes. Really Jesus, How are we going to get a movement going if you keep driving people away. Don’t you know the first thing about marketing and Creating a Movement 101?

Jesus Goes Deeper not Wider

Sure enough, the inevitable happened in verse 60, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Again, instead of clearing things up, Jesus doubles down in the next few verses, seemingly making things worse. In verse 66, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” These were followers, not just fringe bystanders. He then turns to the twelve and asked them if they too want to go. Of course Peter, likely still a bit shaken himself from the turn of events, offers less than a ringing endorsement, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Thanks Peter. Interesting response from Jesus though, “Yes I have chosen you, but don’t get too full of yourself, he seems to be saying, for after all, one of you is a devil….and maybe not sure about the rest of you…..”

A Great Long Game

Throughout his ministry there were times when it looked like Jesus could have capitalized on his popularity to really become a person of influence….you know for the good of the Kingdom of course.  Instead, over and over, he not only does not seize the moment, but actually works counter to becoming the Messiah we hope he is. Jesus was never enamoured by the crowds, he was the opposite of a co-dependent leader. I would suggest that his focus was on developing leaders – the disciples – never focused on gathering a following. Kind of lousy short term plan, actually, but a great long game. In the Kingdom, successful leadership is measured by how many others we develop, not how many followers we may have at any given time. Something every pastor has to remind themselves every  Monday morning.

The application to our own ministries is painfully obvious isn’t it? How much time do we invest in developing others versus how much time do we spend trying to have a bigger ministry. Of course, we rationalize that it’s all for the Kingdom, we need to get the message out right? The world needs the Good News right? But Jesus never seemed too concerned about that. He always went deeper, before he went  wider. Imagine what the church would be like today if we were more like this.

So there you have it, five characteristics of a mentor, all based on Kingdom values. With this foundation, next time we want to begin to drill down into the actual mentoring process, which will occupy most of our remaining episodes. I am looking forward to and..  as always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

In your role as a leader, do you release ministry or try to keep others under your control? How does your approach affect your ability to mentor?

Do you have authentic, accountable relationships? Is there someone, besides your spouse, to whom you can be completely honest and knows how you are personally doing?

Is most of your time spent developing others or building a bigger ministry. Gathering followers or investing in the non-Urgent task of mentoring others? How would your priorities and values need to change to follow Jesus’ model?

Description

In this fourth  episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil explains the difference between authority and power and how one is life-giving and the other controls rather than empowers and releases others. This is central to understanding that the relationships in the Body of Christ are completely different to the ones in the institutions in which we are embedded and living. In the Body, there is to be no hierarchical structures – different functions, yes – but unlike in the world we are not to lord position and power over others, particularly under the guise of spirituality. He then makes the application from Jesus’ teaching and its importance in order to be effective in mentoring others.

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If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

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The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 4 Intro: Authority versus Hierarchy

We have been looking at how Jesus’ model of leadership was counter cultural in his day as well as pretty much every culture since. We are beginning to see that to develop others through an open honest mentoring relationship we will need a new attitude and perspective on leadership. But if there is no hierarchy in the body of Christ, how do we explain the passages on authority in the Church and what seems to be different levels of leadership? And how does this fit with Jesus’ teaching?

“We want a King like the other nations!”

We have been looking at Jesus’ teaching regarding leadership and how in his Kingdom there is to be no hierarchy of relationships, unlike the prevailing cultures around us. Of course, there is a variety of functions and gifting in the body, but unlike the Gentiles, we are not to lord position and power over each other. Actually, those with influence are to use it in a completely different way. For others, rather than for themselves.

There are some positive examples of this even by leaders in the Old Covenant. We think of men such as Moses with Joshua or Elijah with Elisha. Unfortunately, they seemed more the exception than the rule. A few prominent negative examples quickly come to mind, for example,  King Saul. You remember him, tall, good looking, square jaw….the type of guy you want to be your captain or leader.

Well, no big surprise, so did the children of Israel. Remember “We want a king like the other nations!” We want to impress everyone with our leader and the prestige of a real nation. Seems not too much has changed. Now, as then, God was not impressed and was on the record against this ill-fated desire.

It seems that Saul fit the mold pretty good. You get the feeling that he knew he stood a head taller than everyone…..and really like it. Though he started out good and rather humble by the current cultural standards, by the end power had corrupted even him. Maybe within his context and given who he was he didn’t have much of a chance. But after some 40 years on the throne, it became clear that it was going to be hard to wrestle the crown from his clenched, bony fingers. So when the game was up, empowering the next generation and releasing them was not really in his DNA….as we’ll see, that might be a bit of an understatement of the day.

Do Kings Typically Mentor Others?

Let’s look at the story from a mentoring perspective. As the first king of Israel there would have been no more likely candidate to teach the next king what it meant to be king. But in those days and let’s be honest it’s pretty similar today, people in power rarely give it up willingly. Instead of mentoring the next generation, he – like many other leaders – had a rather unique technique. I’ll give you a clue…. it involved sharp spears and moving targets.  Now granted he was a product of his time…..as we are….so instead of dying to self as the Messiah would one day teach, he felt threatened and tried to skewer the next generation to the palace wall. Of course that being young David.

In future episodes we are going to learn some lessons about mentoring from David’s point of view, but we do see here that even though he probably learned a few things from dodging spears…..maybe similar lessons to what you learn from getting dumped in the middle of the lake as we saw before. But the resilience to learn things is not an affirmation of the methodology. Though some survive the deep end , or in this case dodging spear, it’s not exactly an ideal way to learn leadership is it?

Of course, we like to think of ourselves as quite different from these examples.  After all, it’s the 21^st Century and we have evolved, right. Well maybe not so much. In the various countries where I have been able to serve over the years, I have noticed a striking similarity when it comes to leadership culture in most society. Whatever name you put on it, even nice Christian names like pastor, bishop, elder, there is an eerie similarity to how we do leadership in the church compared to the society we are embedded in. We might be a little more like King Saul than we want to admit.

(Fallen) Cultural Models

In the African context, there is a history of the chief of the tribe and so pastors and church leaders tend to be the chief of their flock, in Latin American cultures, the prevailing model is that of a macho man or the strong man. While in other contexts, admired leaders tended to be in the form of a general, so churches are run with the command ad control precision of the military. Now we in western cultures we have our own type of leader we admire and its typically the famous person, or perhaps a business  CEO.

Different models, but basically the same heart. The last two thousand years of church history tells the tale of how we have taken what were to be mere functions within the church – intended to equip the saints – and turned them into hierarchal offices with positions, titles and power. We read back into Eph 4 something the original author never could have intended or he would been contradicting Jesus’ basic teaching on the subject. In my “Fivefold Ministry” series I dig a bit deeper into that specific topic.

Is it much Different in the Church?

But for now, I think we all could agree that many of our leadership models in the church are pretty close to what we see in the world, just with different titles….but as the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, guess what….it’s probably a duck!

Now of course we are a bit more sophisticated, after all we have evolved, so we use nice biblical titles but often if our hearts have not transformed there is not much difference as to how leadership looks in the church and the world around us. But what is really dangerous is that when we implement Christian leadership with a “I am the leader who speaks for God” type of mentality, it creates the perfect conditions for spiritual abuse, turning people away from not only the church but God himself. I am sure you can think of many contemporary examples, I don’t have to provide names and dates here. I just never want to one of them.

So we need to consider the idea of authority and power and how they interrelate. I would suggest that there is a difference. Biblical authority is light years away from to use Jesus’ words “power as the Gentiles exercise.” Power is a zero-sum game, if I give some of my power to others, then I will have less. Every politician around the world knows this intuitively which is why they fight to hang on to it once they got it. It’s on page one of every Dictator’s Handbook for Success.

Difference Between Authority and Power

However, authority is quite different. Authority is not life-sucking, but life-giving if used correctly. As we develop others and release authority and responsibility  to them, we grow a bigger pie rather than just trying to slice up our little pie. An amazing thing happens, as they grow and mature, we have actually more influence and hence more authority to give away.

Let me explain it like this. As we use your gifts, they make room for us in the body of Christ; we are meeting a need. As others benefit from our God-given gifts our influence will naturally increase. Now this measure of influence then creates a certain measure of authority and responsibility and can even lead to others giving us a title or position. But, and this is an important but, true biblical authority does not necessarily have to lead to relationships controlled by hierarchical power and structures. Remember Jesus’ words, “with you it should not be so”.

The issue becomes, what will we do with the authority that we have gained by exercising our gifting and callings? Will we use it to benefit ourselves or use it to serve and help others, even if this means having a lesser role. As John the Baptist said, “I must decrease so that he will increase”. Kind of revolutionary, eh? But this is the only way to remain a healthy part of the body rather than some isolated “king” or whatever you want to call it.

Authority Balanced by Vulnerability

Perhaps this graph can help to visually describe this process. There are four quadrants with the vertical axis signifying a continuum in the degree of authority a person has and the horizontal axis the degree to which we have made ourselves vulnerable. In order to reflect Jesus’ leadership model, God-given authority in our relationships must be balanced with this thing called vulnerability. I have found it quite interesting over the years that many languages don’t have one word that really reflects the meaning. I wonder why that is?

To be vulnerable encompasses the meaning of being authentic, but also includes the idea of potential and willingness to be hurt and wounded. Not something most leader’s are attracted to, yet it is an indispensible ingredient to any relationships based on love. Remember in the Body leaders are just like all members in this regard. If we are unwilling to be hurt we will not be able to fully love. And the relationships in the body of Christ are to be based on love  – “they will know that you are my disciples by your love.”

Leaders in the church are part of the Body like everyone else. They are not on a pedestal or above others in the body. This false hierarchy that we have created is not only bad for the Body, but it also puts unhealthy pressure on leaders who are trying to live their own spirituality on their own. All of us are only healthy in community.

No Vulnerability = Authoritarianism

Without this attitude of vulnerability our hearts will inevitably become hardened. Having open honest relationships is essential for healthy leadership. Being vulnerable means having others that you can be open and honest with. Instead of being on a pedestal our platform ministry aligns with our personal life. So no need to hide. We don’t have to pretend we are more spiritual than everyone else.

So in the Body of Christ, the more gifting and influence one has the more vulnerable one must be willing to be or human nature (sin) will lead us to authoritarianism, rather than servant leadership. Instead of grace in serving others, we will use our authority to either show others how great we are or manipulate them to achieve our vision.

Remember  the story of the Apostle Paul ? He writes to the early church that because he had been given so many revelations and giftings, God had told him that he was going to have to live with a thorn in the flesh. We are not sure what it was exactly, but we do know he didn’t like it and it was uncomfortable. Its purpose was to keep him humble so that he would not  use his authority to abuse others – as we know, a temptation for all of us but particularly the multi-gifted among us.  It’s hard to think of yourself more highly that you should ……with a thorn sticking in your side …. and others seeing it.

We don’t have time here to get into the details here, but I never want to be under leadership or mentored by someone that does not show me their scars. Even Jesus, our Master Mentor did not hide his scars after the cross. He actually displayed them as a confirmation of his authority….remember Thomas….touch my hands, my side….That’s vulnerability.

If we respond correctly, this vulnerability keeps us humble, A requirement for those who want to be great in Jesus’ Kingdom. Actually our long term effectiveness as a leader is directly related to our willingness to humble ourselves as Peter tells us to do. Doesn’t mean we are a doormat or think bad of ourselves, just means we don’t have to convey a sense of pseudo-spirituality in our leadership.

Jesus’ Upside Down Leadership

In this upside down kingdom e don’t have to look any further than our great leader, Jesus….remember Phil 2….He intentionally took on the nature – not just pretending, but the actual nature of a servant. Why? To stay humble and vulnerable to be an example for us. Don’t know if you can get more vulnerable than hanging naked on a cross strung up between heaven and earth. His authority came from what he suffered, not heavenly titles and positions. Can’t imagine it should be any different for us.

So back to the graph, the more authority, gifts etc that we have been given, the more vulnerable we’ll have to be in order to serve others. Rather than using our gifts to get what we want from others or even to get people to help us with OUR vision.  That is represented by Quadrant 1. The only way to be a servant leader is to keep our giftings and authority tethered to an authentic humble view of ourselves. My experience is that it usually takes less than ideal circumstance in order to keep me dead to self. Maybe you can do it, but I have never learned that on a nice sunny beach somewhere.

A Pebble in our Shoe Keep us Humble

We may have good intentions as leaders, but the combination of our fallen nature, growing up in a fallen culture with its societal institutions, makes maintaining a Kingdom mentality difficult. Well, actually, let’s be honest, in our ourselves, it’s impossible. Christ living within and transforming us is the only way. Even when those around us may be saying, “We want a King like the other Nations!”

So God in his love for us graciously provides us a thorn in the flesh. Instead of trying to pray it away or developing ways of hiding it, we need to get to the place where we embrace it like Paul did. Though the pattern of the world around us squeezes us into thinking that this represents weakness, it is actually the means to show Christ’s strength. Jesus actually was glorified through and because of the cross.

False teachers  and power leaders are basically allergic to vulnerability and authenticity. I like to call them co-dependent leaders. They feel they need to project strength so that people will need them, and this reinforces to others a wrongheaded concept of leadership. But the expansion of the Gospel and growth of the Church is not dependent upon leaders who need fans or people who are emotionally dependent upon their leaders looking like a strongman. This is unhealthy and produces unhealthy leaders. Power leadership does not reproduce life.

Walking the Walk

Well how again does this all apply to mentoring? If we are a leader who is focuses on maintaining the externals of leadership to prove to everyone how great we are….it is likely we will not mentor others. Now it is fairly easy to preach a sermon and maybe even years worth of sermons without anyone knowing if we are applying all the truth we are preaching – it’s pretty easy to talk the talk without walking the walk. But this is impossible to do in an authentic mentoring relationship. This may explain why many leaders opt for preaching over mentoring. Mentoring by definition means opening up our life, being vulnerable, and leaders focused on title and protecting image will generally not do this.

So instead we hide behind our titles, positions, accomplishments rather than living open authentic lives. Yet the irony is it is just those types of lives that the next generation needs and wants to see. Unless they get close enough to an authentic leader, how will they learn what authenticity in the Body looks like? One of the greatest gifts I can give someone I am mentoring is to show them my scars – these are actually where our authority and life giving power come from.

In these introductory  episodes in this series we have focused on the heart of leadership and how it relates to mentoring. We discovered that we need a revolutionary change in our thinking and priorities otherwise we are just trying to implement a program without the power to reproduce Christ’s life in others. Becoming a mentor begins with a transformational change in the values and priorities of our leadership, so that we view leadership the way Jesus did. Instead of just focussing on techniques and skills – we will get to that – I have found it most important to begin with heart issues.

Next time we are going to look at some attributes of biblical leadership and why these are so necessary in order to mentor others. As I’ve mentioned before, we reproduce who we are, we reproduce after like kind. Since others will be picking up what healthy leadership is through our attitudes and actions, it’s going to be really important to re-evaluate our own leadership values before we reproduce them in others. As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

Have you had to struggle with others putting you on a pedestal, “wanting a king like the other nations”? How do you deal with this?
As you reflect on your current leadership role, in what ways do you rely on your gifting and position to motivate and mobilize others?
Finally, how willing are you to exemplify leadership that is willing to be vulnerable and pull back the curtain to show others the scars that made you into the person that you are?

Description

In this third episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil shares what he believes is the main barrier to leaders mentoring others. It is not the lack of a particular skill or strategy, but rather a heart issue of what biblical leadership is all about. Without the attitude of Christ, that of a servant, it will be virtually impossible or at least very unlikely that someone will be a mentor to someone else.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 3 Intro: The Major Barrier to Mentoring

From my experience there is one major barrier that hinders leaders from mentoring others and creating a culture of mentoring within their church or organization.  You might be surprised to discover that this is not really due to a lack of a particular skill or even a strategy failure. No, this is much deeper and really cuts to the heart of the matter of what biblical leadership is and who we are…..it is a matter of heart. Without this it is virtually impossible to mentor others as Jesus did.

Jesus’ Counter-Cultural Model

Last time we discussed a couple key barriers to developing a mentoring lifestyle in our leadership and ministry. However to really make a change in our priorities and focus requires a deep transformation of our hearts and not just a bit of tinkering around the edges.

As we have been learning, Jesus’ type of leadership was very counter cultural, both in his time and in the 2000 years since. I have lived in both Africa and Eastern Europe and have had the privilege to be with leaders from Eurasia to Latin America…. And I have yet to find a culture that values Jesus type of leadership. In all of our cultures, our tendency is to use power to serve ourselves and our own interests, rather than others. I think it’s just part of our fallen human condition.

All Cultures Impacted by the Fall

It is an inescapable reality that all of human cultures and institutes have been affected by Sin and the Fall. No exceptions. So, without transformation, even our religious and church institutions are impacted  by the same virus. If we as leaders are not intentional to have our hearts and minds renewed in terms of our leadership style, just as our life needs to be renewed, it’s very likely that our carnal self will take over. I know that is not great news for some.

But once we become followers of Jesus he begins to change us in every area to be more like him. As Rom. 12: 1-2 teaches, we need to have our minds renewed so we not conform to the patterns of the world. As leaders in the Body we are not exempt or above this process. Preaching and teaching others does not mean we do not need to have the Word change our sinner’s heart.

And this must also include our understanding and application of biblical leadership. Each of our cultures have been impacted by the Fall and so they all have a misguided understanding of what the real purpose of leadership is. Instead of a servant leadership approach that lays down its life and serves others for their better-meant, in our fallenness we tend to be are competitive, driven my our selfish motives and ego.

Heart Transformation Required

So if this heart transformation does not take place, even us leaders within Christian organizations will model the values and principles of leadership taken from the fallen culture around us. Though we may be growing and maturing in some areas of our life, without a heart change in this area our leadership will not look much different than the institutions in the fallen societies us.

In our discussion here, I would like to link this transformation of our leadership directly to the topic of mentoring. As I have interacted with thousands of leaders, it has been my experience that without a renewed leadership model that is based on Jesus’ model, it’s really tough to come alongside of others in a mentoring relationship. What do I mean?

What Does Servant Leadership Look Like?

Well to begin with, let’s review what we mean by Jesus’ model of leadership. This does not mean that we have no real vision or direction or that we have no boundaries in our lives and ministry. I think we all would agree that Jesus was the greatest leader of all time — and you might believe a lot of things about Jesus — but being weak and a wimp is not one that comes to mind. Jesus arrive on the scene 2000 years ago and displayed a bottom up leadership that was focussed on serving others, it was not about him using power and position to gain advantage for himself.  And let’s remember who he was…..he WAS the Son of God, he had some serious weight he could have thrown around. But he never did.

The classic illustration of what this new leadership was to look like was Jesus stooping down and washing the feet of his disciples — something only a lowly servant would have done in that culture. He was the Messiah, yet he was showing his disciples what biblical leadership really looked like. Of course it was a pretty tough sell in that culture. The disciples were much like us, they had been affected their whole life by the societal structures around them.

Have you ever thought of what it would have been like to be one of the 12 disciples? I don’t know about you, but I think I would have been happy to just be one of the twelve….I mean I probably would have been happy to be one of the 70 or even 500, to be honest……but one of the twelve, are you kidding me!?

And I am sure that was the case for them in the beginning. At times they probably looked at each other and thought….okay there are twelve of us, there’s twelve tribes of Israel, I might not be a math genius but when Jesus began talking about the Kingdome, they could see how the numbers were lining up.

They knew enough of the Torah, including the prophets, to figure out what that meant. “We are the guys!” We are going to be right there with Jesus. Let’s just say there were positioned pretty good. But there was a little problem. Their idea of being a kingdom leader was completely contrary to Jesus’.  And you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to notice that they really struggled to see the Kingdom through a lens that was not clouded by their culture. So Jesus has to do some remedial leadership training and quick….after all, he only has three years.

Timeless Problem: Who is the Greatest?

So in Matt. 18 we get an indication of what was really going on among the disciples in the conversations that the Bible doesn’t always record. Very quickly they were no longer content to be just one of the twelve! Instead, while they were walking and talking on those dusty roads, they were arguing about which of them was going to be the greatest in the Kingdom. Of course, once Jesus asks what they were talking about, it gets pretty quiet. So Jesus brings a child close to him says You guys want to be great in my Kingdom? Become like little children. And remember children in that culture were basically one step above the family pet, a bit beyond be heart and not seen …not exactly the centre of their parent’s universe as today. I am not saying that is a good thing, but just the way it was.

Well it seems that this went right over their heads. Why do I say that? Well not long afterwards,  in Matt. 20 James and John recruit their mother to see if she can talk some sense into Jesus. They were pretty young themselves, but surely a good Jewish mother Jesus could not refuse.

She wasn’t asking much, right? Just  let my good Jewish boys sit on your left or right – after all they are already part of the special elite force of twelve, so what’s the problem? Ya, didn’t go over to well with the other 10 did it?. Jesus lets them know that this isn’t going to happen and then says something which indicates that they were operating from worldly, not kingdom principles:  “You know how the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority of them …(at this point of course they are nodding yes yes….they know all about that….) But then Jesus lowers the boom… “With you it should not be so!”

Kingdom Leadership Values – Walking the Walk

The obvious question for the reader today is, “Is it so with our leadership?” Now we are more sophisticated and are really good at putting spiritual sounding titles on our positions…..you know pastor, evangelist, maybe even apostle or bishop if you are really spiritual. But do we function much different than in the institutions around us?

Jesus continues, “You want to be great in the Kingdom, you must become a servant” ….and it gets worse, “and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” And then the real clincher, to follow his example: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” They couldn’t argue with that, for he has been serving them. He walked the walk.

From other scripture we know that the unspoken question that was left hanging in the air was, “If I, your master Jesus,  have this attitude, what kind of attitude should you being a mere mortal have? Yes, I know, even though you are one of only 12.”

Now it would be nice to report that by the end of Jesus ministry and life they got it. They heard the teaching, got the notes, and even saw the video in living color. But unfortunately that was not the case. Let’s go back to the last supper when Jesus was washing their feet. Right after the meal….I mean they were probably still using a toothpick to get the last of the unleaven bread out of their teeth – I am sure the towel was not even dry yet! But here they are arguing again over who was the greatest among them (Luke 22:24). I have a sneaking suspicion that there were a few other occasions this happened than the ones that are officially recorded for us in Scripture.

Old habits and cultures die hard, don’t they. Jesus knew it was going to take his death and resurrection to provide them with the spiritual insight and power to have their minds transformed. They would get it eventually, but it was not going to be easy. And they actually were with Jesus in person….he actually washed their feet….in person. I am thinking if I would have been one of them, that would have been enough for me. But, maybe not.

Kingdom Leadership: Still a Struggle Today

After all I am living in the post-resurrection era, have much more of the New Covenant revelation in the form of the New Testament, and I still struggle with this basic kingdom principle when it comes to this upside down type of leadership.  Paul writes in Phil 2 that “in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Pretty heavy stuff. Kingdom leadership looks a lot like a cross, not a crown. Or in more modern speech, laying down our own desires and serving others, rather than striving for position, power and prestige. Sometimes kind of makes you want to rethink being a leader in the Kingdom eh?!

And this is at the core of the problem. The relationships in the Body of Christ – including those called to equip others – are to be completely different. We are not the experts telling others what to do. There is only one Head, and we are not Him! We are just part of the body and the Word must change us as we preach it is to change others. We are not at a different level than the rest of the Body.

The Problem of Position and Title

Very soon after the first century, and ever since then, fallen human nature took over, even in the church. Some  Scripture passages were wrongly used to rationalize a hierarchal leadership structure in the Church, which of course violates Jesus basic teaching. In Matt. 23 Jesus makes it pretty clear. Jesus is teaching about the religious folks, teachers of the law, you know pastors, priests, professors. He is nailing them pretty hard and saying that for them it’s all about outward show, you know, they loved titles, position and others deferring  to them, even special parking spaces for their donkey. I mean they had it all. Does it sound rather familiar?

When Jesus makes the application, he really lowers the hammer, “But you are not to be called “Rabbi” or teacher for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth “father’ for you have one Father and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Ya I know would sure be more convenient if that wasn’t include in the Bible wouldn’t it?

We won’t have time now, but in the next episode I want to spend more time dealing with the obvious question that arises….how about authority in the Church? Are not pastors and church leaders to have a position over others, so all things are done decently and in order? And didn’t Paul also say he was spiritual father to Timothy? So is he contradicting Jesus? These are all good questions and we’ll around to them, but for now let’s circle back here to servant leadership as Jesus taught and illustrated in his life.

Relationships in Body of Christ Very Different

The obvious and main point we see Jesus teaching his disciples in the Gospels is that the attitude of the culture around them in relation to leadership was completely opposite of the values and practises of his kingdom.  There are many implications of this for us today, the main one being that having the heart and attitude of a servant is actually a prerequisite for all Kingdom relationships, including leadership within the Body of Christ.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 5:21, relationships in the body are to be mutually submissive….this applies to leadership in the church. Pastors and church leaders have a function to equip the saints, but this does not make them above those they serve. It is often people who want to put leadership on a pedestal and we must be the ones to humble ourselves and step off the podium and crawl back on to the cross.  We are all, regardless of our function, just equal members of the Body.

Mentoring Impossible without Servanthood Attitude

So how does this apply to mentoring? Without this attitude, it is virtually impossible to really mentor others. Now, we can control and manipulate others, but not equip and release them. After all, if I think I am number one or at least God’s man of power for this very hour, why would I stoop to put others ahead of myself? I think that is exactly what the early disciples were wrestling with. Not much has changed. My experience has been that if we are honest we all love power, position, titles, private parking stalls, business class (okay that one hurts) and this works counter to laying down our lives for others rather than building our own ministry….or should I say maybe even our own kingdom.

Those who feel they are indispensible to God’s plans, would consider it a huge waste of time to slow down long enough to invest in others, there is so little time and so many more important things to accomplish for the Lord. In a later episode we are going to discover how a gifted, called younger Apostle Paul  needed to adjust his mindset by the end of his life.

We see from Jesus’ life that this approach is the only type of leadership that reproduces life in others. Power based leadership produces awe and spiritual dependence, rather than developing and releasing others. And it actually isolates leaders and makes them causalities of unrealistic expectations. If we do not have this Kingdom  leadership DNA that Jesus modeled, at best we will reproduce stillborn leaders – leaders who cannot reproduce others. Kind of the opposite of what it takes to mentor someone.

Next time we are going to dig a bit deeper by looking at some examples from Scripture and address the thorny issue of how can there be equality and varying degrees of authority in the body of Christ all at the same time. To do that we will have to deal with the difference between power and authority from a Kingdom perspective.  As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

How has the culture around you impacted your own leadership values and style?

Looking at Jesus’ teaching again, have you discovered any new insights?

And finally, are you open to allowing the Lord to radically change your leadership values to that of a servant?

Description

In this second episode in the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil discusses how Jesus model of developing others was rather counter intuitive. He shares an analogy of how our leadership training can often be compared to just throwing someone in the deep end and hope for the best. He then begins to look at some of the barriers we face that hinder us from mentoring others.

If you find the content of this episode useful, it would really help us reach more people if you click the Like and Subscribe for this episode on Youtube.

Check out our full list of Mentoring Intelligence videos.

To view all of our series, visit our LEADERSHIPmatters Podcast page.

Get the Resources

Listeners of our LEADERSHIPmatters podcasts have exclusive access to our free bonus leadership materials. For this series these include our MQ Assessments, our Servant Leadership Assessment, as well as the Developing Others Workshops. These are available in several languages and can be downloaded here:

Get exclusive access to free Workshop Notes and Mentoring Assessments

For other valuable mentoring resources

If you would like to purchase Phil’s  Mentoring Intelligence Book and the Workbook which covers this topic in more detail or the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships Guides which are a tool to actually help you mentor someone, check out our Resources page. These are available in several languages.

Consider Helping

The majority of our work training new leaders in the church is international. In many cases, they cannot afford the material themselves. Please considering helping us reach those who can’t afford the resources by donating today.

Video Script

Episode 2 Intro: Why is Mentoring Difficult?

Last episode we discussed how Jesus’ model of developing others was rather counter intuitive. His priorities in ministry were quite different than ours.  Now we all agree he was effective, so why don’t we all make his priorities our priorities? If Mentoring is such an effective way to reproduce leaders, why is it so difficult? This time we want to begin to look at some of the barriers in our own lives that hinder us doing this? Understanding and being intentional in removing them could have a huge impact in our own life and ministry?

Sink or Swim: A Typical Leadership Approach

Something I have noticed as I have taught on this topic around the world is that in many nations, we as evangelicals have evolved a rather interesting leadership development approach. Now my guess is that we likely don’t have a monopoly on this approach, as I have noticed it in a variety of contexts, but  let me try to explain it like this and see if you can relate. Fair warning, it may trigger some PTSD responses from your own experience!

So let’s imagine that I want to teach someone how to swim. I begin with them on the shore and I give them a manual to quickly flip through and maybe even give them a pop quiz. Then we get into a boat and head to the middle of the lake. This is where the genius of my teaching technique really becomes evident!

Once in the middle of the lake, I grab them and quickly through them overboard…. of course there’s lots of splashing, sputtering, and thrashing about, but low and behold, the “successful” swimming candidates eventually makes it to shore. Genius. My candidate has now learned to swim, well maybe kind of … at least they can dogpaddle or whatever you want to call all that splashing about. The important thing is that they made it to shore, right?!

Well this apparent success empowers us to get others to do the same. After all, What a great way to learn to swim! Doesn’t take too much effort on my part, I just need to row to the middle of the lake…. and voila. I might even be tempted to write a book or two, like “How to teach Swimming from the middle of the Lake”.

Survival of the Fittest not an Effective Method

So that happens when this new “Swimmer” now wants to teach others how to swim? Well, no surprise, they have them flip through a book or two, put them in a boat, take them to the middle of the lake….  and we know what happens next.  I would make the case that this technique is not really teaching people how to be swimmers, but could better be described as creating survivors. And of course what we don’t see in my analogy, is all the potential swimmers at the bottom of the lake, those that drowned and never made it.

It’s kind of a baptism by fire approach – or water in this case – but it’s actually worse, because we then use it prove the calling of a potential leader. As if just being able to survive is a litmus test of leadership. With this method so prevalent, should we really be surprised that there is such high rate of burnout and ineffectiveness in our churches and organizations. Many have never been properly equipped, no one has come alongside of them and mentored them. While throwing people in the deep end  may be an efficient training method for us and the structures that we are part of…. in the long term it’s not a very effective way to develop healthy, reproducing leaders.

A New and Better Approach

Now what would happen if we would take a different approach to leadership development. Sure, there is some content and knowledge that is helpful for the potential swimmer to master, but I focus on beginning in shallow water with them and begin to teach them the basics — how to float and some basic strokes. Then I slowly progress to deeper water, showing  them proper technique and building their endurance. I would suggest that there is a much higher likelihood that they could one day even become Olympic level swimmers, rather than survival experts with the dog paddle.

We will never develop effective leaders if we teach them to rely on adrenalin and only function in survival mode. The fact is that leadership principles and practices are crucial foundations that will ensure future capacity and longevity of leadership. If we don’t provide them with a healthy start it is likely they will never progress to reach their full potential.

The Paralysis of Analysis

In other nations, I have noticed the opposite scenario. Here there is an abundance of academic training options, unfortunately here ministry tends to become a profession rather than calling. Kind of the paralysis of analysis. Many of these potential leaders never actually swim…..just set up a chair on the beach and philosophize to others about the merits and intricacies of swimming. They may even train others in philosophizing but few become practitioners. How many of our seminaries are producing church planters, and practical church ministers, rather than academics and theologians.

Now before you turn this off, hear me out. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with training, I’ve had my own fair share…. but I am suggesting that if we are going to produce practitioners rather than just theorists the “how” of training is as important as the content itself.

A Mile Wide and Inch Deep

This alternative method of leadership development takes time and often requires getting our hands dirty as we engage in someone’s life. It’s not as easy as just dumping someone off the side of the boat and hoping for the best! Over the generations, this faulty methodology compounds leadership problems. Rather than a wise approach that utilizes the practical wisdom from previous generations, each generation has to from scratch and many wind up at the bottom of the lake.

After four decades of missions work observing and utilizing various training methods, this has been my experience. The reality is that in many nations the church has grown so fast that we just can’t keep up with leadership training. In our desperation we resort to the “toss em in the deep end” approach. Many in these contexts have little or no leadership training. They basically were left on their own to figure it out. Which is why it is said that in many nations, the church is a mile wide and only an inch deep.

A Global Leadership Deficit

You know, but even if we could just outsource all leadership training to seminaries and bible schools, this would still not really be a solution. First, the global reality is that if all Bible schools in the world functioned at full capacity and 100% of all graduates served in the Church, we would still not be able to keep up with the need for leadership training around the world.

Not to overstate the case, as nowadays there is lots of alternative training such as online and so on. Yet even those who are fortunate enough to have access to this training, often they never really gain the experience necessary in a safe environment which mitigates damage to them and others as they develop. In these cases they develop bad practises in order to just survive…. they become experts in the “dog paddle.”

Healthy effective leaders can only come from other healthy effective leaders.  As in nature, we reproduce after like kind – so it is inevitable that we reproduce who we are. Yet many preparing for ministry and leadership — or already in positions of leadership — have had no one to come alongside of them to encourage and train them and show them the ropes.

Imagine a New Approach

What would happen if existing church planters, pastors, evangelists – current church leaders — began to personally mentor the next generation of leaders? We have actually seen this happen…. it’s more than theory. In regions were our MCNet ministry coaches have begun to mentor potential leaders, we have seen a church planting movement of healthy, reproducible churches. Imagine if this could happen in your country…. imagine what would happen if each leader took the responsibility upon themselves to develop another leader?

I am aware there are other factors, but perhaps because training leaders through a mentoring relationship is not a priority, it is hard for us to reproduce the type of ministry that Jesus had. And maybe, just maybe, why we are not getting the same results he did. Reproducing leadership is a multi-generational task. It has been said that if we can accomplish our vision in our own lifetime it is likely  a rather small vision; and if we can accomplish our vision by ourselves it is also likely a small one. We need to shift our thinking and our priorities as leaders – thinking longer term and not how to survive in the short term.

Barriers to Mentoring Relationships

Okay, let’s just take a few moments and look at a couple barriers that can hinder us from doing this. The first one I want to look at is how having wrong priorities in our ministry will hinder developing others.

At some point you have likely seen the classic Time-Management Matrix. This graph, which you can see on the screen, organizes all of our activities according to their varying degrees of Importance and Urgency. Urgent things act on us, while important things we much be proactive to act upon.  The vertical axis of the graph measures the relative importance and the horizontal axis the relative urgency.

Many  leaders spend most of their time doing Q1 activities – these are Urgent and Important activities. They are represented by the top left quadrant.  Q1 activities include: dealing with crisis, pressing problems and making deadlines – generally what we think of as the stuff of good leadership. But if in our lives and leadership the Urgent consumes our time experience has proven that we will never reach our full potential or our capacity as an effective leader.

The Urgent versus the Important

Focusing primarily on the Urgent  and Important will inevitably lead to burnout and stress. We feel important… like the firefighter, always called upon to put our fires. As leaders it feeds our ego to always be the go to person. After all, we have the training, we have the degrees and want to put them to good use. We are the person of first and last resort. But focusing just on these activities will be the demise of our leadership and maybe our very health and life.

Other leaders spend a lot of time doing Q3 activities – this is the bottom left quadrant. These are activities are those that are Urgent but Not Important. Things like many or our emails, phone calls, some meetings and so on. Then there are those leaders who may spend much of their time in Q4 activities which are represented in the bottom right quadrant. These are activities that are Not Urgent and Not Important – this is busy work others could be doing, time wasting activities and even just losing ourselves in the fun stuff we like doing. We could put these individuals in the failed leadership camp.

Our goal as a leader should be to focus our time doing Q2 Activities. Now this is the top right quadrant and are activities that are proactive, prevention orientated. Things like strategic planning, relationship building, both personal and professional. These activities are very Important, but – this is the kicker — they are seldom Urgent. This is why it is so easy to procrastinate and focus only on crises and pressing problems that arise.  However, if we make the shift in priority, from being the “go to crisis solver” to proactive, strategic longer term,  the results will be greater vision, perspective, balance, discipline in our leadership. All these Q2 activities flow from deeply held beliefs and values, that guide us over the long term.

Learning to focus on activities that are important but NOT necessarily urgent, will actually result in a decrease in the crises that we have to deal with. In this way we actually break of the cycle of just running around putting out fires – the very things that fuel our ego.

Mentoring is Important but Never Urgent

The powerful takeaway in relation to mentoring is that developing others is never an emergency. We must be intentional or it just doesn’t happen. It’s a Q2 activity. Now if we don’t do this, no one will notice in one month, one year…. maybe not even in 5 years…..but one day it will be too late for us to do this and then it will be obvious where we spent our best time. How? We’ll either blow a gasket physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or we’ll be isolated, and remain ego driven, hanging on to power and position. I am sure we all know people like this…. hopefully though not when we look in the mirror. Without a Q2 focus it will be impossible to leave a true legacy in others – unlike the Apostle Paul, we will not finishing the race well.

Effective leaders prioritize their time to do activities that in the long term are important but in the short term never seem urgent. These activities seldom build the leader’s ego – the type of leadership that develops others is opposite to the adrenaline driven, power based leadership that is so often admired in most of our cultures.

So without adjusting our priorities and focussing on what is really important we will never take the time to mentor others…..it’s just never an emergency… though it is extremely important.

Another Barrier: A Lack of Focus

Okay, another barrier that hinders mentoring relationships is a lack of focus. Usually early in our life and ministry we try to do it all. As we age it hits most of us that we can’t do it all, but some still try. We all can probably name names of those who have tried this approach and have fallen in some way, or have even cashed in their ticket to heaven early…. their legacy results in many hurt and disillusioned people.

But it does not need to come to that. We can decide to change our priorities and become more focused rather than just having a Messiah complex where we think we are the solution to every problem, This can also be hidden under the guise of an ambitious motivation to do work for God. As you can see from the graph there is inverse correlation between our focus and our influence.

The irony is that once we become more focused, our influence increases in our area of focus and this better prepares us to do something of significance within our lifetime. Playing the long game, this is much more effective than just settling for  the type of “success” defined by our culture. Instead of being spread out and trying to accomplish more, we learn to focus on just fulfilling what God put us on this earth for.

I was just reading the other day in James 3 where he is describing what true wisdom really looks like. He says that it is actually humble, submissive – and is not motivated by selfish ambition. This is why changing our priorities to focus on mentoring others requires a transformation of our hearts, not just a time management adjustment. It is a heart issue.

Now I am not perfect in this area by any stretch. But years ago, it was very freeing to realize that God didn’t really need me….he was doing pretty good before I came along and once my life is over he will continue to function okay. Not so easy for a type A driven personality to admit, but somewhere along the way I began to realize that the whole burden of world evangelism and training leaders was not all on just my shoulders.  And yes, I did sleep a lot better.

More Focus – More Influence

You know, I thought for sure that I would make a huge impact by the time I was 25 (for God of course!), that came and went, so modified it to 35, that came and went, then 45 came and went. I realized that it was not all up to me and perhaps the visions and dreams I had were going to be fulfilled through others, as was the case with Abraham and many other biblical characters. Not great for our ego, but great for our spiritual and physical health. Influence comes from focus not from trying to do it all.

So as we age, and hopefully we learn this sooner than later, our influence grows as we get more focussed on what we should be doing, rather than trying to do it all. As our focus increases, our influence in that area increases.  I find it so sad to see a leader who is aging and still trying to do it all themselves….just seems kind of a waste of the next generation. This is why changing our focus and priority to mentoring is crucial if we are going to accomplish what God has for us.

In our next episode we are going to dig a bit deeper and deal with what I believe is the main hindrance to developing mentoring relationships. Without a personal transformation in this area  and seeing this truth, my experience is that it is unlikely that a leader will make this switch from power based leadership to one that focuses on developing and releasing  others.  As always, I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

As you reflect on your activities, out of which Quadrant do you mostly function?

As you mature are you become more or less focussed or are you still trying to do it all?

Are you willing to be transformed into Jesus’ model of leadership, whatever the cost to your ego?

 

Description

In this first episode of the Mentoring Intelligence Series, Phil share from why mentoring seems to be talked and written about, but fewer leaders seem to be actually investing in the next generation in an intentional way. He discusses some of the personal and structural barriers to a mentoring lifestyle and why Jesus’ model of leadership is the only one that reproduces life in others.

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Video Script

Episode 1 Intro: Why is Mentoring a Lost Art?

In recent years the term mentoring has become more common, even in the church. But is this just discipleship by a different name? or is it a different type of relationship altogether? In this introductory episode we want to look at what mentoring  really is and what are the hindrances to creating a mentoring lifestyle within our leadership. With all the books and teaching on mentoring , Why has it become such a lost art? Why is it more talked about than actually done? You might be surprised to find out some of the reasons why .

Some Good Advice for Jesus

If Jesus would have asked me for some advise when he started his ministry I am sure I could have been a big help. I mean with the added experience of 2000 years of  leadership training — after all he didn’t have access to any leadership development resources back then, right?  So if he would have approached me and mentioned that he needed to make a lasting impact in only 3 years, I am sure I could have made some great suggestions. It obvious that according to current leadership methodology he would have to gain an audience by doing something spectacular early in his ministry – perhaps something like raising someone from the dead. That would really impress people and then of course he could write a book and do a podcast with a full social media presence. The headliner would be, “How to raise the dead and influence the world for generations.”

Great advice, right? Maybe not so much. But instead, what did Jesus do? He began by walking along the beach and calling a few guys to follow him…..and let’s be honest, it seems he didn’t even choose the brightest Jewish boys. Didn’t seem like much of a team. Then he spent lots of time with them over the course of three years. By current leadership standards, doesn’t really seem like much of a plan for success.  It actually gets worse, at the end of this ill-advised strategy he gets murdered on a cross and only one of these twelve is anywhere to be seen. Hmm, seems like kind of a failed plan of leadership development, in both strategy and execution. Very few of us aspire to do ministry and leadership like this.

Why was Jesus so Successful?

So what was so successful about Jesus’ approach? Is this even doable today? I would suggest that to the degree that we understand Jesus’ approach and get back to that model of developing leaders is the degree to which we will be healthy leaders who reproduce other healthy leaders. Healthy leadership fosters healthy churches, which are grace filled places in this dark world. Only in retrospect do we see the genius of Jesus’ approach, and yet even though we see the long term impact, it is hard to follow this example today.

I wonder why that is. Perhaps it has something to do with what we consider to be a successful life, leadership or ministry. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place for success in leadership. It’s important for me to mention that when I talk about “leadership” in this series,  I am not primarily thinking of position or title. As we use our gifts and abilities, we influence others….and that is leadership. It can be for the good or not so good, but in some sense we all have a sphere of influence or leadership.  But more about that later.

 Mentoring: A Difficult Lifestyle?

Well there is no shortage of books on the topic of mentoring. But why does it not seem to become a lifestyle with a vast majority of leaders?

Personally, my roots go back to the discipleship movement that grew out of the Jesus People movement in the 1970s. Though I grew up in a  Christian home and church, I was deeply impacted on both a personal and ministry level by the simple idea that ministry, and I would say Christian leadership, is passed on through relationship. It is more caught than taught. This was a bit counter to what I saw in the church I grew up in.

This relational approach was the focus of the discipleship movement, of course some guys went sideways using it to manipulate and gain power over others , what was to become known as the Shepherding Movement – which was more about control than developing and releasing others.

As a late teen and early adult I was deeply impacted by this relational approach to ministry, contrary to what I saw in most churches I was around. So in my early days in ministry, I longed for someone to mentor me, to come alongside of me and show me the ropes so to speak….and mentors were few and far between. Most of those in places of authority and leadership were busy building their own ministries, not turning around and helping a young leader find his way. If we were to chat over coffee, I am sure you would tell me that this was your experience also. I have heard this from leaders around the world. The reality is that we pass on leadership to others the way it has been passed on to us.

A Change of Priorities

You would be hard pressed to find someone who thought the idea of mentoring was a bad one. We all agree what an awesome thing Jesus did with his disciples, but usually we don’t know where to start or how to pull it off. But I guess what I am trying to say is, “If we are going to recover this lost art of mentoring we are going to start with a change in our priorities. Of course, we all want Jesus’ level of results, but are we willing to pay the price for Jesus’ methodology?

When I first wrote my book, Mentoring Intelligence, I was in mid-life and my focus was on the next, Millennial Generation. Since then they have grown up and are now in mid-life and Generation Z are now becoming young adults. In order to be engaged in mentoring the next generation we have to understand their values. The good news is that this is a learnable skill — but it does require some intentionality, it does not automatically come with whatever leadership position or authority we may have. I would suggest that this is the only style of leadership that is truly life-giving.

Glut of Info – Deficiency of Wisdom

The irony is that in our increasingly digitized world, with the explosion of social media – which are more pseudo-social than reality — there is a hunger by the next generation for leaders to engage in a more relational approach. Unfortunately, we often settle to pass on academic training or even use high-tech education, but the reality is that the best way to help others grow is to come alongside of them and spend time with them. That’s mentoring.

Over the last couple decades I have taught a series of seminars on this subject from Russia, Europe, China, Africa, Latin America. What I have noticed is that there are many more people wanting to be mentored than are willing to be mentors. There are many reasons for this, but the reality is that it is easier to just “google” and download information to someone than to get down in the trenches and help them with their leadership and life formation. The result is that we have a glut of information, but a deficiency of wisdom.

Discipleship vs. Mentoring

The early discipleship movement with its focus on relationship and accountability is what laid a foundation in my own  life. As my thinking has become more focused on this topic over the years, I now make a differentiation between discipleship and mentoring. While both should involve a relational approach, for our purposes, when I use the term, “discipleship” I am referring  to helping someone grow in the faith – while “mentoring” refers to helping someone grow in their leadership potential and capacity.

An Ancient Practise

The practise of mentoring was not foreign to either the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and so it is somewhat ironic that we in the church have only more recently rediscovered it. In my PhD research it was surprising to discover that in the 1950s business organizations re-discovered it before the church, as they saw the bottom line benefit of using it to develop business leaders!

Mentoring includes learning skills and being intentional, but it is also must become a lifestyle and attitude that creates the space for these skills to be effective and life-giving, rather than being overbearing and controlling.

Some twenty-five years ago, while living in Berlin I developed some Mentoring manuals to help train Church leaders in Europe. While the concept at the time was more common in the business world, at that time it was not a term used much within the church.

This was particularly the case in many of the countries in which I was doing conferences. I began to discover that were some obvious, and other not so obvious, barriers to implementing what everyone generally thought was a good idea. As I taught mentoring conferences around the world, I discovered little opposition to the basic concept, yet I also discovered many leaders were struggling in implementing the principles and developing a mentoring lifestyle within their lives and organizations. I would teach my introductory seminar and then leave hoping they would begin doing it. However, when I returned 6 months or a year later, very few had implemented this in their leadership.

Intentionality and Structure Necessary

I began to realize that without intentionality and some sort of structure, mentoring was unlikely to happen in a church or leader’s life. Good intentions were just not enough. There are just too many distractions, including many good and necessary ministry activities, that make the good the enemy of the best. The fact is that most of us, rather than following Jesus’ ministry example, have been taught a different way of doing ministry. So our basic ministry/church structures actually work against implementing mentoring to train up the next generation of leaders.

I have also noticed that in more western leaning cultures, one’s that typically are not relationally focussed, a relational approach which takes lots of “time” goes against our natural inclination and so it is difficult to become part of our lifestyle. On the other hand, in more naturally relational cultures there is also a struggle. While it is more natural to spend time together, it is often not focussed and so lacks accountability and intentionality. A mentoring relationship requires both a time investment and intentionality.

Mentoring is based upon a relationship, it is walking down the road of life together with someone who may be a couple steps ahead, but walking the journey with us. However, it requires some sort of structure or it likely won’t happen, but these need to be flexible…..it just can’t become another church program. This is why we have developed the Mentoring thru Intentional Relationships model which attempts to balance both of these.

Values of Next Generation

Mentoring intelligence refers to the ability of both the individual and organization in encouraging and fostering mentoring types of relationships. Some struggle in mentoring others due to the fact that they are not aware of the basic skills necessary in order to mentor another person. Others on the other hand feel inadequate, often due to a wrong ideas as to what mentoring actually involves.

Social media in the last ten years has been a huge driver of culture and has created pseudo connections, which do not really satisfy. We saw this most evident in the recent pandemic of 2020, for all the talk of “connecting” on video chats and social media, we discovered as a society that these were no substitute for actually in person, face to face connections.

I have also discovered that many youth cultures around the world have common values regardless of ethnic culture in which they are embedded. Typically they are looking for relationship and finding their  own truth, but they often don’t have the tools to achieve this goal. As I have shared this topic with youth on virtually every continent, I have discovered  that many may want a mentoring relationship, but either don’t know how to find it or fully understand the accountability required to benefit from such a relationship.

How to Develop Healthy Leaders

The main issue we are dealing with here is how to best develop leaders, remembering my broad definition of leadership. While there are some innate leadership skills that some individuals have, I am from the camp that believes that leaders are made, not born. So if we reproduce who we are, then it makes sense that we tend to perpetuate values and leadership the way they have been passed on to us.

In this series we want to look at a relational approach. How can we best reproduce healthy ministries and the next generation of leaders? The fact is that a church planting movement is really a leadership development movement.  Without growing healthy reproducing servant leaders the church will remain weak not fulfill its purpose. For the Good News to not die with our generation, we have to be intentional about investing in the next one. I don’t want to shock you this early in the series and be the bearer of bad news……but  we are all going to run out of time and die. And as has been said, “It is too late to dig a well when you start to feel thirsty.” We have to plan for this eventuality.

What is Success?

Healthy leadership is about doing something in our lifetime of significance, not just a focus on attaining  “success” by our societal standards of the time may be.  Often being engaged in activities of significance do not at the time seem to be all that successful, as we usually define success. I think this is why we can’t relate to Jesus method of ministry and leadership development. It still seems foreign and perhaps a bit naïve in the 21^st Century.

But God defines success differently and he has a pretty good track record. Abraham was given the promise or vision that he would be the father of a great nation that would bless all the nations of the earth, but he did not see it happen, neither did Isaac, Jacob arguably was just beginning to envision what had been promised to his grandfather…..in our ROI culture can we have the patience to have a multi-generational approach? This is the power of mentoring and what we are going to focus on in this series.

So, in our next episode we are going to explore our typical way of training leaders and identify some of the barriers that have arisen that actually work against developing these type of  mentoring relationships. I hope you’ll join me.

Some Leadership Matters to Consider

But before then, I’d like to leave you a few leadership matters to consider:

What is your focus in your leadership and ministry?

What does Success mean for you?

What are some of the barriers you face in being a mentor?