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Spiritual Mentoring - A Guide for Seeking and Giving DirectionSPIRITUAL MENTORING: It probably happens a good deal, in an unstructured and informal way, that one Christian becomes a mentor to another. The intention of this book is to encourage mentoring to happen more and to be more effective by becoming more structured and purposeful. Mentoring has been means of spiritual development since long before Jesus first said: 'Follow me'. Spiritual directors have been valued in some sections of the church for centuries. In recent years, evangelicals have become increasingly interested. This book, written by two American Bible school tutors, is a further expression of that interest. It reached me just when I was reflecting on how to fulfil a request to mentor someone, so I read with practical interest. The big theme of spiritual mentoring is to develop a person's intimacy with God as a necessary spur to living effectively for God's glory. In order to develop both the theory and practice of mentoring, the authors draw upon the writings of people who knew intimacy with God and had experience of assisting others in achieving the same goal. Seven are selected, the earliest being Augustine from the 4th century, the latest: Madame Guyon from the 17th, and in between, Aelred, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Each is drawn upon to develop one particular aspect of mentoring. It is surprising that two other rich streams of influence are almost totally overlooked, namely Scripture and writers of the Reformed tradition. Both Old and New Testaments provide several examples of mentors and mentorees which would prove instructive. Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy - not to forget Jesus and his disciples! And what of the writings of men like Murray McCheyne, David Brainerd and Samuel Rutherford? These portray men who found deep intimacy with God and urged others in their pursuit of him in their writings. The book describes five movements in the mentoring process: attraction, relationship, responsiveness, accountability and empowerment. These plot the way in which the relationship is established and developed to enable the mentoree to answer three key questions: * Who is God? - which has to do with knowing the One with whom we need to become intimate; * Who am I? - which is concerned with the identity of the person as a unique child of God; * What am I to do with my life? - which focuses on the person's unique voice for kingdom responsibility. As the book is addressed to both mentors and mentorees, there is a good deal of repetition. At times, it is like read a crib sheet to the questions one is to be asked! The importance of Scripture is acknowledged, though at times one feels that its use is more magical than spiritually beneficial. The reliability of the seven chosen guides is unquestioned, even though their inevitable medievalism becomes evident from quotations. Some strange metaphors are adopted from their writings. Oh, did you want to know whether it gave me any ideas for my own mentoring role? A few. No, let's be honest: very few! David C. Potter© Evangelicals Now - March 2000 |