Mentorship

I have a mentor...or a discipler. He is a missionary with Campus Crusade for Crusade and is currently in China....makes my mentorship difficulty sometime...but we make it work. A mentor is someone that takes an active interest in your spiritual maturity. Someone who who is himself spiritual mature or at least growing spiritually who can help wash you with the Word...show you how to get out of the rough patches, and encourages you. New Testament examples of this are....Jesus and the desciples. And my favorite...the Paul/Timothy model of discipleship. Paul was Timothy's spiritual father. If you do not have a mentor/discipler in your life pray that the Lord brings you one. Don't just pick someone. Pray the Lord gives you a specific person. And remember, that its the responsibility of every discipled person to disciple others as well. Ever hear of the Amway pyramid scheme? The New Testament was the first pyramid scheme. Jesus discipled 12 people, they each discipled people... Paul discipled Timothy, Timothy discipled people. So, You disciple two people, those two people discipled four people, those four people disciple 8 people...etc...My mentor took this new testament method of discipling to China. With that method, he discipled a man in china who in turned discipled others. Using this method they have brought 10000 people to christ. Seriously, not an exaggeration.

Oh, and remember...a mentor/discipler is more than a friend and an accountability partner. I would say he is an earthly version of our heavenly Father... someone who is not afraid to point out the sin in your life...and always encourages you to continue the race. He tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And remember, as a person being discipled you need to be....ApproachableSubmissiveTeachableObedient Reproductive. If you only listen to your mentor but do not act on what he shows you or tells you...or you don't produce fruit...you might as well not be discipled. Good luck! I pray the Holy Spirit brings someone into your life!

Also, how often do you meet with your mentor? What exactually goes on during that time? How long? Can it be over the phone? Etc..etc..Nothing beats face to face contact. Period. However, thats not possible sometimes. With my mentor who is often in SE Asia we have to make due with email quite often. When he comes to town we usually get together for a couple hours. I share the my joys and struggles. he listens and rejoices with me over my joys and prays with me concerning my struggles. Not only does he pray but offers me Biblical advice on those struggles. He gives me tasks to do. I submit myself to his authority and to God by being obedient to him. For example, for awhile I was having difficulty being a servant to my wife. When I come home from work I am completly beat. The last thing I want to do is meet my wife's spiritual, emotional and physical needs. He then pointed out to me that the reason why I am having difficulty is because I have forgotten where my home is. My home is not the house I live in. My home is Jesus. I am to find my rest in my true home, by abiding in Jesus. He then suggested that on my way home in the evening I pull over and spend a half an hour reading my Bible and praying for rest so that I can serve Him and my family. Then my mentor will hold me accountable to that. He checks in on me a week or two later to see how I am doing. I have some book recommendations for you...Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas WillardTransforming Discipleship by Greg Ogden. If you are interested in discipleship read those books and pray the Lord brings a Godly man in your life who can mentor you.

Well I guess I'll have a go at this one..About the friends part, I do have much friends especially compared to my non-converted days.But little friends where I can very much identify myself with. (spiritually)Being a good friend means that you are willing to standup and help the other. Well apart from that that it very much helps if you both have like the same view on things, like faith or God.I only have one not-christian friend left and I didn't felt any desire to meet him or such since our interrests are far from the same.Lately I discovered that he had a mountainbike so now we have a common interrest again.. I hope that God can reach him through this or any other means!So, i guess, i have 2 questions. What does it mean to be a friend? And what does it entail when you have a mentor?About the mentor part, I don't really have one.There is a very God fearing man which I know through Herikon Biblecamp, but somehow the Lord didn't let me have contact with him with email and things like that. It's very cool that he could hear how God used him to reach me while he never had to hear the problems and things I was entangled in. Would only be a burden to his heart.That plus the absence of anyone mature with God closeby forces me to get to God directly... which admittedly doesn't always goes like I want it to be. (Thanks to 'I')Somehow God didn't let me follow a person..Perhaps its because there are no people nearby that can mentor and point to Jesus and God... I certainly don't just want to follow a person or a group.. or perhaps its just not the way God wants to teach me.It seems like that I have to do it without a mentor somehow. Apart from the King of Kings Himself! :-D

Reckon I would have to say that Jesus is my Mentor.I keep a Journal, and write to Him.He gives me things to write, and Scripture to read, sometimes.I had a Friend who died in 87.She told me to keep a Journal, and then when things get hard for me, that I can go back, and see what God had done for me.This is true, if you want to try it.Anyway, I must have been very hard for her to mentor, for she was so Spiritual. God had really brought her through a lot, and I was a new Christian, so much she said then was foreign to me, but I thank God for her now.She always wanted me to sing the Song, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus,Look full in His wonderful Face,And the things of Earth will grow stranfely dim,In the Light of His Glory and Grace.What a wonderful friend she was to me.There are Mentor's on SI.God BlessNellie :-)

YeshuaIsMyGd,May God your Father be your Mentor, your friend, your Father. That would fill the empty void within you. And that your Father (God) who loves you his son, would bring to you the human friendship, that HE would have for you. As you let him lead you, relying on him and in him as the Father who loves you and wants you to look to him.This that I give to you, is what has and does and is doing in my life.He has taken me through many things where I had only him to look to. People don't always know the best for you. God does because he knows everything about you.Seek prayer for all these things, be prayed for by your church. Thats all part of what God your Father, wants for you.ellie

I told him I wanna be completly filled with the Spirit in everything that I do. And he suggested to me "A Practice of the Presense of God" by Brother Lawerance.Hey Joshua,Here is an online copy of "Practicing the Presense of God"http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.htmlHighly recommened and highly encouraged to put into practice... This is one of those books that can stay with you for the rest of your life, it radically changed what I understood prayer to be... in the sense of "without ceasing" a number of years ago.Speaking of mentors, there are quite a few here as well, depending on your perspective.

Hi Bro! Your persistance in seeking a mentor and knowing what one is reminded me of a story I heard about a little child whose mother had sent them to bed late one nite while it was storming out. The child protested that they were scared so the mother ,thinking fast on her feet, told the child that if they would just call on Jesus he would be there to protect them. To that the little child replied with a question/statement, "mom do you think I could have Jesus with skin on there?" I love that story! I can see you applying God's word to your life. You've asked, you're very specific in your request. You are in the process of seeking, and I know God will honor that in your life. One thing I might make mention of, as you continue to do random acts of kindness in the ministry the Lord has placed you in, don't forget that someone is looking for Jesus with skin on and that my dear brother is exactly what God has called you to be in thier lives , by His grace. God Bless, Bro. Daryl

What edifying words Dohzman!Think it is wonderful as well to be seeking a mentor and perhaps it was with a slightly different perspective where I was heading.Joshua, I understand what you mean brother. I would love nothing more to sit under an older (spiritually) saint and glean from, learn from, to hear of their experience, to just share in what they have found. Especially as this walk goes on and find the further I go the less I truly know.Was alluding to what you likely know already, that through these old timers who have left such a great legacy for us, in the messages and in written words as well as just the fellowship that goes on here... But it does lack the inflection and contact of being present. That the Lord fills this desire for you, have faith that He most certainly will.

A Jesus felt was better than one telt'. The child was asking the mother for her to be the presence of Jesus to comfort in the storm. In the same way , you are The Jesus men will first see, or as the case may be , because of your ministry, What those children in those schools see in you will tell them what Jesus is like.God bless.

Ever hear of the Amway pyramid scheme? The New Testament was the first pyramid scheme. Jesus discipled 12 people, they each discipled people... Paul discipled Timothy, Timothy discipled peopleWoah, there are some powerful implications in this statement. Who 'discipled' Paul? Who says 'Paul discipled Timothy'? Why do you say that 'Timothy discipled people'? What happened in 'Jesus' discipling of Judas Iscariot'?I suggest you always treat 'pyramids' with suspicision; they come from Egypt, which is the biblical type of the world. The Bible concept of discipling is NOT a pyramid but is one in which each 'member holds fast the head'. In other words each one is discipled to Jesus Christ. Discipling is a relationship word. Wherever there is a disciple there must be a master. "Call no man master" might just as truthfully be expressed as "Do not call yourself any man's disciple". This pyramid discipling/mentoring is not a biblical concept and has some ominous precedents..