Tue 11 Nov, 2008
This Week in Mission – Nov 8, 2008
I have completed another week here in New Orleans working with a dozen urban and exurban churches for redevelopment and outreach. We’ve come a long way in 18 months … and have a long way to go. The most exciting thing for me is the reports from clergy and lay leaders about how their lives have been changed … new attitudes, fresh hope, more life. Where once there were dead eyes, now there are beating hearts.
Some churches have made excellent programmatic progress in hospitality toward new lifestyle segments, alternative worship options, small group multiplication, and some property development. Others are still facing serious crises of survival … but I think with more self-esteem and faithfulness, and with a greater sense of ultimate purpose and direction.
The following excerpt is from an article that arose from my prayerful reflection on this recent mission trip in the “Big Easy” … It will also be on my blog.
Tom Bandy
The Mentoring Ladder
Mentoring is the cornerstone of leadership development. It’s historic roots lie in the strategy of apostolic succession, when apostles passed on credibility and authority to a next generation of disciples. There is no curriculum for this. It is a living translation of the experience of Christ engraved on the unique life context of another. What is it like to actually experience mentoring?
Mentoring is different from coaching, although both are important. Coaching focuses on planning, problem solving, team, and programming. Mentoring focuses on the inner work of leaders: attitude, integrity, stress management, and perseverance through temptation, and the myriad ways leaders wrestle with the devil in their own cultural wilderness.
Once churches accommodated to the public education strategy of North America, mentoring dropped out of importance. We have religious institutions with a lot of great programs … implemented by professionally certified clergy who strive mainly to live a “balanced life” while remaining faithful to an uncompromising God. Meanwhile seekers are looking for mentors who lead an “unbalanced life” surrendered entirely to the mysterious mercies of God. In brief, coaching produces great managers, and mentoring produces potential martyrs.
Since we are inexperienced in this, it is helpful for pastors, staff, and lay leaders to understand the experience of being mentored. Think of it like the rungs of Jacob’s ladder, extending from earth into heaven. There you are, Jacob, lying on your back amid the stones of the desert and the complaints of your parishioners, wondering how you can ever ascend the heights of spiritual leadership. Father Abraham is your mentor. There are five rungs to the ladder.
Sharing: The first rung on the ladder is the ability to share your life struggles, confess your insidious temptations, and face your hidden addictions. In return, the mentor shares his or her experience of Jesus Christ. This is the incarnational moment, what current jargon calls “thin space”, when the disciple first feels the breath of God on their neck and their pulse accelerates with non-rational joy.
Habits: The second rung on the ladder is the ability to customize spiritual habits for daily living. This is akin to wearing corrective shoes that improve incredibly bad posture. At first … indeed, for some time … they pinch and hurt as the body is hammered into shape. Eventually, the habits that were our first inclination are replaced by habits that become “second nature”. Habits include prayer, Bible reading, guided meditation, physical labor, social service, and spiritual conversation. The mentor models his or her own habits, and helps shape your personal discipline.
Accountability: The third rung on the ladder is the willingness to be held accountable to a spiritual life. The disciple sheds layers of personal ego and defensiveness to accept criticism. Criticism comes primarily through the mentor … or the complete stranger … for God uses both to discipline a Christian lifestyle. Repentance and realignment leads to closer self-awareness and heightened compassion.
Action: The fourth rung on the ladder of mentoring is the courage to act with precision and compassion. One’s life becomes an arrow fired directly to the bullseye of human need. The instinct for injustice becomes sharpened, and the disciple sees victimization unambiguously and reacts instantaneously. The mentor not only guides the disciple to see evil, but models for the disciple reckless, self-effacing, sacrifice.
Acceptance: The fifth rung on the ladder of mentoring is acceptance in spite of the failures and frailties of spiritual living. It is the wholly undeserved embrace of love, and an entrance into a serenity hitherto unknown. The forgiveness of the mentor is only part of acceptance. The profound part is the willingness of the mentor to take upon himself or herself the hurt or sin of the one being mentored … literally taking on the regret or guilt of the disciple … and relieving the disciple of their suffering.
What is it like to be mentored? It is a progression from the inkling of Christ to the fullness of Christ. The mentor begins as a spiritual guide, and ends as being the face of Jesus himself. Where in heaven’s name do these mentors come from? They emerge from exactly this progression of experience. Once disciples, now apostles; now apostles, they take one new disciples. It is an apostolic succession that originated with Jesus and the Twelve.
In my constant journey as a church consultant, the one thing consistently missing in institutional church life is mentoring. It is also the pearl of great worth for which a spiritually bankrupt culture longs.
Tom Bandy
