Intentional Mentoring Session 1 Introduction and Biblical Principles

Intentional Mentoring Session 1 Introduction and Biblical Principles Paul Wilcox www. thementoringnetwork. net

Exodus 2: 11 -14 - What is YOUR secret? - Are you facing, or have you faced, a burning bush?

Galatians 5 - It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free

Mentoring is discipleship with a kick! Paul Wilcox

Background -Historically the word ‘mentor’ comes from Homer’s classic ‘The Odyssey’ -Today – ‘An experienced and trusted adviser’ Oxford English Dictionary

Types of Mentoring - Intensive mentors (discipler, spiritual guide, coach) - Occasional mentors (counsellor, teacher, sponsor, peer, internal and external) - Passive mentors (contemporary and historical)

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others 2 Timothy 2: 2, TNIV

‘Mentoring is a dynamic, intentional relationship of trust in which one person (mentor) enables another (mentoree) by sharing their God given experience and resources, to maximise the grace of God in their life, and in the service of God’s Kingdom purposes’ Arrow Leadership Programme

- Christianity is about relationship Relationships unlock the post modern heart Robin Rolls - Biblical images (vine, body)

- Greek word ‘Koinonia’ - we have a duty to love one another (John 13: 34) - John Wesley’s General Rules for Methodist Fellowships: ‘Watch over one another in love’ (1743) - We NEED each other (Ecclesiastes 4: 9 -12, Proverbs 27: 17)

‘A person trying to make it on their own is an accident waiting to happen’ Howard Hendricks ‘…strengthen your brothers’ Jesus’ words to Simon, Luke 22: 32 b We would add ‘. . . strengthen your sisters’

Jethro and Moses and Joshua Ruth and Naomi David and Jonathan Elijah and Elisha Barnabas and Paul and Timothy

Jesus - the perfect model, method and message for mentoring We must get to know: - His being - His words - His deeds

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12: 1 -2, The Message

Leadership training cannot be done on a mass scale. It requires patient, careful instruction and prayerful, personal guidance over a considerable time. Disciples are not manufactured wholesale. They are produced one by one because someone took the pains to discipline, to instruct, and enlighten, to nurture and train one that is younger. J O Saunders, Spiritual Leadership

I can see no way for effective discipleship (mentoring) to happen in the 21 st Century, apart from through small groups and one-to-one relationships. Bishop Graham Cray

Invest in the few for the sake of the many Leighton Ford

Spiritual Parenting - An increasingly important contemporary model for mentoring - Emotional and spiritual orphans - Father Heart of God (Floyd Mc. Clung)