What is
Mentoring?
So what is mentoring? It is a word that is used a lot in both Christian
and secular circles and a concept that we, as the
Crusader Executive, have been investigating over the past year. Is it
just another trendy word for something that we are
already doing? I think that the answer to this is ‘yes’
and ‘no’.
There are many definitions of mentoring, but we like the one given by
Megginson in the book ‘The Mentoring Manual’. He
says it is:
‘providing guidance, support and practical help through life
crisis or into new stages of development.’
We probably all have young people in our Groups who are going through
some sort of crisis e.g. bullying, divorce, getting involved in drugs,
pregnancy, and we do want to help and support these young people. However,
sometimes all of our efforts can go into young people who are in a crisis
situation which leaves the others to their own devices. This definition
says that young people who are not going through crisis situations also
need mentoring.
There are many examples of mentoring in the Bible e.g. David and Solomon,
Elijah and Elisha, Moses and Joshua, and Jesus and his disciples. Moses
and Joshua is a really good example of what we would want to see happen
in the lives of the young people with whom we work. Moses recognised
Joshua’s personality, abilities and gifts. As well as teaching
Joshua by word and example, he also gave him more and more opportunity
and responsibility to work out the gifts that he had. As a result of
this, Joshua’s character developed and Moses was eventually able
to hand over leadership to him.
One of the main difficulties that Groups have is that they need more
leaders in order to do the work to which they believe God has called
them. If we can develop a mentoring pattern within Crusaders over the
next five years, we should be able to grow more of our own leaders and
therefore reach out to more young people
We see in the Gospels how Jesus mentored his disciples. Leaders need
to capture the vision of what it could be like to grow their own leaders
(John 17: 6-10) and see that the young people could achieve so much
more in their leadership skills. We need to build relationships of openness,
sharing, trust and accountability (Luke 9:1-9) with the young people
and then lastly be able to impart wisdom, advice, knowledge and skills
at an appropriate time (Mark 6:30-44).
How is it done by the DFEE and others?
The DFEE are putting a lot of resources into the whole idea of mentoring.
They have set up a project called ‘Connexions’ which
aims to train people as Personal Advisors (‘PA’), so that
every young person between the ages of 13 and 19 have their own PA
who can support, guide and give practical help to them during these
challenging years. The aim is that there will be one PA for every 50
young people considered to be in the high risk category (more at risk),
and one PA for every 200 young people who are considered at low risk.
We do wonder how effective a PA can be mentoring these sorts of numbers.
In Crusaders we think that we can do better than this, as we aim to
have one leader to every five young people in our Groups and we would
like one adult to every four young people in the mentoring programme.
In Crusaders we are already involved in a mentoring programme. Many
of our Groups do identify leadership skills in the young
people and seek to develop them. The ‘Into Action’ programme
aims to develop these leadership skills whilst the young people
work alongside a leader in the group. Training projects like the Cru
Holidays one in Swanage and the many CRUSOE expeditions help to develop
young people into a new phase of their lives, enabling them to progress
in the spiritual journey whilst giving them practical skills in leadership.
The Youth Council was developed to help in the task of mentoring and
we feel that we are starting to get there although
there is still a long way to go. What do we hope to do in the future?
There are so many good things already happening, but we need to ask
how we can develop this mentoring scheme further. We need more leaders
committed to developing this. Effective mentoring will be done outside
the normal Group night meeting and we believe that it is essential for
14+ work, but we must not underestimate the time that it takes and the
fact that many leaders are already struggling to keep their groups running.
We want to encourage and train leaders to look long term and see if
they can commit to spending a little time each week mentoring one or
two specific young people.
So what makes a good mentor?
Someone who:
- will pray regularly
for individuals whom they are mentoring.
- has a good Biblical
understanding and can use the Bible to back up discussion.
- has a positive
and realistic outlook on life.
- is prepared to
give quality time to individual young people in their Group.
- will listen to
the young people and not prejudge.
- has a degree
of self-assurance which enables them to be challenged and receive
criticism.
- will work on
their own growth and development, so that they have more to give to
the young people.
Mentoring
Young People in Crusaders
In Crusaders over the next five years we want to provide training and
resources to help leaders develop in this area so that we can grow more
leaders to serve God by reaching out to young people. We are very excited
about this vision. In the next issue of Link there will be an article
looking at the practical ways in which some Groups are already mentoring
young people. If you have
any comments or suggestions about mentoring, we would be very glad to
hear from you.
Peter Jeffrey (Chairman) and Sharon Prior (Vice Chairman)
Useful
Books
‘The Mentoring Manual’ by Mike Whittaker and Ann Cartwright;
Gower Publishing
2000
‘The Effective Way to Nurture Christians’ by Stephen Gaukroger
and David
Warren; Crossway Books 1997
‘Connecting - The Mentoring Relationships you need to succeed
in Life’ by Paul
Stanley and J. Clinton; Navpress1992
‘Mentoring for Mission’ by Gunter Krallmann; Jensco Ltd
1992
What are Crusaders Already Doing?
