Watched the interview below between DJ Chuang & Kyle Reed regarding mentors. It’s a sad story, but one that I think can be resolved. Watch the interview and then read my commentary below:
This is sad, but it mirrors a lot of my own experience as a new Christian with a call to ministry. I actually had to go outside of my local church to find mentors.
In my opinion, the biggest challenge in finding a mentor is getting people to understand the mentor/mentee relationship. Those asked to mentor think it means a big burden of their time and that they are being asked to teach someone in their ways for free. Mentees think that mentors should teach them in their ways for free.
If you’re asked to mentor someone, count it as a privilege. Know that you were asked to be a mentor because someone saw value in who you are. I know your immediate response is that you don’t have time to mentor someone. Maybe even you admit to yourself that you don’t know how to mentor someone. These are things that are easy to overcome.
If you are someone seeking a mentor, be sure to clarify in your mind what you are looking for. Don’t expect to ask a bunch of questions and get a bunch of answers. Your mentor won’t want you following them around their office looking over their shoulder either. Assess what you are looking do and why you are seeking a mentor. Be able to explain yourself in a brief paragraph so you can get someone’s attention and allay their fears that you want to take up their time without any return in their investment.
Mentors:
- Be passionate: As a mentor, one must understand a very key thing. It’s passion. Are you passionate about what you do? If so, then it’s easy to allocate a little time each week to share that passion with someone else who may be called to a mission. If you’re not passionate about what you do, then you definitely should pass on being a mentor. A mentee will feed off of your passion and be encouraged by it. It’s probably the greatest thing you can pass on to someone else.
- Be passionate about who you’re mentoring: What are their goals? How motivated and teachable are they? Do they have some agenda? If some of their passion mirrors yours, it’s easy to establish a relationship of moving forward with them. You have a lot of experience and have learned from your mistakes. You have an opportunity to help someone with passion, yet maybe lacking in mistake-making, to possibly avoid making some mistakes based on your wisdom.
- Set time constraints: Establish up front before even considering a role as a mentor, what the expectations of time will be. In your mind, you may think you don’t have time, but in all seriousness, isn’t investing in someone in the next generation worth 30-60 minutes of your time once a week? If you’re gonna take at least one coffee break a week, why not share some of your story with someone else or make a standing lunch appointment to do the same.
- It’s not about you!!! This gets most people when they reject a request to mentor someone. They make it about their own personal time or their own success. If one works hard to get where they are, why help expedite the process for someone else, right? You don’t have time in the day for what you already do, so how can you make time for someone new? Sorry, these *excuses* just don’t work because in the end they are simply selfish. Step back for a minute and look at the situation from the mentee’s point of view. It took a lot of courage for them to even approach you. They are at the beginning of figuring out what they were called to do and needing a little direction, just like you were at one time. They are full of passion, energy and enthusiasm in ways that maybe you once exhibited, but have since been a little jaded from getting chewed up and spit out any times. Give a little investment into someone new and the return isn’t your own, but instead it is shared by all.
Mentees:
- Be humble: Know that no one owes you anything. Be very cautious of asking for too much from someone gracious enough to consider mentoring you. Let them know up front that you want to learn, but mostly you just want to hear their story and be encouraged by it. That you will have some questions along the way, but making the burden of the relationship your own and not theirs.
- Be teachable:Don’t just say you are teachable, but truly be teachable. Don’t just pick and choose the wisdom you will embrace and toss the rest aside. Know that everything you hear and learn has value and should not be taken lightly. Open your mind to what you hear and see, not just try to extract what fits your agenda and direct the session to suit your needs.
- Listen, don’t speak: This is an area where I think mentees really get disconnected from mentors. You want to learn and someone just gave you an open door to their life’s journey and you have a million questions to ask and not enough time to ask them all. Stop! Don’t have an agenda! Just be open to listen to what your mentor has to say. Maybe you meet for coffee and he tells you a story about what happened that day and you think it is obscure and not relevant to your future. Know that it is! Take it home with you and store it away…it will come back to you and in the end you will understand it. Go with the flow, don’t steer the conversation.
- Wax on, wax off For those that have watched The Karate Kid, you know what I’m saying here. In the movie, the mentee (Daniel-san) was given a bunch of mundane chores to do around his mentor’s (Mr Miyagi) house. Things like wash & wax the car, sweep the floors, etc. Daniel-san didn’t understand why he wasn’t karate and protested about being the servant of the house. Then, one day Miyagi shines a light on the situation. He attacks Daniel-san and tells him to do the move he did when waxing the car: Wax on! now, wax off! By doing those mundane chores, Daniel-san was learning humility, how to have a teachable spirit, memory from repetitive motion, etc.
I remember going to a session with a mentor one week and was whisked away from the office to go help someone move a sofa from a downstairs apartment to her new upstairs apartment. My hour was spent moving furniture. Where was the pastoral wisdom? How would this help me be a better church planter? I was quite disappointed after that session. However, now I see the light. Ministry is about people, not building a large building and leading a large staff. Ministry is about service, not getting respect. It was one of many of my Daniel-san moments that I am now learning the meaning of.
Your mentor may ask you to do something you don’t quite get. Don’t complain, just do it! It’s not about what you *think* you are learning today, but it’s about your future.
If people are willing to set limits and boundaries to their time and really look at investing a small amount of time in order to make a huge amount of difference down the road, mentoring someone is a great opportunity to help see ones legacy continued through someone that credits you for their success through their future actions. It’s not about us. It’s about the countless others that will benefit as we learn and grow together.
