Mentoring Mentors
Bridge the Gap – The importance of Unity.
She’s twenty-something. By law, she’s an adult. Decisions bombard her daily that could affect the rest of her life. One day she is bold, the next she is intimidated. She wants a mentor. Someone she trusts. Someone she knows to be real—you know, authentic. Not just a blind match but someone who knows her. But no one seems to fit her criteria.
Another woman, sitting in the same room, listening to the same sermon, sits four rows back.
She is older. Her children are older. She wants to mentor. “Why doesn’t someone organize a mentoring group?” she thinks. That was the way, she knew, it had always been done. They were matched and got to know each other. The younger women listened to the older women, and they learned how to be godly women, to be women of impact. She wondered why they didn’t do that anymore.
The older woman noticed the younger woman looked her way after the service. Next time she sees her she’ll smile. Next time she will say hello.
Next time, she thinks. But not today. She’ll just wait.
This scenario is played out weekly in churches across America. Here we sit on either side of the generation gap, each one waiting for the other one to move. But time is of the essence; younger people leave the church every day. The disunity between the generations crumbles millennial’s spirits. Some of these millennials are the only Christians in their family; they don’t know how to love Jesus, or be like Him, without people like you. Your life can be a personal impact zone for the Kingdom of God.
Not long ago, I sat with a group of twenty-somethings and asked what they wanted from the older women in their church. They said things like:
“I want to be noticed. Say hello. Don’t walk by like I’m invisible.”
“Someone who has shared experiences with me. Someone who became a Christian as an adult.”
“Someone who has experienced similar pain. Someone who is the only Christian in their family.”
You know what I noticed? Not one young woman asked for a person of knowledge, highly educated in the things of God or learned in her field. There was not one request for perfection; only common ground.
Your job, dear reader, is to find one person (or more!) and build common ground.
Actively seek out your “Timothy”; aim for the Paul-Timothy relationship described in the opening of 1 Timothy—“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” (I Timothy 1:1-2 NIV). Get involved. Chase down your Timothy and start building.
