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Champions Fax ArchiveThe Gifts of Mentoring Don Zimmer is a member of the Church Champions Editors Board. This is part 3 of a series on Mentorship. Mentoring is a relationship. It begins with an agreement that you have permission to coach or mentor another person. You must engage in conversation about vision, goals, and ideas. The person being mentored must also agree to be challenged and supported. The greatest gift a mentor can give is the gift of presence and undivided attention. Time is our most valuable commodity. Stewardship of our time and others is critical. There must be both time for activity and time for quiet. You must replace the tyranny of the urgent and less important with the greater, more important long-term benefit. Courage is important. It takes courage to seek to learn who you are and pursue that person. It takes courage to speak in truth, wisdom, love and servanthood. Be careful however, because the boundary between courage and arrogance is narrow and often not immediately apparent. Mentors must be willing to discuss the undiscussable. Effective mentoring is having both the toughness and compassion to meaningfully intervene in another's learning process. Communication is especially important. It is not just what you say but how you say it and in what context, especially in a diverse world. Dialogue is the highest form of verbal communication. The intent of dialogue is to generate shared understanding or shared mental models that allow you to build relationships and to think and interact in new and richer ways. Quality dialogue is always laced with wisdom, compassion, and humor and leads to insights not attainable by the individual. Breakthrough thinking is critical where people are seeking change. It occurs when we summon up something that never existed before that alters our thinking and our environment. Such thinking seldom occurs without people engaging in questioning over a significant period of time as well as engaging in rigorous experimental action. Breakthrough thinking depends upon tapping all the knowledge and insights available which generally means that new models, metaphors, analogies must be explored. Christians who mentor others must be especially deeply rooted in Jesus. This is a root system that has not become "pot bound" within specific denominational practices, theologies, or experiences but that is open to the free flowing of the Holy Spirit. Jesus transforms lives and leads us in unpredictable ways toward the greatness God has dreamed for us. He sees beyond all the external qualities and past records that throw most people off. He finds goodness that people rarely ever look deeply enough to find. Mentors must seek to see with Jesus' eyes when they see the people they are mentoring. Pastors have a unique challenge as mentors. Henri Nouwen saw the pastor as a guide to the spiritual life. The pastor who serves as mentor must be prepared to place his own search for God at the disposal of others. Pastors that mentor others must ask the same questions of themselves that others may be wrestling with in the deepest recesses of their souls, in the loneliest of times. This not a space where theology provides the answers but where grace encourages the question, love embraces the questioner, and faith interprets the response. Don can be reached for discussion at DonaldZ7@aol.com.
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