“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” It’s one of the more famous proverbs in the Bible, and it points to a basic truth: one of our most important jobs as Christians and as human beings is to help each other grow in the faith.

One of the ways we do this every day is by treating people kindly, by praying for others, and by encouraging people who could use an uplifting word—and sometimes challenging them when they stray. This sort of support—”sharpening,” if you will—is also an important part of Christian disicpleship. Mentoring is more formalized way that believers can help each other. A mentor is a spiritual tutor, somewhere between a friend and a teacher. A mentor offers the wisdom of his or her experience to another Christian, helping them to mature in their own faith. The Bible is full of examples of good mentors, as described in this Our Daily Bread devotional about what a Biblical mentor looks like.

Anyone can be a mentor to someone else. But since a good mentor is strongly rooted in Christ and has experience with life’s ups and downs, it’s most common to see adult Christians mentoring young (or new) Christians. Several of these articles are thus geared toward youth ministry, but are relevant to anybody who’s interested in becoming a mentor to a fellow believer:

• The Power of a Mentor explains why mentoring is so important to young people today, and argues that it’s one of the most effective ways to help young people make wise spiritual choices.
• Great at Being the Number Two Guy describes the qualities that go into being an effective mentor. It’s geared especially toward church and youth group leaders.
• In Fragile Strangers, Denise McKinney describes the great challenge of ministering to orphaned and foster kids—and suggests that mentoring is a powerful way that you can help.
• Last week, we mentioned a lot of ministries that provide service opportunities. Some of these ministries can help you connect to mentoring opportunities in your community.

Mentoring is an important role, but it’s a special one in that any Christian can fill it. You don’t have to be a pastor or a theologian to help a brother or sister in Christ through a tough spot in their life. Read through these articles and see if mentoring—either in an official capacity through your church or a ministry, or in an informal capacity in your relationship with somebody—is what God is calling you to do!

By: Andy. This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Discipleship, Mentoring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.