3 Thoughts on Mentorship
Proverbs 27 says: 17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. 18 Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who guards his master will be honored. 19 As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man. 20 Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.
It’s amazing what mentoring can do. It’s a truly underutilized opportunity in our world. With the onslaught of young, gifted leaders, some people believe that we don’t need the insight and wisdom of an experienced generation. Nothing could be further from the truth. I celebrate young leaders and the gifts they bring to the table, but with extraordinary gifts can come extraordinary hubris. And we must always be on our guard for this.
Here are some of my thoughts on mentorship:
(1) The idea of mentorship is hurt by those who think they have “graduated”
Sometimes I hate graduation ceremonies. Yes, they honor those who have invested time and effort to accomplish something great, but people can get fooled into thinking that there is nothing left to learn. Getting a 4.0 GPA doesn’t guarantee success in application. Conversely, a 2.0 GPA doesn’t send you on to a destiny of mediocrity.
I’ve seen too many people shun mentorship because they think they are the next incarnation of Martin Luther or Steve Jobs. They don’t feel that anyone can teach them anything more than they’ve already learned. They feel that their philosophy of life guarantees success and they are owed some type of respect because of how long they’ve sat in school. We aren’t owed anything; we earn what we are willing to work for.
Iron sharpens iron. We can all get better. But, are we willing to allow that to happen to us? Are we willing to get over the “I’ve graduated” mentality and lay our ego aside for the sake of growing ourselves and seeing that others might just have something gracious to offer? Explore, listen, and be willing admit that you can be sharper.
(2) Mentorship helps us guard what we’ve already got
Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who guards his master will be honored. As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.
Mentorship helps us see what we’ve already learned and how it is important to us. We’ve studied for a particular goal already, but until we’ve had the sustained opportunity to practice it, it’s just a fad in our hearts. It’s with sustained application that we find out if it’s really a core value of ours, or just a get rich quick opportunity. This goes for our personal lives and spiritual lives as well. Sometimes we do something in the church because we think we’ll gain fame, but we soon find our goals were misguided. Mentorship will help us to understand how important that opportunity really is to us.
Mentorship helps us ask the important questions: what is my motivation for all of this? what do I hope to accomplish? how can I do better? how can I guard myself and my investment into this venture? how can success be sustained and not fleeting?
We should always seek to guard what we’ve invested greatly in, and mentorship can help accomplish that.
(3) Those who mentor cannot get fooled into thinking they have all the answers
Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.
Sometimes, people are made to wait in line who should be given opportunity.
I don’t believe that people should be made to wait in line if their skills and talents are exemplary. I believe two words should be stricken from the English language: fair and deserve. There’s probably more I think should go, but these two are on the top of my list. I’m all for wisdom and learning, but sometimes it’s taken too far. I believe that this is why there has been an explosion of young leadership in the last number of years, because there has been persecution of young talent by those that say they need to wait in line. So, they’ve gone off and done it themselves and had great success. But in some professions, we still see it, such as politics at the national levels.
Sometimes we try to satisfy ourselves at another person’s expense. And that is shameful. The church, unfortunately, has, at certain times, tried to make young leaders wait, so much so, that they’ve left for other opportunities. And then churches who sustain this mentality wonder why they left and get bitter about their circumstances. It emboldens them into believing that they were right and that those young folk left because of immaturity. And they wonder why no one wants to be a part of their churches.
I don’t believe seniority necessarily denotes automatic accommodation. I was listening to sports talk radio the other day and the discussion was on Kobe Bryant. His play and mentality at this point in his storied career have had a negative effect on his team. Most people agree that he should play more of the mentor role and less I’m going to do everything which he has done for a long time. Successfully. But it’s not working anymore for the Lakers. So, on this sports talk radio show, one of the commentators stated that he believes the Kobe has earned the right to do whatever he wants because of what he’s done in the past. I disagree. The Lakers are not responsible per se to Kobe, they’re responsible to the fans who pay a ridiculous amount of money supporting the organization. And it’s not like Kobe is not getting paid very well; it isn’t as if it’s a trade-off: we’ll pay you less and let you do what you want. He is getting both while the organization is getting less.
Sometimes those young leaders really are that good. And we should be satisfied to give them their chance instead of making them wait for some human measuring stick that we’ve invented. We can’t protect them from everything, and we shouldn’t want to. We should be willing to risk for the Kingdom of Jesus. He raised up young leaders that we now call Apostles, and the church has worked out OK since.
Don’t fall into that trap.
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Mentoring is a great thing. I will always champion it. I’ve been mentored on multiple occasions and I’m always willing to listen to those whose wisdom far exceeds mine. Let’s be mentored and let’s be willing to mentor. That can only make the church that Christ won stronger. Amen.
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