MENTORING

MENTORING

As I understand the meaning of this word, it is nearly the same as making disciples. As we know from scripture, Jesus Christ was the original disciple maker, when He was here on planet earth for a rather short period of 30+ years. He chose 12 ordinary men and "called" them to come and follow Him. In the NLT version we read in (Mark 1:12) "Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people". These 12 men are referred to as disciples, and later are called apostles. And in heaven these same 12 men are referred to as "the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev 21:14). Paul, the man who is often referred to as the "apostle to the Gentiles", also spoke about making disciples in his second letter to one of his disciples, (2 Tim 2:2).

So as I see it, mentoring is simply showing another person certain things that you have learned in your spiritual journey along the Agape Road, as you follow Jesus toward "intimacy with the Father" (John 14:6). The only requirement on your part is that you are a "born again" follower of Jesus, who listens for His voice, and obeys His commands. These commands are listed in the Bible, the "Written Word" of God, and made known to present day disciples by His Holy Spirit who was sent to earth by God the Father and the resurrected Jesus. He was given to everyone who was "adopted" into God's Forever Family the moment we believe in and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is the result of hearing and putting our faith in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. (Rom 1:16)!

 

We have prepared a series of teachings, which we called "Marriage Mentoring", which followers this line of reasoning. It consists of 8 topics of things the mentoring couple has learned from their journey with Jesus since receiving Him as Lord of their lives, and simply sharing those things with the couple they are mentoring. It is quite different from official counseling, in that it can be done in a home environment, as opposed to a "counseling room", which can be much less threatening. And in our case we make sure everything we teach is based on scripture, and therefore are not in the class of "Psychology" based, but "Biblical" based. We find there is a lot of teaching circulating around the Body of Christ that is not really rooted in God's Word, but is often based on some experiences, that are questionable at best, and really based on some "New Age" teaching that is often based on definite occult Eastern Religions. It has always amazed me how open many followers of Jesus are to these "false prophets" and teachers, that Jesus and the early apostles like Paul, Peter and John warned us would show up!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer