Do you have a burden to reach today’s young women? It’s not there by accident. In fact, it’s a burden straight from God’s heart to yours! Whether you are coming alongside a teen girl or you are teaching a small group Bible study, it’s important to start strong. This week, Leslie shows you how to lay a solid foundation so your mentoring will go the distance and impact a younger woman’s life for eternity. This episode is filled with inspiring practicals so you can effectively reach out to others God has placed in your path, starting today!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Mentoring. It’s certainly become a buzzword in today’s Christian circles. However, mentoring is not merely having a friendly life-coach, or giving big-sister advice over lattes with a girl in your community. It’s important to have a biblical approach so that your mentoring truly makes an eternal impact, and not just a temporary one. Simply stated, mentoring means to lead by example, proving that you’re never too young or too old to begin influencing someone’s life for eternity. However, to do so you must understand that there are a few keys to keep at the forefront of your mind as you mentor.
Three Keys to Having an Effective Mentoring Journey
- Be ready for battle: You must realize that there are two major battles in mentoring. Firstly, the battle over the young woman you’re investing into, and, secondly, over your own life as you step out to share truth with her. It’s pivotal to learn how to resist the enemy and be on vigilant guard against discouragement as you minister to today’s young women.
- Check your motives: It’s all too easy to get in ministry for the wrong reasons. We might envision receiving applause and recognition, or gaining a sense of “personal fulfillment” by getting involved in meaningful work, but if you’re involved in ministry for your own happiness, you will inevitably become burned out or discouraged after a short amount of time.
- Get in step with God’s Spirit: It’s important than in the many details and practicals involved in ministry that you don’t forget the necessity of keeping in step with the Spirit of God, staying close to Jesus, and prayerfully approaching every facet of mentoring and/or ministry you’re involved in. These key quotes serve as helpful reminders for keeping Christ as the fuel for our every action:
How to Prepare a Message
Don’t go into the study to prepare a sermon — that’s nonsense. Go into your study to God and get so fiery that your tongue is like a burning coal and you have got to speak.
C.T. Studd
How to Have a Lasting Impact
Preach any Christ but a crucified Christ, and you will not draw men for long.
R.A. Torrey
How to Become Qualified for Ministry
I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China…I don’t know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said — “Well, she’s willing.”
Gladys Aylward
How to Keep your Focus on Christ
It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? Dare to have it out with God, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His Glory. Turn your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him.
Lilias Trotter
How to Know if You are “Called”
“Not called!” did you say? “Not heard the call,” I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.
Wiliam Booth
SEVEN TIPS FOR HOW TO BEGIN
- Lay the Right Spiritual Foundation
- Wrestle in prayer before you even begin
- Let God give you His burden for souls
- Bind Satan’s interference
- Prepare your own heart (let God refine you and freshly surrender to your life to Him)
- Keep your ear tuned to His Spirit
- Ask Poignant Questions
- How is your relationship with God?
- What are your greatest struggles?
- Who are the biggest influencers in your life?
- Are you in a relationship? Do you believe it is God-honoring?
- Do your friends point you closer to Christ or distract you from Him?
- Share your Story
- God changed my life when…
- I learned how to surrender to God when…
- One of my biggest struggles has been…
- God has given me victory when…
- I have a passion to share truth with young women because…
- Explore God’s Word Together
- Pick a key topic and study what God’s Word says about it. Choose areas you feel directed by God to highlight, or areas you know that the girls are specifically struggling with.
- Guide them in Soul-Searching
- Give them questions to ask and take before God. Encourage them to get away to a quiet place, sit before God and let Him search their hearts. Provide examples of questions to ask that relate to a specific topic you have been studying. Ideas include:
- Have I truly surrendered this area of my life to Christ?
- Am I living selfishly in this area or am I truly glorifying God in my conduct?
- Are there any specific changes I feel God is asking me to make in this area?
- What will this mean practically for me?
- Am I relying on God’s enabling power to obey Him, or attempting to obey in my own strength?
- Facilitate Quietness (remove distractions)
- Since many young women do not know how to have a quiet time and/or create a quiet environment, it can be helpful to provide a place of quiet focus when you are leading a small group. Whenever possible, create an atmosphere of peace by playing calm worshipful music, removing noise and distractions, silencing cell phones, and giving ladies an opportunity to get alone with God and reflect on what He is doing in their hearts.
- Provide Outreach Opportunities
- Visit local nursing homes
- Volunteer at homeless ministries
- Visit local prisons
- Bless a local neighborhood with practical service
- Adopt an orphanage overseas to pray for and serve
- Study and pray for persecuted Christians
- Sponsor a Compassion child or children as a group
Key Scriptures
- Galatians 6:9
Recommended Resources
- To take this topic deeper, we want to encourage you toward Leslie’s online course Christ-Centered Mentoring available here.
- Read Leslie’s equipping article on biblical mentoring for free at our website! Learn how to become a Christ-centered mentor here.
