Mentoring Leaders
by Dan Lawson
One of the most effective things that I have done in my ministry was a mentoring group for leaders. In Titus 2 we see that men are to mentor men and women are to mentor women. With that in mind, I asked a group of men to commit to meeting with me one night a week for one entire year for the purpose of mentoring.
We met in the homes of the men in the group, and each group member took a turn hosting the meeting in their home. Each week we would have dinner together, and the rule was that the spouse of the host was not to do the cooking. (Consequently we ate a lot of pizza!) We handled the expense of the meal by chipping in $2.00-$3.00 each week to help the host pay for the expenses.
Each week we also had a teaching where we studied various books on subjects such as leadership, spiritual disciplines, marriage and family issues, and evangelism. Each man in the group was asked to purchase his own copy of the book that we were studying, and each man was expected to have read the chapter or chapters of the week.
Finally we ended each week's meeting by sharing our personal prayer concerns and audibly praying for each other.
The commitment level for participating in this mentoring group was very high. This assured that only those who were highly committed to improving their service to God and the church would participate. The first year I did this type of mentoring group I had twelve men commit to this level of participation. After the first year, there was always a waiting list of men who wanted to get into the next group.
Upon completing the mentoring program, each man received a diploma and, with the exception of one man in three years, every participant increased his level of involvement and commitment to the church. Most eagerly took positions of leadership in the church and continue to serve well today.
This approach could be used equally well to mentor women, with a woman serving as the leader of the process.
For more information, contact:
| Dan Lawson, Dean of Religious
Life Ashland University 401 College Avenue Ashland, OH 44805 E-mail: dlawson@ashland.edu |