Previous page | Main ALOVE site Archive   It’s Raining Mentors ... : back to relationships page    'What does mentoring mean to you? - share your thoughts here ALOVE writer Aaron White looks back at some of the people that have had the biggest influence in his life “Do, or do not do. There is no try.” – Yoda Yoda is probably my favourite all-time movie mentor. He dispenses wisdom in strange backwards language, can lift an X-Wing Fighter out of the swamp using the force, and swings a seriously dangerous lightsaber. In other words, he is impossibly cool, and the kind of mentor most people would dream of having. A mentor is usually someone who is a combination between a teacher, a counsellor, and a friend. You can be mentored specifically for a task or a profession, or you can just generally be mentored in the ways of living life. You have probably had a lot of teachers, but you would not consider them all mentors as such, certainly not if you thoroughly disliked them! There are lots of different kinds of mentors and mentoring, and no real strict rules about who qualifies as a mentor. Still, most people could look back at their lives and pick up a few, maybe several, people who they would consider mentors: people who walked alongside of them, taught them about life, provided wisdom, and helped them through difficult times. It can be a useful activity to examine your life and consider the people who really had an impact. How are you like these people? What did they pass on to you? What are you now passing onto those around you? As for me, my first mentors were my parents. Parenting is a pretty intense form of mentoring, requiring complete lifestyle commitment in order to be done well. Few people would expect to get this kind of involvement out of any other mentor, but with parents it is supposed to be a given. I am enormously blessed to have parents who right from my birth until now have been involved and proactive, teaching me through example, correction, direction, and love. I now work everyday with children who have not had this advantage. I know four siblings with four different fathers, dozens of kids with no positive male role models, kids who are dealing with constant abuse at home. The only reason I can think that I was lucky enough to be mentored with such devotion by my parents is so that I can now offer back mentoring – albeit in a different form – to a number of kids who don’t really know what it is to trust a parent. I was also mentored by a series of dedicated teachers growing up, some at school, some at Church. The ones I remember are not really the ones who tried to be cool and relevant. In fact, one married couple who mentored me are possibly the least cool people currently living on the planet. She is a squeaky little thing who strongly resembles a mouse in human form, whereas he is a tall, lanky, bald man with shockingly thick glasses who pulls his trousers up to around his armpits. They were my Sunday School teachers when I was seven years old. I saw them again just the other week, and they let me know that they still pray for me every day. Needless to say, they have shaped my life in significant ways. I have also been mentored by people who have been dead for decades, or even centuries. I’m not talking about Yoda or Obi Wan coming back in a spectral form to give instructions here. I’m talking about people who wrote down their advice so that future generations could continue to be mentored through their books. I’m not entirely sure what heaven will be like, but I do hope it is a place where I can meet and thank people like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, John Donne, Thomas a Kempis, and Brother Lawrence. They did not know me, of course, yet when their writings seemed to speak to my soul when those around me could not, I knew they were acting as my mentors in a way. I wonder if they will be surprised about that? Finally, I have been blessed to work alongside a number of godly men and women who have mentored me not so much by giving me loads of personal attention – though there has been that as well – but by their dedication to other people and to the Kingdom of God. When I get to hang out with someone who is willing to risk her life in refugee camps in Chechnya, because she believes the children there have as much right to her motherly love as her own children back home, then I can’t help but be mentored by that passion and self-sacrifice. When I share office space with a person who simply lives to communicate the gospel effectively to teens and young people in a culture hostile to Christianity, then I am both moved and educated by his life’s work. When I move into a slum community with a pair of Salvation Army officers who refuse to make the distinction between ministry and private time, who work hard at making friends with (not “doing ministry to”) addicts and homeless people and the mentally ill, and who are so excited about the things Jesus is doing and is going to do that joy practically seeps our their ears, then I don’t need to sit down and ask them formally if they could mentor me. They are already doing it, just by being around me and being who they are. I encourage you to look for your mentors, and to learn from what God is doing in the lives of people around you. I also encourage you to start asking yourself what the people around you are seeing in you, what lessons they are learning, for good or for ill, by the way you conduct your life. : back to top : back to vocation page Youthwork - The Partnership ... 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