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Mentor Like Jesus: A Review
Posted by Bowden McElroy in Church & Missions, IMPACT Features
Authors: Regi Campbell and Richard Chancy with a forward by Andy Stanley
Publisher: B&H Books
ISBN: 978-0-8054-4811-5
Summary
Regi Campbell describes a model for mentoring others – one he titles “Next Generation Mentoring – while Richard Chancy adds the perspective of a mentoree.
About the Authors
Regi Campbell is a successful entrepreneur and an elder at North Point Community Church. Since founding Seedsower Investments he has helped start eight companies, each involved in the service and technology fields.
Richard Chancy is the Founder and President of Next Generation Mentoring. Prior to Next Generation Mentoring, a non-profit that partners with churches to develop mentoring processes, he was with the Church Development division of John Maxwell’s Injoy.
Strengths
I jumped at the chance to review Mentor Like Jesus. (Disclaimer: I was given an advance copy of the book with the expectation I would publish a review on this site.) I have discovered an increasing passion for ministering to college students and was hoping for new ideas on how to effectively reach them. I discovered a quick read and one challenging idea, but nothing I could call new.
Campbell has a passion for mentoring and insists nearly anyone can become a mentor. ”Mentor on Purpose” is the challenge issued to the reader. I found the first chapter to be the most intriguing part of the book. Campbell insists the reader can be intentional in developing a group of young adults to mentor. That message is one of the two strengths of this book. The other strength is the tone of the book. Campbell takes the 2000-year-old concept of discipleship and puts it in the language of the business world.
The principles are sound; there is nothing new in the book. I think that is a strength. I was a little fearful of claims tantamount to a new revelation on mentoring/discipling and was pleased to be mistaken.
I also liked the fact that Campbell insists men should wait to be a mentor until “after they’re 40 – when they know something”. I’ve often had the same thought, I’ve just never seen it in print before.
Weaknesses
My chief complaint about Mentor Like Jesus is Campbell’s claim to be a “regular guy”. I could never forget he is a uber-successful entrepneur. Campbell describes how he put out a call for young men to apply to be mentored by him and then had the luxury of winnowing out applicants. That is unlikely to be the experience of a regular guy. Most of us don’t have a ready made group of ambitious 20-somethings competing to spend time with us.
I was a little disappointed on the section about group dynamics. Campbell wants the reader to understand the mentor will learn from the group as much as he teaches, to view mentorship as facilitating rather than teaching, and to look for opportunities to use peer pressure in a positive way. All good advice, but a little light on what may be one of the more important aspects of his process.
Recommendations
Teachers, therapists, pastors, and experienced, successful small groups leaders are unlikely to come away from this read with any new ideas or strategies. Still, I believe they will find in the first chapter a challenge to put their expertise to work in a systematic way.
Men (and this book really is written to men, although the principles are equally applicable to women wanting to mentor younger women) who have never been a part of a systematic approach to mentoring will find the book helpful. We are all called to make disciples and Mentor Like Jesus may help those who are reticent to overcome their anxieties and begin mentoring others.
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Thanks for this review. I’m confident I will pick this up and share with my fellow “old men”.
Your point about waiting until you are 40-something to look at mentoring is pretty sound. I teamed up with a 31 year old man (I’m 45) to mentor a 24 year old man who is single and still acting like a kid. We’re using some Men at the Cross material. I was surprised to see that the 31 year old (married with 3 kids) needs mentoring just as much as the young twenty something.
All too often, he values excellence over people. If someone is not “measuring” up, he wants a confrontation. Now, we’re not talking about the Christian witness here. I’m talking about tech crew / worship band issues. Talk about making majors out of minors!
It seems to me that as I grow older, the Christian walk becomes both easier and harder at the same time.
It’s easier in that it becomes simpler. Addiction to performance has less and less of a hold on me. The implications and effect of the gospel in my life are more clear.
It’s harder in that my understanding of the the holiness of God continues to grow at the same rate as my understanding of my un-holiness.
Good review and interesting comment about waiting until after 40. I past that milestone some time ago and I actually feel less qualified to be a mentor the older I get. I might know more things, but there are far fewer that I am sure about.
Maybe that’s one of the things you learn after 40, that you don’t have all the answers any more.
The “40″ thing is interesting. I was a pastor in my mid-20′s and I always felt a little intimidated. It was in my mid to late 30′s that I finally felt I had the wisdom and maturity to handle the job God had given me – being an “elder” to God’s people.
Re: Waiting ’til after 40 to be a mentor
I was 16 when I started college; 22 when I completed graduate school and started working as a therapist. I look back now and realize I was all about the technical side of therapy when I was in my 20′s. I had to apply lessons learned by others. Now that I’m pushing 50, I have many more intuitive, life lessons to offer others.
I don’t fault pastors or therapists who are young; youth and lack of experience are not moral failings. I do think we who are middle-aged (or older) have more to offer than we did 20 years ago.
I definitely agree.
Brother Bowden,
Thanks for the review.
There is a lot to be said for men that are looking to mentor to not be novices in the faith. Growing in our understanding of God’s Word seems to me now,…as something not so tied to a systematic/programatic approach to mentoring, but one of prayer and repentance. A qualified overseer or teacher engaged in mentoring will know the difference.
Blessings,
Chris
I have an issue with saying that you should wait to mentor someone until you’re 40. Timothy was most likely not 40 when Paul told him to not let anyone look down on him because he was young but to be an example. As a pastor, Timothy had to do some mentoring on at least spiritual matters to people who were older than him who didn’t know as much.
I don’t think that anyone really has a catch-all, end-all mentor for every aspect of life. If I need a mentor on marriage, I would probably look for someone with a strong marriage, and more than likely they would be over 40, but if I am looking for a mentor on how to use Microsoft Office, I’m more likely to ask a 22 year old college student than Grandpa for advice.
I recognize that wisdom often accompanies age, but we shouldn’t discount people who aren’t quite 40, or in my case, who aren’t quite 22, just because they lack the age of a good mentor. Discipleship counts as mentoring, and I have been teaching and working with new Christians a lot older tham myself on some basics of the faith.
Without getting into the complexities of his deity and humanity, Jesus was 30 years old when he began his ministry. Was he qualified to be a mentor? A non-deity example would be John the Baptist, who had his own group of mentees. Let’s recognize those who have many life experiences and would be good mentors, but let’s not forget that wisdom and understanding can even be found in the young.
Brother Andrew,
I think you are right….. and the reason I refer to “not being novices in the faith”. There are many mature younger men and women that are very qualified to mentor and should be intentional in that regard.
-Chris
I think it’s important for those of us who are under 40 to first have a mentor, and to have mentor type relationships. There are some who I help, who I look out for, who I give some advice, but I wouldn’t call myself a mentor. I am 32, and realize I have a lot to learn. I try to gain wisdom from the pastors in my association (like Dave Miller, so y’all pray for me). I know that as I learn from then, some younger guys can learn from me.
I believe firmly that most of the issues we are struggling with in our churches and convention stem from a lack of mentor-ship. We have young leaders who are book smart, but have never had someone put their arm around them and tell them how to deal withe the cranky deacon. How to handle the unusual situation. I would be sunk if I didn’t have wise pastor friends who I could call on. I appreciate all the Dave Millers in my life.
This may be a bit harsh, but I think mentoring books (as well as books on small groups or evangelism) are too much like books on self-help @ Barnes & Noble: there are scores of them on the shelf, but are largely ineffective for one of two reasons.
In the case of self-help books, they are mostly useless, pie-in-the-sky, stare at my navel, be one with the vortex in Sedona that don’t address issues of sin. Besides if any one self-help book worked, it would be the ONLY book on the shelf in that section.
With mentoring books (like small groups and evangelism) it is more about the words of the book NOT being put into practice. To mentor takes loads of time and effort and intention that most people before me (I’m 37; 38 in Dec) were not willing to take. I’ve had great mentors in seminary, but I also paid them to mentor me.
I think many pastors/elders are loathe to take the time to mentor because they think they need to spend time doing other things (meetings or visitations or meetings). I think that some are afraid to mentor because the one mentored might see the pastor/elder screw up and lose his temper, speak in the tongues of sailors and marines, or even despair in being a pastor. I think some have a skewed view of their place as pastor and that they need to be over the WHOLE flock, not investing heavily in a few.
My solution to these three observations are:
1) TIME- Much of what pastors are expected to do is probably closer to “waiting on tables” and as such should be primarily in deacon ministry; i.e. visitation of the sick. Like Moses, much of what senior pastors do should be in the hands of other elder/pastors – (Sunday school ministry; youth ministry; committees that should be scrapped and made into a-political ministry teams headed by deacons because they are largely about physical needs not spiritual needs) so they can concentrate on major spiritual issues like prayer, ministry of the Word, and mentoring the next generation of pastor/elder leaders.
2)FEAR- I think that the next generation of pastor/elders needs not only to have great examples of sermon writers, preachers, people-lovers, and servant leadership but they also need to see that pastors are people who are ALSO in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. We aren’t perfect and we need to be humble enough to show that.
3)PERSPECTIVE- I believe that Paul was the defacto Bishop of the entire Eastern empire by virtue of having done the mission trips and starting so many churches. He maintained regular contact with all of them and I’m of the mind that the letters in the NT are a fraction of what he actually wrote. However, he did appoint elders (whom he had mentored in the midst of his church planting) in each of the churches to minister to those he left behind as he mentored Timothy and others who traveled with him. He was still pastor to them all and still found time to mentor and disciple a few close to him.
My admonition to those here is that if you are not mentoring someone, especially a youth or twenty-something who is considering the ministry… what are you waiting for?
- Don’t be afraid to seek those among your churches who can become ordained elder/pastors (even if not paid) who can share the burden of leading the flock (i.e. executive pastor to be at all the meetings).
- Don’t be afraid to challenge the deacons to meet the physical needs of the flock while you and the other elder/pastors meet the spiritual needs.
- Don’t be afraid to fail in front of one you seek to mentor because that allows you to show them how a pastor confesses and repents before God.
Many of us have wanted mentors but there were none to be found. There is a new generation coming up now and they need us, and you who are older, to be the guides they are looking for.