{"id":733797,"date":"2021-02-11T20:05:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T02:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=733797"},"modified":"2021-02-12T13:37:24","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T19:37:24","slug":"four-reasons-your-church-needs-a-mentoring-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/four-reasons-your-church-needs-a-mentoring-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Reasons Your Church Needs a Mentoring Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week I get the privilege of working with pastors from all over.<\/span> Most have a sense there could be more. More participation, more depth, more passion, more community. What they\u2019re doing isn\u2019t broken, but it\u2019s not enough. A common concern I hear: \u201cmy church is a mile wide, but an inch deep.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a little biased, but I think <\/span>the best way for a church to help their people dig a few inches deeper is small group mentoring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I tell you why, here\u2019s the two-sentence overview of how Radical Mentoring does \u201csmall group mentoring.\u201d We equip an older, wiser mentor with conversation guides and other resources to lead a group of younger mentees through an intentional mentoring process for nine to twelve months. Mentors share their faith stories in the first meeting and continue to share their life experience by facilitating a topic-based conversation during each of the monthly meetings that follow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, here are four reasons launching a small group mentoring process can have a profound impact on your church\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Mentoring groups build intergenerational relationships.<\/b> Last year, <\/span>Barna released a study on engaging men<\/span><\/a>. They found that men with intergenerational relationships were \u201c<\/span>nearly twice as likely to be very satisfied in their relationship with their child (54% vs. 30%) and in their marriage (64% vs. 54%).\u201d <\/span>Mentoring groups create an environment for people of different seasons of life to interact. <\/span>Mentors find value in sharing their wisdom and life experience, while mentees get to learn from someone who has already been where they\u2019re going.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Mentoring groups create authentic relationships.<\/b> Ultimately, we all want to be known. Of the 450+ people surveyed after their mentoring season, 95% said they experienced authentic community in their group, and 88% described their group\u2019s relationships as \u201cvery deep\u201d or \u201cdeep.\u201d The secret sauce? <\/span>Stories<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>By focusing on stories, mentoring groups create a safe space for people to be real, encourage each other, and drive relationships deep.<\/span> Having everyone share their full, no-holding-back faith story, starting with the mentor, equips the group to go further, faster and leads to conversations that matter.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Mentoring groups raise the leadership capacity of your church.<\/b> Every church needs more leaders. More people to lead small groups and get involved with the high school ministry. More people to serve as deacons and elders or to lead Bible studies. <\/span>People who go through a mentoring group become your next generation of leaders.<\/span> They improve the quality of your other environments by bringing the authenticity and intentionality they learned during their mentoring season.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Mentoring groups develop all-in Jesus-followers:<\/b> Arguably the most important one. Mentees spend nine to twelve months learning from and watching their mentor. They observe how the mentor lives their life and how they interact with Jesus. <\/span>While anything but perfect, the life of the mentor, transparently exposed and fully committed, shows them a real-life example of what a fully-alive Jesus-follower is like and what it\u00a0<\/span>can be for them<\/span><\/i>\u00a0if they go all-in.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We\u2019d love to help you explore how small group mentoring could fit in at your church. And the best part,\u00a0our entire resource library<\/a>\u00a0is available to you for free. When you\u00a0go here to get access<\/a>, you\u2019ll receive everything you need to launch\u00a0Radical Mentoring<\/a>\u00a0groups for men or\u00a0Known Collective<\/a>\u00a0groups for women, including our coaching and guidance.\u00a0Learn more here.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While anything but perfect, the life of the mentor, transparently exposed and fully committed, shows them a real-life example of what a fully-alive Jesus-follower is like and what it can be for them if they go all-in. ","protected":false},"author":9031,"featured_media":733798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[184,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-733797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discipleship","category-mind-body-and-spirit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFour Reasons Your Church Needs a Mentoring Program | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The life of the mentor, transparently exposed and fully committed, shows them a real-life example of a fully-alive Jesus-follower.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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