I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. ~1 Corinthians 3:6-7
“Are you going surfing this weekend?” I get asked this often, and rightly so. So long as it works out, Saturdays are surf days. But again, “so long as it work out.”
Surfing is as humbling as it is exhilarating. Though I love doing it, I’m not great at it. Nor do I always get to go when I do have an open Saturday.
Unlike the other sports I enjoy, surfing involves a moving and unpredictable medium. To surf, I not only need a surfboard; I need waves. I can control the first, but not the second. I can control what kind of board I bring. I can control the technique I employ when catching waves. I can control which waves I choose to catch (or at least, try to) and which ones I let pass. But I can’t control whether or not surf-suitable waves will actually be there. And yet their presence makes or breaks the outing: no waves, no surf.
In this way, surfing is similar to spiritual discipleship and mentoring in the Christian community.
I get asked about mentoring and discipleship frequently. I get it: the endeavor has always been a massive sector of my ministry. It’s also, honestly, a head-scratcher. When people ask me about it, and what strategies I employ, more often than not I’m without answers.
It’s not a bad question to ask what one must do strategically for a discipleship relationship to work, just like asking about the proper technique in surfing isn’t a bad question. But just like I can’t control the presence of surf-suitable waves essential for a successful surf session, so also I can’t control the presence of certain essential elements of an effective, fruitful mentoring relationship between a mentor and mentee.
Sure, there are certain elements that one can control, for which one is responsible. I will address these elements in a following article.
But more often than not, I get asked questions regarding how to produce certain relational dynamics to which I all I can say is, “That’s a great question!” because I don’t know the answer.
Here are three such unanswerable questions.
Unanswerable Question #1: “How do you get people to ask you to mentor them?”
I frequently get asked this question because I often teach that discipleship relationships are best initiated by the younger believer—that it’s better when a younger guy asks you to mentor him (which shows a desire for growth) rather than you asking if you can be his mentor (which can come across as arrogant or even patronizing).
That said, I can’t produce initiative in another person. I can’t control whether or not a younger believer would want me to mentor them, let alone take the initiative to pursue it himself. I don’t know how to make someone view my life as a model for theirs. What draws the ones who do? Is it an issue of personality? Is it an issue of demographic? Or is it of circumstance? Honestly, when I survey these individuals, I can’t discern any common denominator. And I also know that for every young man who sees me as fit to mentor him, there are ninety-nine others around him who don’t.
So how do I get guys to ask me to mentor them? I haven’t a clue.
Unanswerable Question #2: “How do you motivate them to desire spiritual things?”
Discipleship of any kind of depth involves not only a mentor who is available, but also a younger believer who sincerely hungers for spiritual things. So, people have asked, “How do you motivate disciples to desire spiritual things?”
Motivation is an issue of desire. As I write this entry, my high-school aged son is next to me on his phone. Of all the human beings on the planet, he is around me the most. As you can imagine, he and I are very close. And yet, he shares none of my natural interests—literally, none.
His daily presence is a reminder that one can’t control desire. And thus, the motivation of anyone is out of my hands.
This is especially true when it comes to the things of God. The natural man, after all, can’t accept the things of God, because they are foolishness to him (1 Cor 2:14). Thus, the hunger and thirst for God is the work of the Spirit (Rom 8:5-6). In the discipleship process, I can instruct someone the way of godliness from the Scriptures, exhort him to walk in it, and model it as best I can with my life. But how to motivate him to desire such godliness? As with the first question, I haven’t a clue.
Unanswerable Question #3: “How do you get those you mentor to have transparency and depth with you?”
A shallow mentoring relationship is, frankly, a waste of time. It is the presence of depth that makes the mentoring relationship a worth-it investment. And for depth to have any kind of integrity, there must be honesty and transparency.
The million-dollar question is, “How do you get guys to open up to you and be honest with you?” The plans of a man are deep water (Prov 20:5). If someone won’t open up to you, then you wont’ be able to mentor them—at least, not in the spiritual sense. You can teach him Trigonometry and you can coach him in basketball perhaps. But you won’t be able to spiritually mentor them because spiritual mentoring involves both the confession of sin and sharing of burdens. Such transparency involves humble vulnerability that we only exhibit with those we trust.
I can tell you what will make it easier for people to be vulnerable with you. Being non-judgmental and maintaining confidentiality are vital. But whether or not someone is willing to trust you in this way is something you can’t force or control.
Personally, I am not a very transparent person. I don’t know what goes through the mind of someone who decides they want to open up to me, and perhaps I never will. So, as with the first and second question, my answer to the third is simply, “I haven’t a clue.”
Conclusion
Saying “I haven’t a clue” in no way implies that I don’t work hard in the ministry of mentoring and discipling believers. What I am implying is that mentoring discipleship is a Spirit-empowered ministry just like any other ministry in the church (1 Cor 12:4-6; 1 Peter 4:10-11).
As with every ministry, there are some non-negotiable biblical principles and some best practices from a wisdom perspective in the realm of mentoring and discipleship. But, as with every ministry, it’s still a Spirit-empowered ministry.
And, while one can yield to the Spirit, the Spirit can neither be controlled nor commanded. For any mentoring discipleship relationship to work, the Spirit must bring certain dynamics into existence. These dynamics can’t be manufactured by human ingenuity. Thus, I don’t know how to produce them. I never have, and I’ve stopped trying.
And so every time I pray through the mentoring relationships that God has entrusted to my care, I think of 1 Corinthians 3:6-7: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.” No matter how skillfully I learn to plant and water, it is God and God alone who causes growth.
Initiative, hunger, and depth—three crucial elements of effective mentoring relationships described in this article—are all genes in the spiritual seed that I can’t create. I can’t control their presence or absence in a younger believer, just like I can’t control of the presence or absence of surf-suitable waves in the ocean. When they’re there, I rejoice and capitalize. When they’re absent, I don’t sweat it.
Over the years, I’ve embraced the reality that there are some individuals who I couldn’t mentor, and who never wanted me to mentor them. There were others with who I started the mentoring discipleship with, but things fizzled out quickly for one reason or another. There were people who started the counseling process with me, and never returned. There were times when I was referred to for someone to seek mentoring or counseling from, but the person never showed. Again, certain relational dynamics need to be present for a fruitful and edifying mentoring relationship; their presence can’t be attributed to any skill or strategy of the mentor, but only to the sovereignty of God.
And even within the small community of those men with whom I was able to effectively mentor by the empowering of the Spirit, still some of those relationships exhibited more fruit and depth than others. There are some individuals who, for one reason or another, I simply grew closer to than others. Why did I grow close to some than others? Why did Paul, given all the people he worked with and mentored, grow particularly close to Timothy (Phil 2:19-24)? Why was there a bond between them that there wasn’t with others? It wasn’t because Timothy was better than the others, but because he was a kindred spirit who saw Paul like a father. Kindredness of spirit and the commitment to walk alongside you as a son to his father aren’t qualities that can be manufactured with human hands.
But when they are present—along with initiative, hunger, and depth—you’ve got surf-suitable wave. And when they’re there, start paddling.
