Chapter 3 - Seeing God in Our Friendships

Mentoring is not coaching. Coaching is training for a specific outcome. Mentoring is rooted in friendship. Coaching transfers knowledge and expertise, although it may evolve into a mentored relationship. Only mentoring is rooted in a trusted friendship within a spiritual setting.

Ruth responded to God's calling through her relationship with Naomi. Widowed and without children, they were truly desperate housewives! But when Naomi encouraged Ruth to go find a life for herself, Ruth chose to stay with Naomi. And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God (Ru 1:16).

Both were called by God, but Naomi, an Israelite had a deep seated faith while Ruth, a Moabite, came from a people with a reputation for being wild and without God. Ruth really loved God and wanted to follow Him, but had to learn how. Naomi and Ruth had a spiritual tie and ultimately a calling of God on Ruth's life that she instinctively knew and was responding to.

Mentoring implies choice and change. My two younger children have had the same wonderful first grade teacher. Christine is a pretty, young, energetic woman with an incredibly positive and loving way with the children, yet she exudes an authority beyond her years.

On a field trip, she casually mentioned something about her mother being a first grade teacher. "No wonder you're so good with the children," I remarked. Her mother was her mentor, a trusted and loyal advisor. Christine may have been born with certain pre-disposed qualities that would enable her to teach, but she chose to act on these pre-determined characteristics, learn from her mother, and make the most of them.

Mentoring is a key ingredient to administering an effective recovery program. In 12-step recovery we call it "sponsorship." I like doing things 'by the book', so when I realized my own need for Al Anon, I figured it would work best if I did what I was supposed to do which included finding a sponsor. So I prayerfully and carefully found someone who seemed to be working the program herself which she was. The program has a life of its own where peace eventually took place of the chaos inside my own soul.

Relationships of accountability are developed to replace old, dysfunctional habits with healthy, new ones. Within the confines of a trusted friendship, a sponsor passes experience, strength, and hope to the newcomer.

Mentoring, like sponsorship, provides constructive solutions to complex life problems. Sometimes I feel caught in a situation I can't respond to because I can't see the forest for the trees. My sponsor offers real solutions that worked for her; some of them may work for me.

Finding a sponsor who shares the same value system is preferable. There are many people from all ages, professions, and ethnicities. For years, Rachel sought the help of a counselor who did not share her value system. She developed a non-Christian view of healing, flavored with new age perspective. Rachel now understands that true healing can only come from Jesus. If we seek non-Christian mentors, they will lean toward the world's view on healing which is self-help, self-talk, self-control . . . all of which fails in the end because of the reliance on the flawed, human "self."

Alexandra believes part of the problem for professional Christian women is the church's tradition that limits women in ministry. "Here's what I know from being in the ministry for so many years. Church leaders get together, and they do all this stuff, but they don't ever invite the women in the Christian community who are in business and are leaders in their communities-Christian leaders.

"And I thought, 'Oh my goodness, they could teach us so much because sometimes in the church we get into so much unhealthiness. These women who are out in the world, they have learned a professionalism that we need to understand. I think Christian women in business learn to integrate their spirituality into the world around them, while in ministry we tend to stay in this little bubble. We need to learn from them.

"And we need to encourage them. When I was on staff as a women's minister at my church, I used to think, 'The people who are least reached in the church are the professional women.' Why are we not reaching them? Professional women find outlets outside the church, and those women may be of more value on a board than some of the men."

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