I’m 25 and work with youth. I’ve never had a mentor, and have always felt a longing for somebody with experience and age to speak into my life. It isn’t an issue, at least for me, of thinking I don’t need that sort of guidance but I think there is a lack of older people who fit that role.
I didn’t grow up in the church so it wasn’t until I was in my early 20′s that I even formed relationships with older men who were Christians. There are faithful men here, but that doesn’t always qualify them for the role of mentor.
I wish I had something constructive to say about this but really I don’t. I would like a mentor and have an idea in my mind of what type of person that might be but the opportunity to be mentored has yet to cross my path.
Here is the basic criteria I use:
- demonstrate a growing faith
- be involved in ministry, at any level
- has been a Christian for 20 years
- thoughtfulness
- non-judgmental
I find a lot of older men in my church get caught up on cultural things. They like to tell me it is rude to wear a hat in front of women and that jeans is inappropriate attire for Sunday but have yet to talk to me about ministry or even spirituality.
And that begs the question, how do I find a mentor? Do I go out and seek proactively or do I wait until somebody crosses my path who is a good fit? I don’t want to pretend that I know what I need, but I don’t want to settle for somebody who will just frustrate me.
This comment is all over the place, I realize, but I’m just processing it all.

We all need Elijah as we are Elisha. The problem is that it is not so easy to find a suitable mentor.
I think it is important and belssing if a youth ministor can find a good mentor.

I am at the old end of your youth pastor age bracket, I do have some mentors that I rely on. But I do see the great lack in the lives of youth pastors around me. I wonder if the people we look to be mentored from were ever mentored themselves. A lot to me seem confused as to why I, or others are looking for this. They can sometimes remark that they were fed to the wolves when they started (often as the only pastor of a small church, not in a multi staff church) and cannot see why we expect different or are looking for this type of relationship. Do they need to be mentored in mentoring? I personally spread it out. There are a few lay people and pastors that I look to for mentoring based on skill sets, personal character traits, spiritual formation, and the fact that I don’t want to be a mini-me of any of them.
Thanks for taking these issues on. Keep it up!

Significant topic, Chris. I am 29 year old youth pastor. Here are my thoughts:
1. I have an older pastor-friend who I consider a mentor. We meet for coffee every couple months and he offers perspective and wisdom on ministry and life in general. He’s a blessing.
2. I believe older pastors really enjoy the opportunity to mentor emerging leaders Most are flattered when asked. They totally understand the benefit of and biblical precedent for Paul-Timothy relationships.
3. BUT I believe young leaders will typically have to take the initiative in seeking out a mentor. I know I did. Sadly, most older pastors are just too busy with all the demands of their role to initiate these types of mentorships.
4. Each individual church needs to build these mentoring structures into the organizational DNA – for example, lead pastors should make this part of the hiring and orientation process when bringing on new youth pastors.
5. Still, the best mentor relationships are not structured or forced. A level of trust, intimacy and chemistry is necessary and therefore young leaders must be intentional to pursue these types of relationships with leaders they love, respect and trust.
So, in short, the main obstacle in this case again seems to be excessive BUSYNESS for both potential mentors and the mentored . And, like the sabbath rest, this is not really an option in scripture. We young guns, full of ambition and idealism – and a often a good dose of arrogance – must come under the loving authority of wise elders and more seasoned leaders.
Come to think of it…maybe the fact that many pastors are too busy and pulled in too many directions is the direct result of never having sat under an older, wiser mentor who could have taught him healthy time management skills. Hmmmm….

emerging youth leaders often have a very different understanding of church/spirituality than their older counterparts. in my office, a lot of reverse mentoring occurs. i find i regularly coach my older counterparts to see situations in the emerging cultural context.
it isn’t that i am too arrogant to be mentored by them, but as joey touched on, the difference in our views of what is important creates a distrust in a mentoring relationship.
that isn’t to say that this is always the case, there are certainly emerging-minded mentors, but in conversations with my like-aged peers, my experience is common.

As a 25yr old youth minister myself who has my pastor as my 1-on-1 mentor, I can see that there could be differences between how the mentor views the ministry (especially the teaching material) and how the youth minister views whats best in certain situations.
But I think putting opinions aside, youth ministers do need a lot of guidance from mentors (especially pastors) who recognize not just a “program” that focuses on ‘success’ and a pragmatic outlook on spiritual growth, but also focuses on the core of the gospel message and how its to be delivered. There are a lot of good and exciting things that can be developed for an “emerging” context, but the mentor can’t lose sight and morph their ministry into something that ends up losing confidence in plainly proclaiming the gospel.

I am a 38 yr old youth pastor in a rural yet growing community. I think it is imperative that youth pastor’s be mentored, ideally by another Pastor and/or church elder’s. In my situation, however, I have opted to go outside my own church community to find my mentor(s). Not necessarily a bad option, but it reveals what I believe is potentially a growing tragedy in the church…
Is there a deficiency in spiritual leadership among our baby boomers? In my experience thus far (fyi- I am not alone, as I network with other youth pastors who fear the same), there is a growing gap between younger generations who seek mentors, and willing/capable/available mentors of older generations. I was recently asked to identify some solid, spiritual mentors/leaders among the men in our church ages 40-60, and there isn’t a large pool to choose from.
In my experience at my home church (and several other local churches), adults currently between the age of 40ish-60ish are not as availabile/willing (qualified?) to mentor as others, say 65 and older. For example, my elder board is currently comprised largely of talented businessmen (boomers) who fear having to teach “bible studies”, who shrink back from “spiritual” responsibilities within the church. Yet, these men do a great job of running the business of the church, preferring to discuss economy, facilities and other business-related issues over doctrine and theology. In fact, doctrinal/theological discussions are nil among these leaders, as is collective willingness/interest in “teaching” God’s Word. Perhaps this is only a geographical problem in my case only – I hope to hear replies from you that say otherwise. But, I wonder if there is a silent/growing crisis among the baby boomers in our churches today; a crisis that isn’t openly discussed, but that perhaps reveals either stunted spiritual growth, a lack of interest, or unawareness of the importance of 2 Timothy 2:2. (I realize the baby boomers aren’t the only ones facing related issues, but they are the up-and-coming wave of potential elders/leaders in our churches)
Does anyone else feel the impact of shrinking involvement/lack of leadership among 40ish and 50ish persons in the church? If so, what might this mean for the church leadership in the coming years?

Jeremy Berg.
I agree with your points dude. I love your highlight of the Paul-Timothy relationship. It serves as a great paradigm for discipleship.
As a young student pastor I have always relied heavily on older mentors. Perhaps it is because I have always had really good experiences in these instances. I can certainly say I will never be in ministry without an older ‘Paul’ type in my life. Great post!

It seems to me that the difficulty is indeed in connecting mentors to mentees. I’m a 46 year old lay person with tons of ministry experience as a volunteer. My wife and i recently moved to a new city and wanted to jump in an get involved with college students on some basis. This move was a 1-year temporary move (I’m on sabbatical). After this year, we move back home.
Myy wife and I decided we wanted to jump into a local church and get involved with students and/or some of the younger staff at the church as mentors. It was *extremely* difficult to find our niche. I interacted with 3 different staff people before eventually finding a very small niche close to the end of our time here. I’m able to spend a few weeks with 3 great guys, but now my sabbatical is nearly done and we’re back home. The bottom line is that our time here was largely wasted in terms of ministry.
The problem was not a lack of willingness on our part. Some of it was, I think, fear on the part of staff. “Who’s this guy coming in here? we don’ We don’t know him, so what are his intentions?” Some of it was the fact that the staff was busy. And, I think another part of it was that young staff members didn’t think they had much to learn from a lay person.
In my experience, our wasted time here is primarily due to problems with the staff, not problems with possible mentors.
I certainly agree that in other contexts, the problem is reversed– willing staff, but unwilling possible mentors.
My point is this– how do you connect willing people with each other? How do you help those who are unwilling to grow a bit? I think simply saying things like “they don’t understand the emerging generation” are not helpful, even if they have a grain of truth to them.
So, I’m left with lots of questions and not many answers!

I’m blessed to be a 24-year-old director with a 38-year-old student ministry pastor as my mentor and friend. It’s less like a traditional mentorship and more like a dialectical approach, where we shape one another based on our own strengths and weaknesses in humble dialogue and sharing life together. He’s got wisdom from years of experience; I have the paradigm of the emerging generation. The key in our relationship is having teachability and being willing to learn from one another. We don’t agree on everything, but we’ve taken years to build that trust so that we can speak into each other’s lives.
When I have conversations with other younger leaders, I recognize that my situation is a rarity amongst my generation. I’m not sure how we made this mentorship work. I agree with MattDB and Alaina that either elder generations seem to misunderstand and avoid the emerging generation, or we end up coaching others about the emerging culture (I’ve had numerous conversations in staff or elder meetings where the question, “Joel, how would the postmodern generation view this?”)

Here’s my experience:
I’m 26 and a student ministry pastor. I have experienced a fair amount of hurt over the past few years in ministry, but have a really hard time sharing those parts of my journey with men (people) at our church. This makes finding a mentor difficult. I feel that I need someone who will help me through the hard things, and the hard things so often have to do with the church and with people.
Within the church, I haven’t felt compelled to initiate that type of relationship. They go to the church, and know the people, and those are a big part of where I struggle. It’d be one thing if someone would come alongside me and want to share in the challenges and help me, but it’s quite another to attempt to initiate a mentor relationship with an older person and thrust those things upon them.
So it seems best to find someone outside the church community who would fill that role. But where do I find such a person?
I have maybe 3 relationships that I would consider mentor-ish, but none are that substantial. At this point, I don’t know if any would recognize/realize that they are in that role in my life. Maybe I should start by making sure they know that I view them that way.

I’m a 34 year old Pastor working in a church plant in inner city Adelaide (Australia). I’ve also worked previously in multi-staff churches, and am thankful that I’ve been encouraged by many people to make sure I have mentors.
The mentors who’ve impacted me the most have generally been from outside the church I’ve been involved with (makes it easier, as there’s no worrying about what gets said and its impact within the church community – if I’m going to be mentored, I’m going to be honest!)
I do agree, though, that trying to find a great mentor/mentoree match is difficult and requires persistence. We’re all made differently, and will naturally react to people with more or less affinity. That’s why I’ve always sought to find mentors to address specific issues (I’ve currently got 2 mentors – one who is in his 50s and a Pastor at another church, who I sought out for the purposes of discussing “work” (ie how to respond to specific church-related issues). The other mentor is a retired Pastor who I’ve asked to focus more on my inner self (which obviously, inevitably impacts on the outer/work self anyway), but we talk more about how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, etc. I don’t know how I’d cope without either.) I think that takes a lot of the guesswork and awkwardness out of it – finding someone who you respect in a certain area and being specific about what you want to learn from them and be mentored in.
I also think it’s important to be honest about the chance that it won’t work out. Saying up front “if, at any point, you think this isn’t working, please say so, and we’ll wrap things up, and if I’m feeling the same, I’ll do that, too” means that the hesitancy that comes from “what if it doesn’t work out?” is taken away.
One thing that interests me is whether there is a difference between the way in which “Gen X” and “Gen Y” relate to “Boomers” (although I’m not really keen on generalizing people, there are differences between 60, 30 and 18 year olds…) and whether this may impact on mentoring. As I watched March Madness this year and listen with interest to the possible replacements for coaches in the AFL (Australian Football), I’ve been wondering about whether there is a re-emergence of the respect for Boomers by Gen Y (who are sometimes referred to as “Echo Boomers” because they have more in common in the ways they think than Gen Y and Boomers have with Gen X (again, massive generalisations)). I’ve even heard that at the footy clubs in Australia that have younger (35-40ish year old) coaches, they are employing older guys (ex-coaches, etc who are in their 50s) to interact with the players (who are all around 18-30). It seems there’s a much greater opportunity for mentoring the current generation of younger leaders than there has been for the past 20 years when (and I count myself in this) many young leaders had quite an arrogance about “you don’t know what you’re doing… we do”.
There is an absolute need for mentoring for anyone in leadership (and possibly anyone who’s hoping to grow spiritually and personally), so totally agree, Chris (as usual!) – good job for raising it.

http://skillfulshepherds.blogspot.com
Timothy P
I’m 32 and a youth pastor in Singapore for half a year, and been a full-time ministry staff for 6 years.
Generally there is a lack of a mentoring culture across churches & denominations in Singapore, but in lay ministry among members, and further more so in full-time ministry among staff and pastors.
Some possible reason (of course I’m over-generalising here):
- sometimes it’s a time & effort issue, as in most people just don’t have the time, and perceive that it takes too much effort. Senior pastors and senior lay members focus on macro-level issues, and don’t have the capacity and skills needed to spend time with fresh young men and women.
- it’s also a Asian culture, mentality thing. Most Singaporeans are also pretty private about their lives, and we seldom confront or admonish in public, hence lack of accountability structures.
- lack of foresight as well as not seeing the importance, need and urgency of mentoring future generations. Many young pastors or full-time staff grow or emerge amongst the ranks incidently, or mainly because they were exceptional in their faith journey, maturity, experience, giftings, etc.
- pastors and leaders do not often model this in their own lives, hence it flows down to the congregation.
- many churches hire staff and pastors with the given expectations that they are already proven in ministry, gifted, experienced, mature, ready to lead and run ministries. This assumption tends towards throwing new staff/pastors into the deep end, and expecting them to take ministries and run, and excel without much hand-holding or guidance.
There is an urgent need for mentoring to permeate both from bottom-up and top-down. Both through my own life experience and with guiding biblical principles, all of us, especially full-time pastors need to have Pauls, Barnabas-es, and Timothys in our lives, to fully function and serve as God intends. We need Pauls, older mature and faithful men, to guide and mentor us. We need Barnabas-es, peers, friends, colleagues, to support and encourage us. We need Timothys, younger men who are earlier in their journey, whom we can invest and pour out our lives into.
I leave you with 3 Scripture passages which have proven a guide and reminder to myself.
1 Tim 4:16 – Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Thes 2:8 – We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.
2 Tim 2:2 – And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.