Mentoring is a Matter of the Heart

Heart: [haart], affection, love, or warm admiration

Another key quality of a good mentor is when she mentors wholeheartedly, when she is engaged on every level. Have you ever heard the saying, “people won’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care”? With your whole heart mentor your protégé. Care for her. Passionately engage in the kind of ministry that Christ engaged in. Do you love those you are mentoring (discipling)? Do you believe that mentoring is ministering as Jesus ministered? The truth is, He spent most of His time with a small group of men (his 12 disciples), both one on one and in a small group. And He didn’t meet with them to just give them information, He engaged with them on a heart level. “There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.”(John 13:23). “Love one another; just as I have loved you, you also love one another.” (John 13:34)
He knew that you impress people from a distance, but you impact them when you engage heart to heart and life to life.

Discipleship, mentoring, is not just an intellectual activity, but a process of life change. We do our best coaching when we are engaged not just intellectually, but on a heart level with those we mentor.

And display a heart for the mentoring process. We may have a heart for mentoring, but do our protégés? The truth is many of them have to learn the value. I meet women all the time who have never been mentored or personally discipled in their life with the Lord. They think at times this is just another hoop they have to jump through.

I want to encourage you to believe enough in mentoring that you would be direct in saying to those you’re mentoring, how vital it is to their growth process. It’s important to speak frankly about the value of the mentoring experience. You will communicate wholeheartedness for mentoring and for your protégé by the way you approach your time together and by how much concern and love you show.

Read what Paul said to the Thessalonikan Christians, “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.” I Thess. 2:7-8