Mentoring in Real Life

Jen Wilkin

The majority of mentoring is bearing witness that God does do what he says he will do.

Vanessa Hawkins

There are some things that I can show you in my life you know that the Lord has done that will also be useful to you.

Courtney Doctor

Welcome to the deep dish, a podcast where we love talking about having deep conversations about deep truths, and I’m really excited about our conversation today. It’s something that is very near and dear to my heart, but also the two guests that we have with us have extensively participated and thought about this. So I think we’re all in for a treat and a learning experience, but we are joined today by two of our dear friends, Vanessa K Hawkins, dr, Vanessa K Hawkins and Jen Wilkins. So thanks for joining us to talk about mentoring slash discipleship. So I want to start off, Melissa, when you hear the word, words mentoring slash discipleship, what is the first image that comes to mind? Coffee

Speaker 1

shops. Coffee place. You can do it, yeah. Well, because by coffee

Courtney Doctor

Well, that’s where Jesus discipled.

Courtney Doctor

Well, what we want to do today is take the idea of discipleship and mentoring out of the coffee shop or expand it beyond the coffee shop. So to start off with, who can explain to us what we mean when we say mentoring or discipling someone? What does it even mean?

Vanessa Hawkins

Yeah, I mean, when I, when I think of mentoring, it’s, you know, it can be Christian, but discipleship is distinctly Christian. It’s distinctly causing, I think of Paul causing Christ to be formed in you, laboring over one until Christ is formed in them. And I think of discipleship as being, you know, helping people to grow in the knowledge of the Lord, wisdom, you know, the wisdom of the Lord, likeness of the Lord, affections for the Lord, until we see the Lord. Is how I think about it so. And mentoring is helping someone along that path, cheering them on. That’s good.

Courtney Doctor

I love that. I love the distinction between mentoring and discipleship. There that discipleship is distinctly biblical thoughts.

Jen Wilkin

The mentorship piece, to me, is where it gets life on, life in a way that it might not always in all discipleship spaces. Because I think if we only perceive discipleship to happen in one to one, or three to one, or whatever the number is that we would equate mentoring to then some discipleship functions might not be accomplished to the fullest degree, but with when we understand that it has to have an element of a life on life piece to it, that’s where mentoring comes in for me. So you might have a classroom setting where you learn things that you would never pick up in a mentoring relationship, but you need mentoring spaces to hold you accountable, to reinforce, spur you onward, in in your learning and your growth, and that the learning moves from Head to Heart to hands.

Courtney Doctor

It almost sounded like you were saying it’s not formulaic. Is that? What you’re saying, Jen, that the discipleship is not formulaic.

Jen Wilkin

I actually would say there are aspects of discipleship that can slash should be formulaic. There are best practices and then that there are other aspects to it that are not so when it becomes the personal life on life piece, because it’s two individuals, or whatever that number is, for that smaller setting, it is going to look different, because personalities come into play, and strengths and weaknesses come into play. But I think there are best practices associated with learning outcomes with so like you know, you look at the the theological and biblical literacy crisis that the church finds itself in, you could argue that we got there because there was an over emphasis on one to one formation, and someone who had not themselves received the good deposit cannot not turn and give it to someone else, right? And so that’s why those two things need to live together. You could also have the opposite problem. And I would imagine there have been generations of Christians where that has been the case, where there’s been too much of an emphasis on just the knowledge piece at the expense of the the accountability and the life on life piece. I would argue that the stage that we’re in right now has been a neglect of this, and that this the the mentoring space has been defined strictly in relational terms, yeah? So yeah, yeah.

Melissa Kruger

You end up at the coffee shop and you just talk about how busy you were, yeah, yeah, or

Jen Wilkin

you’re talking about your sin pattern. I mean, they’re not, it’s not that they are bad things that are happening. It’s just that it’s an incomplete, yeah,

Melissa Kruger

yeah, yeah. That’s good. I think of discipleship as the. Big umbrella of spiritual growth towards becoming like Jesus, and mentoring is one aspect of that. So I’ve been discipled by hearing the word preach to church. I’ve been discipled by sitting in Sunday school rooms. I’ve been discipled, you know, it’s so many I’ve been discipled sometimes just by something someone said one time or in my presence. Whereas I do think of mentoring being that, hey, for a season, always, like, just short season, right? For a season, yeah, we’re gonna practice, yeah, we’re gonna walk side by side. The image I like is actually one that came in my childhood. I remember my dad tethering two trees beside one another. And because one was a young tree, and it had, it had been bent over in a storm, but I’m pretty sure we, the children in the neighborhood, were also jumping on it, because it was very fun. Spring 40 off of it and but he took it and he tethered it to a big, stronger tree. And I like that image, because all the big tree is doing is standing beside, standing beside, and saying, after years of rain and sun and growth, I have strength to offer just by standing beside. So I’m not making you grow. You know, I’m not, in some sense, the the main actor here, I’m just standing beside, but the sun and the rain are, what are gonna grow? Yeah, and so God’s doing the growing right, right? But we stand beside and say, Hey, these are the things through a lot of seasons I’ve weathered, and I can, I can help you.

Courtney Doctor

So typically, we think an older or a more mature, it doesn’t have to be age wise, right? That’s right. That’s right, older in the face. That’s right person, yep, pouring into and I love to think about even just what you were saying, Vanessa, that idea that it’s moving towards being formed more into Christ likeness. We’re moving towards all of us in this relationship that we’re in, that we’re all moving towards spiritual maturity. And so, why do we do this? Why is this? It’s such a part, or it should be, or we hear about it. Maybe we have never been or or been in this type of relationship, but why? Why do we hear about it so much? What’s the impetus behind him? Jesus.

Vanessa Hawkins

That’s a great answer. Wow. Melissa,

Jen Wilkin

well, in a very real sense, Jesus, well, but I mean in here, but here’s how it was, yeah, but here’s how I would like expand that. Like I think we think mentoring is, I’ve got to have this whole skill set, and I’ve got to have this, you know, and I’ve got to be able to do this better than that person and all that. And it’s not that there’s nothing to that, but the majority of mentoring is bearing witness. It’s bearing witness to the faithfulness of God, and so it’s, it’s being able to say to someone who is in a season of difficulty, hey, Yep, I’ve had that, yeah. Or I haven’t had that season, but I’ve had other seasons like that, and it won’t last forever. You know, it’s that whole I’m further along than you are. I can predict the future for you a little bit. And, or, you know, here’s how the Lord grew me through that. And it’s or, or, yeah, I know this is hard, but it’s going to be worth it, like I think about in the Bible study space, that’s a lot of what I’m trying to do is say, I know you don’t want to do this. I know you think this is hard, but it gets easier, and it’s worth it. And, and, and I’m, I’m, I hope I am the embodied proof that that is true, you know? And so I think there’s depending on what your your lane is. We don’t all do the same things. We don’t all provide the same mentoring value to someone in a relationship. It’s being able to testify. It’s bearing witness to that God does do what he says he will do. And I can point to things in my life. If you can’t yet, I can show you things in my life to say that that is true. And this is what Christ, yeah, Christ did perfectly,

Melissa Kruger

right? Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Hawkins

I mean, it’s, I’m just going back to your image. It’s that big tree standing there bearing witness that you know of God’s faithfulness and that you too can grow. You can get through this. You’re leaned over now, you know there are some things that I can show you in my life. You know that the Lord has done that will also be useful to you. And so I just, I love that imagery. So thank you for that.

Courtney Doctor

I know how the gospel that’s beautiful impacts all these different one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever seen. And it was, it was something I just stumbled into. It wasn’t something I did intentionally, but leading Bible study, I asked, I asked a group of older women to share a 10 minute testimony at the beginning of every Bible study. And the framework was share how the Word of God sustained you through. To a really tough season, and it was one of the most beautiful semesters we ever had in Bible study. I can’t remember what we were studying. It was a letter that Paul had written towards the end of his life. So that was why we kind of framed it like that, like Paul was offering some some wisdom out of a life lived with Christ, and so to hear these women testify to how, how the Lord had sustained them was really a beautiful thing, and so I do think that that’s something that sets what we’re talking about here diff it sets it apart from mentoring in a professional space or mentoring outside of of a biblical framework, right? We’re not just offering good advice or trying to offer Christ, yeah, and through explaining like, how he has been sufficient, how he has been faithful, how he has changed and informed our life, and so how the gospel has impacted us. And so, what has what has this looked like in in your own life, either being discipled or mentored, or mentoring and discipling. Because I know that we all have very different experiences with this, but our experiences are pretty vast in that when I look around the table,

Melissa Kruger

well, well, on the other on the other one, can I when I did say Jesus, even though I was joking, I did want to just specify. This is what he did. Yes, he lived with 12 he chose 12 disciples. Yeah, so when we use the term disciple, we’re actually meaning life to life. And he traveled with them. And then there were three that he spent a particularly amount of time with. So there’s some secret sauce there that he was he knew life on life. And so I do think the mentors in my life, they’ve been in my life, you know? And I, yes, yeah, you know, I, I mean, yeah, it just my first mentor was a high school math teacher at my school who ran our FCA. We, she, she wouldn’t have even called herself a mentor, but she was just there to reach students for the gospel and living her Christian life with us. And she would, I mean, she, I still remember so many things she said that just came out of her mouth constantly, you know, things like, I mean, I mean, one of them was, don’t be up on the stage leading if you’re not living it. Like, like, I mean, she, yeah, you know, she’s just that type. And I was like, okay, that’s, that’s good, you know, but just life on life, yeah, right. It wasn’t something, it wasn’t a thing I signed up for. It was a thing she signed up for we were just living and she was mentoring.

Vanessa Hawkins

For me, that person was my grandmother. My earliest memories of my grandmother, she was so very arthritic and would kind of toddle in her movements. But a lot of it was things I saw. Wasn’t necessarily what she said, and in the mornings, she would slide from her bed into a kneeling position and pray, and I saw her do that every day. And so it was just persevering through hard, and it’s the image, it still preaches to my heart every day of watching and seeing her faithfulness in prayer. But then after that, she would always pull herself up, and I would wonder if she could, because she was so arthritic, I would be waiting to see if this is gonna happen, like, okay, she did, and she would pull herself up, she’d go get cleaned up, and she’d open this old Bible. She had a lift chair, and she would plop me down next to her and hand me, her my little orange book of Bible stories, and she had her old white Bible, and we would, before I could read, I was reading, you know, I was doing this. And so I was doing what I saw grandma doing and and so we would do that every morning until 10 o’clock, when the price is right, came on, because we had our priorities together stories after that. Yeah, absolutely. The Restless came on right now. There you go. There you go. Not that I knew that. It was all my children, Jan, get it straight. But yeah, but it was, it was watching her faithfulness, and she wasn’t doing anything special for me. She was doing that’s how she lived.

Melissa Kruger

Just thinking of you crawling up, I know, in that chair beside her with your little book. It was the habit of her life that impacted the habit of your life.

Vanessa Hawkins

And yeah, and I found myself, even in homeschooling my children, having those same patterns and not even recognizing it. And it’s like, oh, this is how grandma did that, you know? And so she was shaping me, even when I didn’t know she was shaping

Courtney Doctor

Yeah, oh, love that. So grandmother who lived next door a math teacher at school, Jim Well,

Jen Wilkin

when I was at the first church that I served in in Houston after Jeff and I got married, there was a woman who was the children’s minister that everyone wanted her time. She was just. This vast well of wisdom. And I crack up because I’m thinking she must have been in her 40s, like she’s younger she was, she’s younger. Was younger than I am now at this point. And so all of these young married women wanted time with Miss Pat and I ended up coming on staff in a part to very, very part time role. And at that point, she realized I needed her help. I’m sure she saw me coming from a mile away, and she started investing in me and coaching me through, like, Hey, this is how you can, you know, go through a meeting and make it to the next meeting. You know, by the way you express yourself, because can you even imagine what I was like, you know, at age 29 if this is what I’m like now, and and she was, you know, I had I taught her daughter in Sunday school, so I knew, you know what her kids were like. I knew what her marriage was like, and I could not believe I was so aware of the preciousness of her time and that she was giving it to me that I just couldn’t believe it. And she’s still my mentor. We still she’s my friend, like we I always say the better term is a friend tour, because it’s someone that you actually it’s not like a transactional thing. This is a friend who is of a different age, and so I still just can’t believe she will set aside time to get together with me, and she lives several hours away now, and we just planned a couple times a year to make sure we get a day together. I love Yeah, the difference

Courtney Doctor

it can make when somebody is willing to invest in your life. And I actually love that all three of your examples, it was the older woman initiating the relationship, saying, I’m willing to do this. And that’s that’s kind of a word for us as older women. Like, where are we making ourselves? I tell older women all the time, show up in the spaces where the younger women are, so that you at least have that relational access to have the conversations. But Jen, what were you

Jen Wilkin

gonna say? Well, just that she was one of the first people who said to me, I see something in you, and like the power of that. And I’m always thinking, Who have I said that to? Who am I going to say that to? Because it had such power to draw me towards something with more courage. She loaned me so much courage. And I think that’s a big function of at least female mentorship spaces, for sure, in the church, is to go, nope, I see that in you, and you’re you’re not wrong and you’re not prideful that this is something you enjoy doing and you’re walking toward you could be and I’ll make sure to keep you from being that. Yeah, but you’re not wrong to think that the Lord is doing something in you in this area. Jen,

Vanessa Hawkins

that’s so that’s so powerful, because even, like with my example of my grandmother, what would happen after I got a little bit older, was that they would sit under the shade tree and let me tell them the Bible stories that they had taught. Oh, wow. And so I have confidence now when I speak, because they made me believe I had something to say, yes, and it was just they’re listening, and they’re That’s right, baby, that meant everything. Yeah. And so it just gave me so much confidence, yeah, that someone was pouring into me and hearing me and loving me, seeing me.

Melissa Kruger

I think that’s a big part of it, too. It’s not just that they pour into us, but they let it’s while we’re doing ministry, yes? So, so it’s, not just you’re a receiver. It’s in the process of doing. I think the problem with the coffee shop sometimes is this is just all about me receiving, whereas consumeristics. Yes, I mean, some of the things I learned in that high school FCA group, they’ve affected every leadership role I’ve been in because we were planning everyone. She didn’t, she didn’t run all the meetings. She didn’t do it. We were the ones. She was there, helping us step into our gifting, yeah, not doing everything. And I realized that it was such this image of, yeah, I’m here. I’m gonna help, you know, notice some things that might need changing. But it was really letting even these high school kids who we didn’t know what we were doing, yeah? But you never learn what you don’t know until you start doing something. So it’s a it’s both pouring in and pushing out. Yeah,

Jen Wilkin

yeah. Never do for your mentee, what your mentee.

Courtney Doctor

I just love it well, so we talk about, so we’ve, we’ve briefly talked about the fact that it’s biblical. So for I want to, I don’t want to move on too quickly. I want to stop and say, Why? Why do we even think that, besides Jesus? Besides the fact that he took 12 disciples, Where do we where do we see it? Where do we see the you know, being compelled. And so then, if we’re saying this is a biblical thing in the life of a believer, the a follower, a disciple, if you will, of Jesus, then then is it essential? And if it’s not a part of your life as a follower of Jesus, then, then what would we say about that? Are we saying, if it’s biblical, is it essential? So why is it biblical? And what does that mean about if it’s essential? Well,

Jen Wilkin

I think you can’t get around the Great Commission when it comes to the is it essential. But I think too often we’ve thought of the Great Commission as Go therefore and make converts. And this is, this is more than that, right? And so it’s Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. And I do think it’s the part of the Great Commission that we’ve trailed off our voice a little bit on when we talk about it and we think about great commission, faithfulness, being replicated, like church planting, you know, like we but so much so often we slip into evangelism mode. And it’s not that there is no element of discipleship that involves evangelism. Obviously you don’t get disciples if there’s no evangelism, but I have seen at least where in my area of the country that the emphasis has been on evangelism at the expense of discipleship in many cases, and so to the point that, and then you could even argue within the gospel centered movement, where we’ve sometimes reduced gospel centeredness to justification, And we’ve forgotten about sanctification that we have not viewed the primary focus of the Great Commission to be, oh no, it’s actually, it’s a forming someone across a lifetime in a life on life relationship. And that doesn’t mean that there aren’t mentors who pass in and out of our lives at different seasons, because I think that’s one of the big misconceptions about a mentoring relationship is that it has to last across lifetime. I’m sure you have thoughts, yes, where you just let like, they bury you at the coffee shop. Yeah, they bury you on your coffee grounds, exactly,

Courtney Doctor

exactly the tree over you. Well, I, yeah, I, but I love what you’re saying, because the reality is, we do talk about discipleship as being a a for a believer, but the reality is we disciple unbelievers towards towards salvation, and we disciple believers towards sanctification. And

Jen Wilkin

this is a big thing people miss. They think that discipleship is not evangelistic, right?

Courtney Doctor

Yeah. Or, or evangelism is not discipleship,

Jen Wilkin

right? Yeah. And, like I but I love Dallas Willard has said, and I’m gonna hack it up. But he says, What if, instead of making converts and letting disciples happen, we made disciples let converts out. Amen, that’s, and I think that’s, that’s what mentorship kind of gets to. Because, have you guys had times where you started mentoring someone who wasn’t a believer? Yes, yes.

Melissa Kruger

Well, and all of us really need an apologetic to stay in the race. Isn’t that what Hebrews is basically all about? Yeah, do you know I’m saying so it’s, it’s kind of explain what you mean on that, yeah. I mean, like it’s, we’re all tempted to turn away, yeah, yeah. I mean, we’re all tempted to stop running. We’re all tempted to say, maybe this isn’t worth it, and so discipleship is in some ways, cheering you on to stay in the race. I

Jen Wilkin

will never forget, I’ve repeated this multiple times more together how you and your little Presbyterian faithfulness. I was, I was talking about, we were talking about children. We’re actually talking about parenting. And I was saying, you know, like in my circles, there’s a there’s a way that people parent before they think a child is saved, and then they parent differently after they think a child is saved. And you your little Presbyterian heart, she just looks at me and she says, But the message of repent and believe is good for all of us. And I think that gets to this as well. It’s like we think there are two different modes we have to be in, and so often that’s not true. It’s not that there’s never a time to speak specifically to the unbeliever or specifically to the believer, but I think we underestimate the power of talking to someone about faith in a way that is relevant to both the unbeliever and the believer. I

Vanessa Hawkins

mean, how many, countless, countless times in Scripture do we see Jesus creating belonging before there’s belief. You know the friend of sinners, you know the you know the sinful woman. You know it’s just, it’s Zacchaeus house. Yeah, you’re coming to your house today, you know. And so us being willing to also create that kind of belonging for people before there’s ever belief. I love

Courtney Doctor

that well, the message is the same. Yes, the conversation we’re in is about the gospel, and that is your Presbyterian.

Jen Wilkin

I agree

Melissa Kruger

I do think that you see that life on life all through Scripture. Yes, when I think about the relationship between Joshua and Moses, I hadn’t really hit it until I started studying the book of Joshua, and I went back and looked at their relationship Moses. I mean, Joshua and Moses, they’re together all the time. I mean, all those years Moses was leading Josh was there. He was actually in the tent of meeting. If you go back and read the

Courtney Doctor

I know.

Melissa Kruger

He was – I’m like, what was going on in there? Like, Joshua saw it was happening. And then even it says He carried his stuff up the mail. And, you know, I don’t like, I mean, so it’s just he was around and, and actually, when you look at the leaders in the Old Testament, Joshua is the one who’s pretty much the biggest shining star. Like we don’t see the same, like most of them are not always exemplary for us to follow. Oh yeah. I mean, in John, yeah. But I just look at this relationship. He actually obeyed God. When they went in the Promised Land, he did what God asked for him. Did you again? No one does it perfectly, but I’m just like, but he had all these years of walking with Moses and years and years of investment, and I think you see the fruit of that. And we all want that, I mean, but it’s really hard to find it. Yeah,

Courtney Doctor

so talk to me then about the fact that Joshua was with Moses in real life, and you kind of alluded to this earlier, and then you also talked about the fact that discipleship happens in moments, right? It can happen in so many different ways, but what is the difference between being discipled by someone or a variety of people through scrolling versus life on life, because I always, I always tell people I really can’t all discipleship has to happen in a way that you can see what I do when I’m cut off in traffic, or you see what I do when, you know, I snap aside my Yes, you got to see it, because, you know, repent and believe it’s constant exactly, and, and, but you have to see that it’s being lived out in real life, not because, not because any of us would claim to have arrived at being an exemplar, but because you see faithfulness and sanctification is sanctification is real, and faithfulness is actually cultivated in us, in in increasing amounts Praise God. But what would you all say about the discipleship that is happening, void, devoid of life on life, devoid of being in someone’s kitchen or walking up a mountain and being in the dent of meeting with them

Melissa Kruger

so much, you just get so many wrong

Vanessa Hawkins

Impressions.

Melissa Kruger

Yeah? I mean, it’s just, it’s just not a whole picture is flat, yeah? I mean, when I think about what I see scrolling, it looks like everybody’s life is perfect. Everybody’s mirror is perfect. Everybody’s home is perfect. And

Courtney Doctor

can you be a Christian if you don’t make sourdough? Yeah? I mean, I

Melissa Kruger

know it’s questionable. I mean, it’s questionable. And so all of those things first, when you go in to someone’s home, and when you just sit at their table, and one, yeah, you see, oh, wow, there was a little bit of friction with the way they said that to one another, but, but you also see how they worked it out. It went on and you’re like, Oh, okay. And maybe you see, oh, wow, there are a lot of dishes in the sink, okay, but, but then you’re like, oh, it’s because they were hosting all these people. And that’s what that looks like, yeah. I mean, you just get a different image when I like, I’d like to say, I mean, we need to see the gospel lived out with flesh on it like we need to see what does it look like to walk through it? We have these words. What do we see when the Spirit takes hold of someone and we see it live before us in its imperfection? Yes, you know, to see apologies happen. To see Yes, squabbles happen, all of that

Courtney Doctor

incarnational ministry, yeah, matters. It matters. It matters.

Jen Wilkin

and I think it was intuitive in, you know, generations, 2000 years ago, it was intuitive in collectivist cultures. And we, we had the combined problem of individualism impacting our sense of like how, how we should grow and be developed. Like most Christians in my world, think that the most precious time they can have is alone with their Bible and God. And I don’t mean to diminish the significance of that time. No, I do. I mean to balance it and say that matters. But if that never moves toward a conversation with someone else, watch out. Be very careful, because you need, you need those other comparison points. And so you’ve got that aspect. You’ve got the individualism aspect, which is also saying, Well, okay, well maybe I don’t think that, but I can also just consume at a distance someone else. Example, but I will say, in my own experience, and we talked about this a little like, I have been mentored at a distance, and as long as there have been books, people have been mentored at a distance, and it’s just the only time it’s a problem is if you think that’s a substitute, right for in person, yeah, right. It’s like the equivalent of can confusing a FaceTime conversation with a loved one, with an actual conversation with a loved one. Like FaceTime conversation is great, like Mary Kate has been in Korea. FaceTime was a lifeline for us, but she’s not in Korea anymore, and it would be super weird if I just continued to FaceTime her when I can have an in person conversation. And I think that we have so many at a distance voices now that if we get confused on what one thing does versus what another thing does, and some of it is assessing what are my primary ways that I’m being discipled. It’s not vilifying one way entirely. It’s asking, am I? Am I relying on one particular input beyond what it’s able to do? That obstacle

Vanessa Hawkins

of, you know, my house isn’t perfect, or, you know, where do I find the time? And it’s trying to balance all those things. Or, what does a younger woman want from me? Or I’ve got sin, I’ve got sin in my life. You know, it’s all of those things. If I’ve got to bring somebody close, they’ve got to see warts and all. And so it’s that willingness, and it’s that generosity, it’s that hospitality of Yeah, I’m going to create space for you. I’m going to help you hold some hard things. I’m going to walk alongside you, I’m going to encourage you. I’m going to cheer you on. And it’s just that willingness to be seen, but also to see them. And it’s that’s, that’s powerful, and you miss that in a in an unbalanced scrolling online,

Courtney Doctor

yeah, yeah. And I liked that, the whole idea that we’re not going to vilify one thing because we’re we’re discipled by people who wrote a book 400 years ago. We’re discipled by, you know, like all these different ways, and so not everything that forms us into the image of Christ is in the flesh. Life on life that is not but, but it is good to at least name that and name the value of what life on life, incarnational ministry

Jen Wilkin

looks like. And you make a good point. I think we’ve danced around it, but it’s good to say it out loud, and that is that we are not discipleship optional. There you go. Like when Christ called His disciples, He didn’t call them from not being disciples to being disciples. He called them from being discipled by whatever it was they had been discipled by into being discipled in his way. And that, I think, is a disconnect that we have. We’re absolutely being formed. It’s a question of how and by whom. Yeah,

Courtney Doctor

that is so true. I guess in the same way that we’re, our hearts are all How did he say it the world idol factories. Idol factories, I guess we’re all discipleship factories to all be discipled, and we’re all discipling in in a variety of ways. And so how do we apply wisdom to that and name certain things? Well, I you know, we all hear from older women and younger women. And can I just first? Can I just speak to every woman listening for just a minute and tell you that you are the older woman and you are the younger woman. So this idea that you’re only living in one category at a time is false. There is always a younger woman around and there is always an older woman to be learning from, and so I think, I think holding that intention is is a healthy thing for all of us to do, but as we are, maybe leaning into a particular relationship, hoping to either disciple or be discipled and in more formal ways, because we’ve talked about the informal ways that we’re discipled, we’re informally discipled by what we watch and what we read and the conversations we have, but these formal discipleship relationships, meaning we intentionally, are asking how the gospel applies to this part of our lives can be our work, can be our parenting, can be or whatever. But these intentional discipleship relationships, we hear that those who are viewing themselves as the younger woman want this. Those who view themselves as the older women are terrified of this, or sometimes those who view themselves as the older women are advice factories. Oh, yeah. So the difference between, okay, let’s talk about that before we talk about what we would say to each category of person. What would we say to the person who wants to disciple somebody into their own image? Yeah, you just

Vanessa Hawkins

took the You took the words out of my mouth, because that’s what I was going to say. Discipleship is making you, you know, is having you form in the image of God, and not in the image of. The person. And so advice tends to that encouragement doesn’t you know as much, and so, and there will be times, of course, when advice is needful and and helpful, but I think often you are cheering someone towards a goal line. You’re you’re cheering them towards a standard, you’re encouraging them. And so when, when the relationship becomes fraught with just advice, particularly advice that’s maybe, you know, secular wisdom, or, you know, not rooted in the word of God, not it’s a lot less helpful in helping someone to be formed in the image of Christ. And so I would say, to guard against that where you can and to encourage more than you advise

Jen Wilkin

well, and I would say, lead with a question that’s so good, and then ask another question. Like I have sort of a little internal rule that I’m going to ask at least three questions before I try to formulate any kind of response. And there are some times where I will be meeting with someone, where I never have to make a statement, because the question is enough for them to think through their own situation and arrive at their own conclusions. And when you look back at your most illuminating moments where you had a lot of self awareness or you had something a pivotal moment, it’s very rarely during a lecture. It’s almost always during a dialog, yeah, and so, and this is, you know, parenting advice too, but, yeah, but a mentoring relationship has a very parenting element to it. And so, you know, one of the key things we like to say to parents is, ask, don’t tell. Ask, Don’t Tell. Ask, Don’t Tell. As your kids get older, in a mentoring relationship, you’re dealing probably at least with a young adult. And so that means that you should be saying, Hey, tell me more about that. I mean, tell me more is the easiest follow up question. Or you said this, can you expand on that? And what I had found is, in the early days of mentorship, I thought I was supposed to solve someone’s problem, and I was, and I found myself habitually making myself the hero of my own story, because I thought I had to present as, you know, I’m the solution. And so asking the questions has made me better. Asking myself follow up questions. You know, when I’m in a moment of like, oh, I don’t know what to do, but it’s also it’s a humble position to come from in that conversation. You don’t have to think of yourself as always holding the high ground. Sometimes what you’re doing is just drawing out what they already know and have not yet articulated. And that

Vanessa Hawkins

positions you as a learner. That’s right, yeah. And I mean, because as a mentor, you ought to be the chief learner, yes, you know. And so asking good questions, does that? I love that,

Melissa Kruger

yeah, because if you’re overly prescriptive, it’s like, you’re the answer giver. And we haven’t walked through these experiences. It’s yeah. I mean, it’s different. If it’s like, you know, something that’s clear in Scripture, right? Yeah. I mean, obviously, but because the Scriptures are clear, yeah, yeah, about like love God.

Jen Wilkin

So much of it is wisdom issues. Wisdom is situational, and so often to avoid being heard as being prescriptive, because people want to project that onto you as well. They want you to tell them exactly what to do, right? I will say, I cannot tell you what to do, I can tell you what I did, and then you need to take that and apply it to your unique situation. And they don’t love that, right? But then they end up realizing, oh, that’s, that’s a better way to think about things, because I can’t possibly in an hour, or even in three months of meeting with you know every nuance to your situation, but you can look for the principle and what I did and look for a way to apply it to your situation. I

Courtney Doctor

think that’s a great line to tell anybody listening to use. I cannot tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I did. So that’s offering your life and how the Lord taught you or met you in that as one piece of data as they are pursuing, knowing Christ in whatever it is that they’re that they’re doing. So I love that. What would you say then, to to a younger woman like, kind of what are next steps? If somebody’s listening and they’re thinking, Man, I would love to have a life on life, type of place to have these conversations. And maybe I’ve never done that, but I want to move towards that. What, what would you say? Where would you kind of push them in next, next steps, or ways to ways to pursue a relationship like this? I’ve

Vanessa Hawkins

seen some things not to do. Yeah,

Jen Wilkin

that’s how all of my answers are formulated. But yes, it might be helpful. I

Vanessa Hawkins

think, I think generally, younger women don’t know how intimidated older women are to to be approached as a mentor. Is what I’ve seen again and again and and so going with I want you to be my mentor, all bright eyed and. Bucha. And the older person is like, what the in the world do I have to offer you? And you know, what does that mean? And is it all of life? You know? Yeah. And so I think having a very pointed I need help with this. Would you be willing to meet with me, maybe over coffee.

Vanessa Hawkins

But, you know, often, just maybe even in your own home, you know, but maybe if you’d be willing to meet with me to discuss, you know, marriage or raising, discuss whatever it is my work, if you’d be able to willing to do that once a week for maybe six weeks, but it’s kind of giving it some boundaries, and a specific ask is makes it a lot less overwhelming. I think when I just drill

Jen Wilkin

down on that, go ahead, go for it. I totally agree. I think that my fear is not I don’t know if I can be vulnerable with this person. It’s I don’t know how much this person wants from me. Yeah. And so I have boundaries. For my boundaries. Anyone in my life will tell you that. And so for me, everybody gets a coffee, you know, like, if you say, Hey, I would love to meet with you. So I would say to the younger woman, don’t lead with, can we have multiple meetings? Okay, lead with, can we get together? I’d love to ask you a few questions

Melissa Kruger

and say, What can I just because when someone says, Can we get coffee? I’m like, What did I do? What

Jen Wilkin

did I do wrong? So then and so then. But what I will say when someone reaches out is, I say, that’s great. Could you actually my assistant will say it. Now it’s like, Jen, would love for you to bring a list of what you would like to talk about, because I don’t know if you’ve ever any coffee requests. You’re going to know. That’s why I have an assistant. No. But, I mean, I’m talking about in my local church, I do I prioritize those women, right? Yeah, if you’re listening to this and you live at distance, the answer is no, and it’s not because I don’t love you and care about you. It’s because I have people I know face to face, right? Do I need to give this time to but you know, everybody gets one coffee because that’s where I’m gaging. Are you crazy? Are you not crazy? And if you’ve only had one coffee with me, it doesn’t mean I thought you were crazy. It just means that maybe what I find often is that they don’t need to meet on a regular basis. They need to know they can contact me if they do need to meet. And so I will say, Hey, I’m available to you. You have my contact information, if you have another list, and you know, three months from now, or whatever you would like to get together again, reach out to my assistant, and we will schedule it. And then some of them never reach out again, because it’s like they just know they can, and it diffuses some of the and then there are people who I’m in an ongoing, regular meeting with, and it’s because we identified enough good reasons for us to keep in that and friendship, to be able to stay in that kind of but typically I commit to a particular length of time, you know, like, hey, let’s do this for a year, and then we can evaluate, or maybe it’s six months, depends, you know, then we can evaluate at that time. So you always have off ramps until such time as it has become sustainable enough that you’re like, Oh, we’re actually friends.

Vanessa Hawkins

Yes, off ramps are important. Yes, so important because it makes it a less it makes it easier to say Yes, right? If it’s an off ramp

Melissa Kruger

and coming with specific questions, it is so helpful. That’s good, because I will have coffees and we will spend two out of getting our world yes, and then I’m like, Why were we here, and did I give her anything she wanted? And I leave not knowing why, why we were here. So if you can be specific, like, Hey, I heard you mention about this thing you do with prayer. And I’d love to pick your brain. I’d love to help noodle on that a

Courtney Doctor

little bit. Oh, noodle brain does back to the noodles,

Melissa Kruger

you know, but like, but to be really specific about why that woman, because I think it can be tempting to reach out to the woman who’s maybe always the leader, and just remember, she’s got a lot of women probably reaching out to her. So maybe I would also say, look at women in maybe your small group, yeah? Like that. You are already engaged with life, yeah. And maybe it’s choosing a small group that actually has older women in it. You know that you could so being really conscious about what decisions you’re making, and then as you get to know them, and I would also encourage, it’s so tempting to go to Google for everything, and I think sometimes we’ve lost certain things, like when you used to ask an older woman, hey, can you give me that cake recipe that you brought to small group, because I’d like to make it, and you actually maybe, then that actually turned into a bigger conversation later. So just being willing to ask mundane things and build friendships that can turn into spiritual Yes, I love that’s really

Jen Wilkin

good well, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t qualify that it doesn’t have to be one woman meeting with one woman. Exactly. We actually, at my church, implemented something that was about six women meeting with one woman, and in a church of our size, that particularly made sense because you had this critical mass of younger women. Then you only had a handful of older women, but we put a lot of boundaries, like we said, this is what it is, this is what it is not. And that freed up those older women to go, Oh, I’m not signing my life away, but I can really invest for this period of time, and the expectations are clear. So much of what I think can go wrong in mentoring relationships is when expectations have not been clarified at the beginning. That’s important.

Courtney Doctor

I would say to the younger woman that don’t look around for the coolest older woman in your church, look around for the one who is a faithful prayer loves the Lord knows his word shows up that would you know, it’s easy to want the one that sort of everybody else wants instead of maybe the one that her Bible is falling apart. To think about your grandmother, Vanessa, and to the older women again, just know that if you’re listening, this is you too. You are the older woman in some category, but to show up, and I said it at the beginning, but to be in the spaces where the younger women are, so that there is relationship being developed. It’s just important. I know a lot of older women are like, Well, nobody’s asking me, and it’s like, well, where are like, Oh, you just said, are you in the small groups? Are you at the events, at the church? Are you showing up in these spaces?

Melissa Kruger

Because Are you overly prescriptive? I mean, we’ve got exactly if you’re always telling everybody what they should do. I mean, little

Courtney Doctor

self awareness is good. Yeah, little self awareness is good. Well, I just recently had a woman that I would consider, for me, a younger woman, talking to me about this and saying, you know, part of the problem with the older women is that they are very advicey. They like to give advice. They like to be prescriptive. And then I heard her turn around to appear and be very prescriptive, and advice, see, on how to give birth. And I was like, Oh, little self awareness all the way through. It’s not just the older women that are advice. See, we, it is in us. We love to give advice. We love to be prescriptive, yes. And so I think that, like, yeah, just all of that, that’s not the place. It’s not the place. And so I still, I love that, that kind of category of being able to say, this is what I did, but it’s not telling you what to do. So there is a place like you said. There’s a place for sharing your life experience, as long as we’re not saying and this needs to be the same for you.

Jen Wilkin

But there are times where you will have to say, this is what you should do absolutely, and don’t want to be affair. And, yeah, yeah. But, like, but, but you want those, you want those to land the way that they should. And if you’ve only told and think about, like, if you had constantly just told a child, this is what you should do, they don’t develop an internal mechanism for wisdom. It’s all external. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still moments where you go, Hey, you shouldn’t do that. 100 you know what I’m saying, or this is what you should do. And I know like, you know, even with evaluating what to do next with my job, you know, I sat down with Pat and she said, This is what you need to do, because I could not see it. Yeah, and she said, This is what you should do. And here’s even the timeline I think you should do it in. It was really helpful to me, because I knew she had had to run the same math in her own life. And so it’s not again, though you want to, you want to conserve those moments for when you need, them the most.

Courtney Doctor

That is good? Well, I have loved this conversation. It’s a it’s a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. I have been discipled and have grown so much as a result of people being willing to pour into me. And I’m just really grateful for that. And I love the I love the relationships I currently have with younger women that are discipleship relationships. It’s a huge part of they’re mutually edifying. They are mutually edifying. We are growing together. To coin a phrase, I’m kidding. That is the name of Melissa’s book. We will put that in the show notes for sure. Thank you. Well, speaking of books, speaking of books, we would love to know Jen and Vanessa. What is a book in your life that you have read and re read maybe multiple times,

Vanessa Hawkins

probably the other than Scripture, the most probably well worn book is the Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer.

Jen Wilkin

Are we gonna hug after?

Vanessa Hawkins

but it was the one that expanded how I saw the Lord the most, and in different seasons, in different ways, yeah, and so at first it was just like the enormity, the majesty of who God is. I had never experienced it like that. And then, then after that, it was just my love for science. This theologian was reconciling that I didn’t have to choose. And he says something, and I will completely mess this up, but he talks about how science is just scientists observing their postulates and theorems are there observe? Ring, how God methodically moves through his universe with power. And I was like,

Speaker 3

that’s good, yes, yes. And

Vanessa Hawkins

so I’ve, it’s the book I read again and again and again. I need

Jen Wilkin

to read it. Same girl, yeah, it’s the one I’ve given away more than any other book, too. And I’m like, you. It was a light bulb for me. It was just I thought, I have not known this god. I have professed this love for I’ve not known him the way that one learns to know someone you truly are invested in and love. Yeah, it that book is so, so good. And rather ironically, I don’t think he’s a human being I would have wanted to be mentored by, as it turns out, yeah, but it’s a good way, I mean, but also it’s like, a good example of how sometimes you take the good you take that one dimensional, that’s right, mentorship, yeah, that’s right, that’s right. And you take it for what it is good for, and you turn loose what it wasn’t good for, and you trust the Lord. And, you know, I think everybody here would say we have people who have shaped us, who we might not have modeled, wanted to take on everything they were modeling. But I also have thought how, like, if I had only had an in person, one on one relationship, and I had never met the voice of AW Tozer, I would have had not had it had as rich of a life, you know, and so that’s why I say we’re looking for that middle place. I think

Courtney Doctor

my professor would say, eat the meat, spit out the bones. Well, this was a great conversation. If you thank you for joining us for this episode. If this was helpful, consider liking it and sharing it, and leave us a comment and tell us. Tell us what discipleship looks like in your life, and join us next time on the deep dish.