Friends, I am back in the USA and able to respond to your comments and emails again. I want you to meet my friend Jayme Hull. I met her at a conference last year and immediately felt connected. Jayme has a proven track record of ministering to the next generation and has written a book to help us do the same. May her words inspire us to keep going and end strong. Now here’s Jayme…
“I want to give back to the next generation. I may be done, but I’m not finished!” I’m claiming Psalm 138:8 “Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now!”
Mentoring is never just about us . . . it’s about God working in us to prepare us for what he wants to do through us. And you don’t have to be an expert or have a seminary degree to mentor someone else. It’s about seeing the potential in another young woman or man and walking with them in becoming who God created them to be. I’m a walking testimony to how mentoring can change your life. Over the last 35 years it has changed my life, and I know it can change yours.
One friend admitted to me as we discussed mentoring, “As soon as I start thinking and praying about mentoring someone, a million insecurities pop up. How do I know where God is leading me? I’m excited about the possibility of investing in other lives like you Jayme, but where do I start?”
The reality is, God is already at work around you and all we need to do is look where He is working and join Him there.
Mentoring is when someone mature and growing in the Lord and who is a little further down the road, is willing to share their God stories and time with another believer. It is not a one-semester college course or a thing you do for a year or two. It’s a lifestyle of receiving and giving, of learning from each other. It’s a paradigm shift from doing to becoming. There’s a tension here—between who we are now and who we will be, the friction between the now and the not yet. Paul writes, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known” (1 Jn. 3:2, NIV).
“Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now!” Ps. 138:8 Click To TweetLET’S DO THIS
Mentoring is an investment that will outlast you and live on long after you are gone.
We all want to do something great for God, but could it be that our ordinary acts of loving, serving, listening, caring and giving of ourselves to the next generation are what really creates change? The church is often about big gatherings, thinking that numbers mean growth. But change could be as simple as this: finding a Millennial to pour into and shape, and be Jesus with skin on for the woman or man who feels disconnected and alone.
LET’S START
Let’s start a movement. Let’s commit together to be there for each other as women and men—not just in theory, but also in the messy and painful and wonderful moments of life. Let’s build a culture of supporting and nurturing and loving and celebrating each person’s uniqueness. Let’s listen and encourage and empower and speak life.
God is turning your page . . . putting his pen to the paper as he writes the next chapter in your story. I challenge you to not take your God stories to your grave. Instead, share your God stories with the next generation and change lives face to face.
IT’S YOUR TURN
Now it’s your turn. Step out. Challenge yourself. Give yourself away. Remember, “God who started this great work in you [will] keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears” (Phil. 1:6)
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JAYME HULL is an author and speaker who motivates audiences to invest in mentoring and has no greater joy than to pour into women’s lives. Shaped by countless mentors over the past, Jayme now has the privilege of mentoring millennial women for the past thirty-five years. Her book published by Moody Publishers titled, Face To Face: Discover How Mentoring Can Change Your Life was released April 2016. You can follow Jayme online at www.JaymeLeeHull.com, on Twitter at @JaymeHull, or at www.facebook.com/JaymeHullFaceToFaceMentoring.
Listen on iTunes: Face To Face Mentoring Podcast
Order Jayme’s book: Face To Face: Discover How Mentoring Can Change Your Life
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Such a great reminder and insight, “mentoring is a lifestyle of receiving and giving”. I have always felt strongly about community and connecting people. Has anyone arrived? No, but a couple married 6yrs can help couples before them, a 35 year old woman can share her mistakes to a 24 yr old and a mom of 4 can surely bring laughter and comfort to young mother. Life was not meant to do alone.
Well said. If we waited until we felt we had it all together we’d never help each other! Or we’d be disqualified by our blindness. 🙂 Thank you, Mrs. T for adding you wise thoughts.
Thanks for sharing Mrs. T! God wants all of us to share our God stories and not keep them to ourselves. It’s all for His Glory! Thanks again for the encouragement!
Just wonderful. Just as we share with our children and families, we can branch out and share the beauty of the Lord with everyone – particularly with the young people who cross our paths.
Yes, Ann. Your comment reminds me that not everyone has family members that walk with the Lord. The family of God should fill that gap. Thanks so much for your thoughts.
Absolutely, Ann! The next generation is so hungry for someone to know them by name and pour into their lives. Thanks for sharing and encouraging others to step up and invest in the next generation!
There is such a need for mentoring. Of course, it’s one of God primary ways for us to share the gospel and help others grow spiritually. I think it’s even more important to be Titus 2 women in today’s world. So many of the young women I meet come from broken families where they didn’t even learn basic homemaking and parenting skills. Men don’t know how to be dads and husbands either. This sounds like a great resource.
Donna, I agree with you. Now is the perfect time to come along side others. Great to hear from you.