Do you believe in mentoring?

For those of you who are interested in etymology, our English word ‘mentor’ is actually French, having morphed before that through Latin. A truly multinational term! We find its roots, however, in Greek mythology.In Homer’s Odyssey, Mentōr was a good friend of the legendary king, Odysseus, and the ‘wise’ advisor to young Telemachus, Odysseus’ son. (He was not the Greek god of telemarketing.)

Advocates of mentoring in ministry like to point back to the Odyssey, saying that Mentōr himself was a wise and able imparter of knowledge, a fatherly figure of integrity and a quality role model. His direct and consistent nurture resulted in the healthy growth of Telemachus. Go therefore and do likewise, right?

Mentōr, however, was rubbish at this role! He was a terrible (or at best absent) advisor and he largely failed at keeping the king’s household together. There are many more characters and stories at play, and really Mentōr takes a back seat and is broadly unhelpful.At no point in the story do we actually find that Mentōr was the guide of Telemachus. There is no mention of him as a counsellor or a fatherly figure. He doesn’t impart wisdom and he doesn’t present a direct role model to Telemachus. At several points throughout the story, Telemachus is in great need of counsel and nurture, but Mentōr is simply not there. He is not even mentioned. If anyone is involved, it is the goddess Pallas Athena – who on two occasions takes the incarnate form of Mentōr to guide and enable Odysseus and Telemachus to return home. For kicks and giggles, she also once appeared in the form of a seagull!

In reality, the form of ‘mentoring’ we see in the Odyssey included a much wider group of people, experiences, mistakes and divine intervention. If we’re going to appeal to the etymology of Mentōr, it’s important to understand its roots properly. The version of mentoring we associate with the Odyssey is largely fictitious and ungrounded, and this is because it was hijacked during the seventeenth century by Enlightenment writers.

When we think ‘mentor’, therefore, we could actually be appealing to a more humanistic version born in the seven-teenth century by largely anti-Christian thinkers. In this version, an older person teaches a younger person all that he or she knows from specific and limited personal experiences. There are two significant problems with this:First, it creates both a glass ceiling and a carbon copy.The Enlightenment view of mentoring says, ‘You can’t take someone to where you yourself have not already been.’ Have you heard a Christian teacher say this before? It basically means a person can never outgrow the mentor or break through that glass ceiling. What this leaves us with, then, is a carbon copy of the mentor.

The best thing we can do for young people is to teach them how to outgrow us, and then challenge them to go much further than we have done. We do this by exposing them to more than just our own limited experiences and ideals.Second, it makes you the role model, not Jesus Christ.This view of mentoring assumes that we alone are enough for a young person, and it places the emphasis and responsibility on our own fallible shoulders. Ouch! This humanistic approach redirects a person’s faith and dependence on to us, the mentor, rather than Jesus, the Saviour.This is, in fact, a very subtle kind of idolatry that results in smaller disciples who will always look to depend on people rather than on God. Simultaneously, the mentor is worn down to the nub.

We hope you enjoyed this little extact from Rebooted! Below you'll find a link to purchase the book, as well as some related resources that could help you in approaching mentoring, whether in youthwork or other forms of ministry, from a biblical standpoint.