Greetings and welcome back. Today I will provide instruction regarding the technological aspects of mentoring:
If accepted as a Mentor in Training with Setting Captives Free, you will begin by taking only one or two students because every lesson you respond to will need to be approved by your supervisor.
All your students need to be new enrollments. Do not "adopt" any students unless your supervisor instructs you to do so. We require a supervisor's monitoring of a minimum of ten lessons, but you should expect supervision to continue until you and your supervisor both feel that you are ready to enter the independent mentor role.
It is very important for you to listen to the counsel from your Supervisor and follow their instructions. They are here to guide you in applying the biblical principles of mentoring online with Setting Captives Free. If you take offense at feedback or are unwilling to make adjustments as your supervisor instructs, then you will not be permitted to continue as a mentor with Setting Captives Free (1 Peter 5:5).
Question 1. Do you understand the necessity to follow your supervisor’s guidance and to respond to their feedback in a timely fashion?
As you contemplate your ministry of mentoring with Setting Captives Free, consider Jesus' teaching of the four different kinds of "soils" in Matthew 13:1-23. The Sower is Jesus, Who sowed His body into the ground so that you and I would live. We are the “fruit” of Jesus’ sowing His body in the ground; we come up above the ground and live forever. The "Seed" is the Word, but not just the whole Bible, it's the Word about Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you remember how many out of the four different soils actually took root and ended up producing fruit? Yes, one out of four.
Some fell on rocky soil, didn't even go into the ground before the birds, which represented Satan, stole the seed off the path. Some students enroll but sin has such a grip on them, Satan has a tight hold on them (as he has had on us in the past), that they can't even hardly get through a few lessons.
The next seed sprang up quickly, but the sun in its heat withered it because it had no root. Some students get "the joy of the Lord" and "glorious freedom" the first lesson, and as they continue on you have great hopes for them. They might make it through 10 lessons or so. You're ministering the cross to their hearts and pouring yourself into them. But seemingly as quickly as they sprang up, they are gone. Just gone. You write and they may respond, after a week or so, just stating how busy they are and how their job suddenly became so important to them, and how __________ (fill in the blank).
The next seed took root and grew, it became green and leafy, but then thorns, which represent wealth, the worries of this life and wicked thoughts choked it out so it didn't produce fruit. These are students that have time to become "green and leafy", they might make it halfway through the course, or occasionally all the way through. But then they have an "opportunity" to go into business or get a second job, or any number of other "wealth and worries" (the twin fruit-killers) distract them, and they, too, go away. You've lost yet another one, after spending literally hours on end ministering to them.
Are you starting to see how discouraging this can become? As you think about mentoring, you must have a way to deal with discouragement. This passage will help: “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15 NIV).
That's right, we persevere, we persist through many students dropping out, we continue on even when students don't, we keep at it, keep looking for the one student whose whole heart and life will be changed by the message of the cross. Persevere, friend!