Likewise, in Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby, two of my daughters, along with other mommies and daddies-in-waiting, share their infertility journey and testimony of God’s faithfulness, even when their faith was waning. For many years women were hesitant to talk about infertility, and women suffered in silence, but today with 1 in 6 couples experiencing the struggle, women are desperate to talk and learn from each other and to obtain godly wisdom and council from those who have walked through this difficult journey before them. Most of my books and Face-to-Face Bible study series include a “Mentoring Moment” section. In Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter it was called Parent-to-Parent. Here is where I mentor through practical tips and encouragement.
What is the “key” to helping women develop a mentoring lifestyle whether or not they have a structured in their church? Always be looking at who you want to pattern your life after and looking over your shoulder to see who is patterning her life after you. Mentoring is living your life in a way that others replicate. For mothers of daughters, I ask women to consider if they are the woman today they want their daughters to become because we’re their closest role model of a godly woman. That may sound intimidating, but it shouldn’t; it should encourage us to live a life pleasing to God.
A mentoring lifestyle is open and vulnerable and willing to let God use you. God doesn’t give us character building experiences just for our own benefit. He’s going to put someone in our life going through something similar, and He expects us to willingly reach out of ourselves to help that person. And I believe He’ll continue to put people in our path until we “get it” that our circumstance wasn’t all about us—it was about allowing God to use us to minister to someone else. Mentoring isn’t only crisis-oriented; mentees may be in a new season of life such as newly married, a new mom, or new in the community or at church.
You don’t have to write a book or be a conference speaker to impact lives. Like Jesus, it’s one changed life at a time.
How would you want to encourage women’s leaders to live out Titus 2:3-5?
I’m so glad you asked because I just wrote a book that does exactly that: The Team That Jesus Built: How to Develop, Equip and Commission a Women’s Ministry Team, releases June, 2011. I have been teaching on this topic for many years. As Women’s Ministry leaders, we need to be active in selecting and developing the next generation of rising leaders. Every ministry leader should be developing an apprentice and a team that can carry on in her absence: her team is her legacy.