One Life – 7 Qualities of a Highly Effective Mentor
Mentoring is a hugely effective relational process that engages one person more mature or experienced with another in order to encourage and strengthen the younger or less experienced. Men and women both mentor effectively and best within their own sex, but there are some exceptions which carry obvious dangers when engaged.
Mentoring is very different from teaching as mentoring flows from life experience combined with knowledge and need not be academic to be effective. Teachers impart knowledge, mentors impart life. Teaching may or may not edify, mentoring always edifies.
Mentoring is a voluntary relationship that is a heart connection at its base between mentor and mentored. Most often a mentoring relationship is initiated by the one seeking to be mentored.
Today we suffer a great void from a lack of mentoring relationships in the Body of Christ. We have moved into a electronic/digital age where things often move too fast, are too busy, and are too driven by stimulus and reaction, to spend the necessary time to build a true mentoring relationship or even to think to look for a mentor. We will have to become intentional to see that change and realize the untapped benefits that are available to us.
For those who sense in their spirit that I am touching something that is a need and who would seek a mentor I have good news and bad. First the good – your mentor is out there, you know them, or of them, or can find them. The bad – they are rare, not common, and must be selected with care, We should look for mentors whose lives demonstrate a quality or qualities that we know we lack or have been convicted to build into our lives. For Christians we should start with basics and move from them to the more specific needs we might have.I will list the seven fundamental qualities today and discuss them more deeply in future posts.
The Seven Qualities of a Highly Effective Mentor are:
1. The first quality of an effective Christian mentor is that he/she spends a lot of time with God. True wisdom is derived from intimacy with God and intimacy comes only by spending time together with God in the classic disciplines of prayer, Bible study, and meditation.
2. Look for a mentor that serves their wife/husband (if they have one) in a healthy, Biblical relationship.
3. A godly mentor parents his/her children as a life priority before career.
4. Has a history of ministering truth to others fruitfully.
5. Is aware of and actively resisting excessive acquisition and materialism.
6. Displays self-discipline.
7. Is a lifetime learner.
We will go into the process of identifying and establishing mentors in future posts, but for today let’s start with a bit of self-examination by rating ourselves from 1-10 in each of the seven qualities listed above. 1 is low and 10 is perfect or very good. Here’s a hint for future consideration; we should choose mentors who have strength where we are weak. This self-test will be a good start point. More to come…
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Buck Jacobs, Chairman and Founder of The C12 Group, LLC - Christian CEO and mentor. Buck has an extensive background in successful organizational development based on the principles found in scripture. The motto of the C12 group is "Building great companies for a greater purpose." 
There is such blessing in being Mentored and in Mentoring! Thank you for the insights and for the list in particular. It is giving me some great points to ponder as I continue to grow into the role God’s given. I plan to share this with my team, as we are currently reading a book called Spiritual Mentoring by Ele Parrot, who came and spoke to our MOPS group recently. We all seek to reflect Jesus to the women we Mentor, and are working on #7 by learning new things together!