by davidwatson on March 7, 2010
Mentoring is a two-way relationship in which both participants learn and grow. Great mentors are learners, and there is no greater learning opportunity than to guide others in their discoveries, and discover afresh what we have known and forgotten, and to have the delight of finding out new things through and with our mentorees.
Change characterizes the mentoring relationship. The goal of mentoring is the development of the mentoree into a leader-maker. To achieve our goal there must be continuous learning, growth and change. The very act of mentoring changes and matures the mentor as well as the mentoree. This is the reason it’s so very important to encourage our mentorees to be engaged in mentoring others. Unless and until they are mentoring others the mentoring process is of limited value.
I have a very firm rule for those I mentor – you must be engaged in mentoring others or I will not be able to spend time mentoring you. I think one of Satan’s primary attacks on Christianity is to get leaders engaged in mentoring others who will simply absorb our time and efforts and give little return on the investment because they do not pass on to others what they are learning, and thus fail to grow themselves. Part of our job is to be wise as serpents – in other words, see where Satan is going to attack and avoid those situations. Getting Christian leaders to use up all their time in non-reproducing relationships is a tremendous loss for Kingdom work.
Mentoring is a relationship that matures over time. When we first start the mentoring process there is a lot of education and training going on. As the mentoree learns lessons and practices skills, he or she will engage in teaching and training others. (Knowledge and skill sets cannot be learned until one is teaching and training others.) The process of guiding others increases capacity for leadership. Leadership cannot mature without the making of new leaders. It is through the making of new leaders that we learn more about ourselves, and more about leading as we observe and assist our mentorees in their leadership development.
If the mentoring relationship is working, in a relatively short time the relationship moves from one of mentor/mentoree to coworkers/peers. I have had this happen in as little as one year, but more often, it takes three to five years. If you find yourself stuck in a mentor/mentoree relationship for more than five years, there is a serious problem. Most often, this problem is a matter of the mentoree not reproducing. And this happens because you have made a student instead of a leader.
The nature of leaders is to make more leaders. As a leader makes more leaders he or she matures quickly. There is no better way to grow than in the development of people who can do what you do along with what they already can do. The more people we mentor, the more we are exposed to new ideas, new problems to solve, new opportunities to learn, new relationships, and new successes and failures from which to learn.
When the mentoring process is right, we move from mentor to peer very quickly. If this isn’t happening regularly then we need to evaluate our mentoring relationships. I ask myself the following questions when evaluating my mentoring relationships.
- Is there an agreement in place that outlines the mentoring relationship? (This doesn’t have to be a formal written document, but should be mutually understood.)
- Are my mentorees and I covering all the areas of life that make great leaders?
- Relationship to God
- Relationship to family
- Relationships with community and church (this includes peers and others)
- Relationships related to our call from God
- Relationships related to our job (how we financially support our families)
- Relationship to self (are we developing personally in mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health)
- Is my mentoree mentoring others? (Are you meeting the mentorees of your mentoree?)
- What am I learning from my mentoree, including successes and failures? (If we are not learning from our mentorees, something is wrong.)
- Is there success in both of our lives as a result of the mentoring relationship? (Are we better people because of the relationship?)
- Is the relationship growing and changing?
- What could/should we be doing better to improve the relationship and the outcomes of the mentoring relationship?
- Have I made students or leaders? (Teaching and coaching is so much more easy than mentoring. I can focus on the material or skill sets without concern for now this is being used in leadership development. In true mentoring I have no choice but to know how the information or skill sets being learned are put to use in making more leaders. There is accountability.)
There is nothing more rewarding than seeing mentorees mature to peers. This does not happen by accident. We must be intentional in the relationship, and brutal in evaluating our performance as mentors.
Blessings!
David Watson
Irving, Texas
by davidwatson on February 28, 2010
Seventy percent of all communication happens at the non-verbal cultural level. This means that the moment we are involved in mentoring people cross-culturally we have dramatically increased our chances for misunderstanding, failure, loss of relationship, and poor results from the mentoring relationship.
Some of you are thinking that you don’t mentor cross-culturally. But, in fact, you do! Every family has a culture. Every generation has a culture, thus the generation gap. Every organization has a culture. There are even cultural differences between genders. Words, phrases, and gestures in one group may have no meaning, a different meaning, or even the opposite meaning intended when used with other groups. Language learners don’t understand the cultural nuances of their new language, so words or phrases that may have multiple and diverse meanings in various situations may only have one simple meaning that is not intended or understood at the moment.
We all learn to communicate in multiple and various cultures. Most of these cultures are closely related to us, or we have been in them so long we know the nuances of the communication systems. But this is not the case when there is a significant language or dialectic change. Me have to learn everything, and this opens us up for mistakes.
Mentoring is impossible without communication. We may be skilled in multiple cultures, but each cultural distinctive distorts communication. Mentors recognize this, and make sure to use communication techniques that minimize the use of non-verbal and/or cultural level communication. They also make sure that language learners understand what is being said. It is the communicator’s responsibility to make sure the receiver of the communication received the information accurately and completely, including emotional content.
The greatest cultural barrier is when the mentor and mentoree have different heart languages and cultures. Either one, or both, may be learning the other’s language and culture. Cultural level communication just does not work in these situations, yet all of us keep sending the cultural signals intentionally or unintentionally. What may send a signal of misunderstanding or anger in one culture may have no meaning to another culture. This cripples our communication. It can cause misunderstanding, conflict, and even broken relationships. Hints, innuendos, sarcasm, and common cultural facial expressions or gestures can all go unnoticed or misinterpreted. In cross-cultural settings we need to consciously minimize the use of jargon, gestures, and facial expressions that may blur what we want to communicate. Use your words, and check that they were understood before moving on in the conversation. Keep the language simple, even when trying to explain complex ideas.
In cross-cultural mentoring situations it is extremely important to teach, train, and equip by example and by the use of questions instead of statements. When statements are made, clarifying questions are asked to check if the person understood what was said. Mentoring cross-culturally is a dance in which each partner exchanges the lead role many times each minute. The moment we ask a question we transfer lead to the other person to make a statement or ask more questions. This process of statement-questions-statement-questions allows us to make sure that concepts and principles are transmitted and received as error free as possible.
To assume that the person you are mentoring understands what you are saying because he or she is nodded their head or even repeated the sentence back to you does not guarantee that they understand. Over the years I have agreed with statements I thought I was understanding only to find out I bought the Golden Gate Bridge. There is a high price to be paid in these situations. And you may laugh about it later, but in the moment it’s not fun.
A good way to check understanding is to ask people to give an example of what they understand us to be saying. They may have repeated our sentences accurately in their own words, but when we ask them to give an example of the concept from their experience, or to make up an example to demonstrate the principle, you will quickly learn if you were understood or not.
It is always better to clarify before action rather than adjust or correct after an action. People always appreciate clarification. I don’t know anyone who enjoys correction. And since mentoring is about relationships, the more clarification and the less correcting we do will result in deeper and more meaningful relationships that will bear fruit.
Blessings!
David Watson
somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea
by davidwatson on February 23, 2010
I hope you enjoy this second installment from David Broodryk, who leads a CPM team in South Africa. David is breaking new ground with multi-cultural societies. We have a lot to learn from him.
Blessings!
David Watson
From Egypt
The Hunter and the Herder (PART 2)
Hunters were made to hunt. They love hunting. Herders were made to herd. They love herding. Simple? Not quite . . .
In reality the differences may not be as stark or clear as this.
We function best when we stay within our strengths. But many of us do not know what those strengths are. For various reasons, we struggle to discover who we are and what we were meant to do. Allow me to discuss some thoughts on why this is so.
1) The historical congregational church model has tended to focus exclusively on the herder pastor/teacher. When they began to recognize other giftings in the church, they molded them into variations of the pastoral role. The apostle, for example, is often seen as some kind of “super-pastor”. The evangelist was often made the “outreach pastor.” Otherwise he was rejected and had to form his own independent ministry to survive. The prophet sometimes became the “preaching pastor” or in some circles the one that gave “pastoral prophecies” that made people feel good but never really challenged them. Of course, throughout church history, the prophet has never really been too welcomed in the church.
So we see that every gift in the church was molded into the image of the pastor. This has created confusion. Many hunter personalities have been forced to develop herder instincts in order to survive in church leadership. They became “pastoral hunters.” These learned skills confuse hunter personalities because they now struggle to see themselves as focused hunters.
2) Not all personalities or spiritual gifts fit into either a hunter or herder role. Ephesians 4:11 mentions four or five different gifts given to the church. Other lists provide a much wider spectrum of giftings. For purposes of brevity, allow me to only comment on the Ephesians passage.
Herders easily function in the pastor/teacher role. Hunters tend to fit well into the role of the evangelistic, prophetic and the apostolic roles. This is not an absolute statement, simply an observation of where the most natural fit often seems to occur. The most obvious hunter role is that of the evangelist. When focused into appropriate evangelism, they make great church planters. Apostolic and prophetic giftings will often struggle to see themselves exclusively in either the hunter or herder role. Prophetic people are honed to hunt for problems. They are very discerning and when they see something wrong they cannot keep quiet. If their gifting is not mature, then they become problematic – hunting down and criticizing every sin and problem in the Body of Christ. Apostolic people often see themselves as both hunter and herder. Paul and Barnabus were sent out by the church in Antioch on a hunting (apostolic) trip. The work that God had called them to did not involve staying at home. I know some wonderful fatherly apostolic people, but the nature of their calling does not allow them to form too many attachments. They lean towards hunter personalities. But they also do some herding.
Our different spiritual gifts find their best release inside a balanced team. In CPM language, the strategy co-coordinator could be any gift-mix inside a healthy team. However, on his own he functions best as a hunter. The CPM catalyst will find it difficult to herd. His role is to start movements and move on. He is a hunter of note!
3) The hunter/herder distinction is made to help us clarify focus. It is seldom that a person is one type to the total exclusion of the other. Hunters also have families that they care for. They can be more or less pastoral depending on the person. And herders occasionally love the thrill of the hunt!
Again, all these gifts find their best expression inside a team. Healthy teams recognize the various strengths and will help people function inside their strengths, whilst covering their weaknesses.
So how does all this affect or help us? It is helpful for us to self-identify our primary passion and calling. In a church planting movement, hunters should be released from local responsibilities and maintenance burdens. When hunters are made to stay at home and keep existing things running, they burn out quickly. Rather, they should be placed with older and more experienced hunters. They should be paired inside hunting teams. We will see incredible CPM growth if we release hunters to be all that God made them to be.
Herders, on the other hand, should be encouraged to go on the occasional hunt. But herders must also be encouraged to use their herding instincts to the fullest potential. Herders can and should plant churches. But they are not focused church planters. Focused hunters do almost nothing else – they plant churches rapidly. They do one thing and they do it well. Herders are needed to bring stability, balance and health to the body. Without the herder, every church plant would blow up instead of growing up! Both the hunter and the herder can pioneer a new church plant. If they work together in team to start the new church, they will be most successful. The hunter will be able to establish the DNA, hand over leadership to the insider (often a herder) and move on to the next church plant. The herder (as an outside leader) will be good at bringing stability to the church, helping it to mature and networking the church with others in the region.
In all this, we should take care to make sure hunters and herders work together. In our movement, we are beginning to place them together in teams. We do not label people or box them into a specific role. We simply help them to find their primary gifting and passion. If they do not understand their different giftings, then placing them in the same team could cause them to neutralize one another. We all have a tendency to try make people into our own image. Lack of understanding will cause us to become critical of one another. But when a team understands their different strengths, they become a powerful synergistic church planting team.
By understanding and teaming hunters and herders, we build sustainable Church Planting Movements.
by davidwatson on February 18, 2010
One of the most common problems I find when people tell me that Gospel Planting Movements don’t work, and they let me analyze what they are doing, is a failure to establish the DNA of a church early in the Gospel Planting process. Paul Watson has captured my training in this area with his new blog post Small Groups that have the DNA of a Gospel Planting Movement. You will want to subscribe to Paul’s blog to get the full benefit of his experience and thinking.
Blessings!
David Watson
by davidwatson on February 18, 2010
The Hunter and the Herder
Hunting and herding require vastly different skill sets. Both have specific, crucial roles to play in a Church Planting Movement. Neither role can fulfil its full potential without the other.
The greatest single crisis in the church is that we have hired hunters to be herders. That’s a bit like asking a cat to bark or a cow to bleat. When we try to serve God in mismatched roles, we end up hurt and confused. We also hurt others.
A hunter who spends all his time with herders, will become restless and frustrated. Eventually he will leave the group, but not without considerable conflict. Hunters were not designed to herd. Hunters are meant to hunt. Much of what is considered Christian leadership has been moulded by the church into the image of a herder. When you become a Christian leader, you are expected to herd. This does not work for the hunter. When you try to make a hunter function as a herder, he ends up hunting the sheep. Or he exhausts the sheep with an endless array of new ideas and programs that he hunted and brought home. Hunters are invaluable to the mission of the church. But they need to be hunting, not herding.
The greatest single crisis in missions is that we have sent out herders and not hunters. We need to re-think our recruiting strategies for missions. For some reason, our call to missions attracts herders. We don’t need more herders on the mission field, we need more hunters. Hunters will get the job done at any cost. They have a remarkable ability to make things happen.
A herder who spends all his time with hunters will feel threatened. Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy can overwhelm him. Hunters can be intimidating. They have incredible focus and energy. They tend to overshadow everyone around them. They have many markers of “success.” But look closely. Hunters can be very good at a few things, but they often have huge inadequacies. They sometimes have big character flaws. Hunters leave many things undone. And they tend to make everyone believe that the undone things are unimportant. Or less important. Don’t believe them.
Herders are very important – probably the most important people in the church. That may be why God made so many to be herders. Herders provide stability. Herders provide strength. Herders give guidance. Herders are fathers. Herders are mothers. Herders keep the church healthy and together. They are the glue in the church. Without herders, the church would disintegrate. We desperately need the herders to come forward. The church worldwide is in a moral crisis because herders have not stepped into their God-given calling. They busied themselves with something else. Or they abdicated the role of herder to the pastor or church leader.
Herders cannot catalyse church planting movements. Hunters cannot sustain church planting movements. Both are critical to seeing movements of churches planting churches. Each must understand their role in the process.
Are you a hunter? Please step forward. We need you.
Are you a herder? Please step forward. We need you.
Are you a herder trying to be a hunter? Stop. I beg you to stop. The Body of Christ needs your gift. Be who you are, not what you think others want you to be.
Are you a hunter trying to he a herder? Please, please stop. The church cannot be hunted. Sheep need a shepherd, not a hunter. Go find something to hunt. We need you on mission.
David Broodryk
Johannesburg, South Africa
