Have you decided that your church or parachurch organization is ready to implement formal mentoring or to enhance the informal mentoring that’s already going on? If so, take time to choose the first mentors and mentees who will kick off your pilot effort. Taking time to select the right target participants will help your pilot succeed.

Potential Audiences

Mentoring centered on and about Christ is appropriate for many audiences. Here are some examples of target groups within various faith-based organizations:

Mentors

Senior professional staff
Experienced administrative assistants
Elders/board/council members
Directors of ministries
Clergy in a community or national network
Experienced dads, moms, and grandparents
People of any age with particular expertise
Married couples
Paid and unpaid volunteers
Professors and instructors
Mature youth
Retirees and older members

Mentees

Newly hired staff or those learning new positions
New administrative assistants
New or potential leaders
Seekers and new believers
Junior instructors
Seminary and college students
Clergy not in mentors’ same churches
New mothers/mothers to be
Single dads and moms
Individuals who want to learn new skills
Youth in the organization/community
Newly engaged or newly wed couples

The above lists give only a small sample of possibilities. For your pilot program, focus on certain target groups rather than making the pilot open to everyone who wants to sign up. If it goes well with your initial groups, you can expand later.

In your setting, which groups of people seem to need mentoring and why? Talk with the rest of your team about their observations. Who has asked to be mentored or discipled? Who has offered to mentor or coach others? Does someone feel led to champion a certain audience? Which individuals have the time, interest, and competences to serve as mentors? Who might not be an obvious mentor now but could learn the skills and process and probably do well later? Who probably shouldn’t be included as mentors or mentees at this time and why?

Planned mentoring should not be used to handle discipline problems or for remedial learning. Other strategies such as tutoring, counseling, classes, and behavioral coaching can be used for these challenges. As a rule, mentoring initiatives are to help motivated individuals do even more with their lives. Mentoring requires a great deal of work and to be effective requires strong commitment and considerable action on the parts of mentors and mentees.

In almost all mentoring initiatives, mentors are challenging to find and to keep involved. Be certain that you consider the size of your target “mentor pool” before you make your decisions about the mentee group to be served. If you plan on pairs of mentors and mentees, you’ll have to have at least equal numbers of mentors and mentees and preferably some extra mentors who can be available if certain matches don’t work out. Do you have that many qualified and available people? If you’re short on mentors, consider linking each mentor with two mentees or offer group mentoring in which one or (ideally) two mentors work with up to 10 or 12 mentees.

Determining Needs of Mentees

Let’s assume you have your two target groups: potential mentors and potential mentees. It’s now time to identify at least some of the development needs of the mentees. You’re doing this for two reasons: (1) to identify the mentors who can most likely help with these needs, and (2) to select materials and learning activities that will build the mentors’ skills and help the mentees.

In the mentoring program for chaplains in the U.S. Air Force, the designers spent considerable time up front determining what the more junior chaplains needed to master in order to be successful. Among the competency areas they identified were: leadership as a chaplain, implementing ministry, managing resources, and personal care of soul and self.

With your team and a group of prospective mentors and mentees, create the beginnings of a Competency Domain for the target mentees. Choose several broad competency areas, and within each area, list 5 to 10 areas of knowledge, skills, or attitudes and feelings. Ask several experts to critique your work.

We at FAITH-CENTERED MENTORING AND MORE developed a tool called “Sample Life Competencies.” We based it on the seven promises of Promise Keepers and made it generic to include men and women. This domain includes: You and God; You and Your Mentors/Mentees/Friends; You and Your Integrity; You and Your Family; You and Your Church; Diversity of Your Brothers and Sisters; and You and Your World. Under each area are 6-10 competencies. You can create a similar set of learning targets.

Needs of Mentors

Even though your mentoring efforts will rightly focus on the needs of the mentees, you and the rest of the team should also pay attention to the needs of your target mentors. Our experience is that the mentors in your program will want to: know why they’re appropriate mentors; understand the formal Christ-Centered Mentoring process; recognize how to be effective in their limited time available; know how they’ll be evaluated; see examples of best practices and practical dos and don’ts; have resources to help as needed; and please God with what they do. Ask the mentors directly what they want to learn and what they want to develop in themselves as part of their participation in mentoring.

Taking these careful steps early in your planning will pay off as your program starts to come together. Please let us know your successes and obstacles. We stand ready to help in any way we can! For more information on Christ-Centered Mentoring™, check our Archive and What We Offer. If you haven’t yet, sign up for our mailing list (called Mentoring Advocates), and receive occasional papers and tools.