This morning I am more than usually gleeful. Reason being, I had my first session last night with one of the girls God has asked me to mentor here. I am delighted with her. She is exactly the kind of person I have been praying for. She is hungry for more of God in her life. Tick. She is prophetically aware and can read the patterns in the season. Tick. She talks my language and has much to teach. Tick. I know that she will challenge me as she questions and seeks God’s desires for herself. Tick. She’s bloomin’ lovely. TICK! All good. YAAAY! Smiley, smiley me!

I am a BIG fan of mentoring. I would not be who I am or what I am without it. I simply would BE SOMEONE ELSE. Looking back over those who have chosen to invest their lives in me, I can see they have been a wonderfully diverse crew.
My first proper ‘mentory’ person was at University. She was a tiny but formidable student worker at a church in Durham. She worked me hard and went through Mark’s gospel with me in a way that I had never read scripture before. She terrified me with her holiness, purity and total want of make-up. My next girl was a kind of peer mentor. Now a vicar, she was hilarious and highly connected. I loved her because she was utterly bonkers and totally real. Plus, she knew a good mascara when she found one. We laughed and cried hard together. Waterproof mascara rocks! (Except when you want to take it off, of course.)

Then I met up with a trainee vicar for a while. He was also fabulously fun but, Boy! Could he speaks candidly?! He did me some godly damage. Much needed at the time. The person God next gave me was a monk, Father Theo -who has since been promoted to glory. He was cracking. He taught me the beginnings of stillness….(the subject of my first ever blog) Such a precious, precious man.

Then, in the heart of lonely, hi-brow Cambridge was Auriel. An author, counsellor, missionary wife and mother of a huge family and friendship circle, she was JUST what I needed at that time. Fiercely intelligent, her words were simply gold dust. I wrote pages of A4 notes after our sessions just trying to remember all she said. She spoke at all times as if she was writing a thesis on my life. She told me things about me that I didn’t know about me. (And I know ME pretty well!)

My next mentor was an ex Blue Peter presenter. Fabulously fun, deeply spiritual and wonderfully scatty. I enjoyed her company and her ability to tell a tale to suit all occasions.

All of these people had something unique to impart to me for that particular time. They had almost nothing in common with one another. But that mattered not a jot to me, or to my Father. What mattered was that I was moving on with Him, growing and changing into someone more like Jesus.

Freddie Laker mentored Richard Branson
Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great
Laurence Olivier mentored Anthony Hopkins
Johann Christian Bach mentored Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Eddy Merckx (five-time Tour de France winner) mentored Lance Armstrong (seven-time Tour de France winner)
Bobby Charlton mentored David Beckham
Seamus Heaney mentored Paul Muldoon

So who mentors you?
Who is in charge of making sure you grow in Christ?
Who do you go to for accountability?

And, to turn the tables, who are you mentoring? Who are you teaching and training in righteousness? Who will be different in the future, able to fulfil their potential in Christ because you sowed into their lives and made sacrifices for them, inconveniencing yourself for heaven’s benefit.

The two young ladies I have the privilege to count as my spiritual family right now are going to achieve greater things than I. Their mantle of leadership is stronger, their compassion and heart for social justice and true worship is staggering NOW. What will it be like in a year when we have got on our knees together to seek God for HIs vision for them?

God has entrusted me with these two precious jewels. I am so aware of that responsibility. I want to keep myself strong for them, wise for them and deeply rooted in truth for them. It won’t always be easy. Mentoring should be hard work. Its not robotic. It’s not one-size-fits- all spirituality. It will take preparation, prayer and perseverance.

Which is why I am also being mentored right now. I am accountable to someone who mithers, mends, moulds and manages me. He helps me to make sure I am what I need to be, where I need to be and who I need to be.

I would urge you with all the urginess I can muster to find yourself someone who will do the same for you. Oh… and someone you can spend yourself on behalf of. The two go together. Jesus said to his disciples, those He mentored, ‘Go, and make disciples…’

I know some of you are reading this thinking, ‘But I don’t have time right now. I’m a busy mum…. or I’m a business man… I run a church… I speak at events… I am too stretched right now.’ Please think again. I too am busy. I too have a calendar that gets filled easily. Its all about perspective. Get this. I believe that ALL of you reading this today are totally key to the spiritual health of the next generation. If you do not rise up and take your place, their potential to redeem the lost, raise the dead, heal the sick and renew the broken WILL be diminished. You see, it is up to us to teach what we know.

So are you passing the buck, or passing the baton?