Finding Mentors
Recruiting adult volunteers is one of the hardest part of a youth pastor’s job. Many adults in the church don’t have the schedule or the desire to commit one or two nights a week to youth group. I would encourage you to not think of mentors as playing the same role as your adult volunteers. Mentors don’t necessarily need to be a part of the weekly youth ministry, or leading a small group. They can simply be mature adults in your church that can invest in a student on their time and their turf. Mentoring allows their schedule to be more flexible. Rather than saying they are committed to every Wednesday night for two hours, they can move the mentoring times around, or use lunch breaks to invest. Mentors don’t need to have the same job description or commitment as your current adult volunteers (although adult volunteers often make great mentors!).
Take a few of your large youth events (pool parties, laser tag, etc.) and invite prospective adults to attend just this one event. Give them a chance to touch base with students and for students to touch base with them. Plant the seed in the adults for a mentoring role, without a commitment to a rigid youth ministry schedule, and simply ask if they’d be open to it and honestly pray about it. Begin to keep a running list of these potential mentors as you move forward in in building a mentoring culture.
For those of you who are already involved in the youth ministry, you are the greatest resource for recruiting other qualified adults to invest in students. Talk to your friends at church, share some of your stories about working with the youth, or a student you’ve seen growth in. And nudge the folks in your circle to consider getting involved in a mentoring role.
Getting the Ball Rolling
It can be an awkward step to actually initiate a mentoring relationship. There are many ways this is done on a large scale; Some people assign mentors to mentees, others use applications, still others use sign ups that request mentors by choices 1, 2, and 3. There are many debates on these, but in order for students to own their growth and for student-driven mentoring to take place, I prefer to put it in the hands of the students. The barrier: its not natural for students to ask someone to mentor them. So combat that by making it a part of your youth ministry’s culture.
Develop a mentoring culture by bombarding students from all angles on the topic of mentoring. Infiltrate small groups with studies on mentoring and where its shown in the Bible. Spend some of your large group talks on mentoring and how it can grow faith. Put challenges out to students on how they would want to grow in their faith, and what adults they think could help them on that journey. Challenge them to make an ask. Present your list of willing adults and ask students to pray about a mentoring relationship and wisdom on who they should ask to invest in them. Cultivating a mentoring culture where its safe and “normal” to pursue mentors, is a hard task. But once the ball is rolling a snowball effect will take place as mentoring becomes a part of student’s schedules and conversations. If you want help in creating a mentoring culture in your youth ministry, take a look at Mentoring Culture by LeaderTreks. It’s a resource with several tools for you to infiltrate your youth ministry, including video training for the adults and parents who will be a part of this endeavor.
