A Faith-Based Mentoring Program
Dr. Ira V. Frazier
Fall 1996 "Mentoring Connections"
INDEX:
One characteristic I esteem highly in defining a
mentor is someone who accompanies an individual on their journey of leadership development.
This
accompanying process includes monitoring, teaching, modeling and pacing the journey.
The mentor is someone who positively influences and someone who is esteemed by the
one who needs to be mentored.
Timothy K. Jones writes in his work Mentor and Friend, "All of us have had helpers
and guides, people whose influences live on inside us in deep and sometimes hidden
ways. Here or there a parent, aunt, schoolteacher or friend has left an unmistakable
imprint on who we are. We also may have mentors in public figures or historical heroes
whose examples stir something dormant within us.
Society, businesses and schools are esteemed as the
primary places for mentoring relationships. An institution at the heart of combating
social
problems and improving the quality of life is the faith community. The theological
foundation of faith groups centers around mentoring relationships. A key question
for religious leaders is, who will follow them in their footsteps? This question
illustrates the need for training which involves practical skills in religious work,
but also needs the experience of a mentor to foster relational skill and positive
work habits. In this article, I will examine briefly the mentoring relationship,
and a program that is a primarily faith-based mentoring program at the Center for
Urban Ministerial Education.
Members of the faith community are the mentors mentioned in the earlier quote. The
faith community is a logical place as a store house for mentoring relationships.
Considering the various auxiliaries and the numerous pools of volunteers, there is
dynamic need for mentoring relationships. The volunteers are mainly adult learners
who need training and instruction. The training and support for adults at different
stages of life, along with the development of the community's mission, can find mentoring
to be an ideal training method.
Mentoring at
the Center for Urban Ministerial Education
At the Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME) in Boston, the requirement for
Supervised Ministry has been replaced by Mentored Ministry. The students are mainly
bi-vocational and second career persons, which fosters a learning environment of
a mature student body where subjects want to participate in their development. Students
are first involved with a battery of self-evaluation inventories, and are then given
the opportunity to review the results of the inventory in order to make an assessment
of their needs and of the areas they want to improve.
The data are recorded on their student profile, and
experienced church leaders are recruited to mentor the students; these matches are
made by comparing the students needs with the mentor's gifts. While this relationship
is formed, the mentor's task is to hold up a symbolic mirror for
the student, supporting the student through guided discovery, a process of helping
someone discover elements of identity.
According to Charles Zastrow and Karen K. Kirst-Ashman in Understanding Human Behavior
and the Social Environment, "Forming an identity essentially involves thinking
about and arriving at an answer to the following questions.
(1) What do I want out of life?
(2) What kind of person do I want to be?
(3) Who am I?
The mentor accompanying the students through this guided discovery does so having already created an atmosphere that is affirming to the students and which challenges students to strive for higher goals.
Specifically, while in the Mentored Ministry Program, a student concentrates on four areas:
Many students have such a positive experience that they want to find ways to give back to the Mentored Ministry Program. Students can contribute to their own development by serving as a peer group leader and eventually becoming a mentor. This mentoring and professional growth process is ideal because today's students are tomorrow's mentors. This is, therefore, a "self-seeding" program in that it builds the student who duplicates the foundations of Mentored Ministry in the faith community. Students and church leaders capitalize on the natural mentor relationships that surround them, and the result is a healthier community.
Dr. Ira V. Frazier is the Director for Mentored Ministry for the Center for Urban Ministerial Education in Boston.
Address: CUME
363 South Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02130.
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