Denver Seminary

I ENGAGE 15 MENTORING LAURA FLANDERS IS THE DIRECTOR OF TRAINING AND MENTORING. PRIOR TO HER ARRIVAL AT DENVER SEMINARY IN 2005, LAURA SPENT HER CAREER IN NATIONAL INDUSTRY NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT IN THE AREA OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING. SHE AND HER HUSBAND SERVED IN PASTORAL MINISTRY FOR 24 YEARS, THE LAST 10 IN CHURCH PLANTING. SHE ALSO CONSULTS FOR BUSINESSES, NONPROFITS, AND CHURCHES IN THE DENVER AREA. 1 Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2015), 70. 2 If you are suffering or walking alongside someone who is suffering, listen to Christian songwriter Andrew Peterson. His album Resurrection Letters Volume 1 inspires a rooted hope in Christ. Start with the song "Is He Worthy?" It is a detriment to a community of faith when we forget that mentoring takes on many shapes and forms. Each helps us grow in our calling to be the holy people of God, no matter our position or location. I like to place these many forms into one of two classifications: balcony mentoring or ground- floor mentoring. The latter is important but often overlooked. Ground-floor mentoring is typically for the training of skill or active response to one particular need. Appropriately, it is often short lived. The balcony mentor, on the other hand, comes alongside the mentee for a longer period. This allows a wholistic relationship to grow and trust to be established. The mentor, while not an expert in all things, begins to help the mentee brainstorm about formation needs in the various dimensions of life. If the mentor and mentee both know Christ, it is the wise mentor who listens well and points to a life of hope. In my 13 years as a mentoring director, I've witnessed hundreds of mentors who are men and women of hope. But let me be clear: I am not speaking of a hope for any one thing. I am speaking of a hope in the person of Christ. While a new job, a decent home, and a solid family are all important, a wise and godly mentor knows that a cruciform life might mean we have few of the "good things in life" for which we might hope. A Christian mentor knows to move beyond the valid question, "what do you hope for" and toward a rooted hope in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12:3 suggests a spiritual discipline to the early Jewish Christians who were tempted to flee from their new faith. The onset of horrific Christian persecution at the hands of the Roman emperor Nero is the context: "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Since 2001 my husband and I have faced one loss after another: full-time pastoral ministry, family members to suicide, and parents to Alzheimer's. While nothing in comparison to the suffering of first-century Christians, my losses contributed to a cruciform life that God did not cause and I did not want. Thankfully I had a balcony mentor who worked to instill hope into the whole of my life so my experience was what Fleming Rutledge in her book The Crucifixion calls "redemptive suffering." 1 My mentor reminded me of Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. He didn't want His cruciform life either, but He submitted to what the Father would accomplish in and through His death. "Consider Jesus," this peer mentor said. "Your lament is necessary, but don't give in to despair." In my Christlike lament, she and I considered why Jesus had to come and why He had to die and be raised again. But we didn't stop there. We also considered our eschatology. Those in Christ will be raised again. No evil we endure will change this fact. I've often thought consideration of Jesus to be the primary task of Christian balcony mentoring. Certainly what we hope for this side of heaven is important. We should not neglect the need for current human flourishing. But are we mentors and mentees who move beyond this? Do we help each other hope in the One who will raise us from the dead and into new life no matter what suffering we might have to endure for the sake of Christ and others? 2 MENTORING TOWARD HOPE Nikada/iStock igoriss/iStock

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