Tammy Keene is the leader of the mentoring ministry Touching Another Generation, TAG, at First Baptist Church of Riverview. I’m looking forward to meeting Tammy and speaking at her church in 2019. Tammy knows I’m on a book deadline and offered to write her thoughts on mentoring, and I welcomed them. This will be a two-part post, so check back next week for the conclusion. So here’s Tammy!
Why We Need Mentoring by Tammy Keene
I have the privilege of leading my church’s women’s mentoring ministry, Touching Another Generation, TAG. We model our ministry after the Titus 2 woman, and our key verse is Psalm 145:4, “One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.”
In the past when I shared my testimony, I would begin with God’s call on my life in 2015. After reflecting on the blessings that I’ve received, God has illuminated another truth in my life, mentoring has been a lifelong process.
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Mentoring has enriched my life!
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Mentoring is necessary for women, and I know that God uniquely designed me and gave me this passion for mentoring.
Janet Thompson’s Woman to Woman Mentoring Ministry DVD kit was an invaluable tool to create a mentoring ministry at my church. Her step-by-step approach provided the information necessary to launch and sustain our mentoring ministry. The kit provided me with a ready-made outline for our first Orientation Coffee and Kickoff Event including the following:
- From Lucibel Van Atta’s book – Women Encouraging Women:
“Mentoring isn’t just another activity to scrunch into our already over-crowded calendars. It is a relationship, a commitment, a step of faith. A faith defined as giving God the opportunity to fulfill His promise through our lives. And this is indeed what pleases God, ‘And without faith it is impossible to please God’ (Hebrews 11:6).”
- A Mentor is ‘someone close and trusted and experienced.’ Mentoring requires no special talent. All God asks is for us to take seriously the task of nurturing and building up other women.
- As Christian women we are to share with another Christian woman how Christ has helped us through the joys and pains of our lives. We are to remind our younger sisters in Christ to go to Christ and let Him walk beside us, comfort us, and guide us.
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- Mentoring is an intentional relationship, sharing your faith journey with another woman because women need women!
- A mentor is someone who has experienced life and is willing to walk alongside of a sister in Christ.
- A mentee is simply a spiritually younger woman willing to be mentored by an experienced sister in Christ. She may not have all of the answers but she is willing to walk alongside of you.
Mentoring is a two-way relationship!
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Why mentoring?
- It’s biblical.
God instructs women to model godly behavior for other women.
3 In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered. Titus 2:3-5 (CSB)
The Apostle Paul provides specific instructions for teaching sound doctrine with a specific admonition to women. We’re responsible for training godly women, how else are they to learn what is expected of them?
Why mentoring?
- It’s a blessing. God will bless you through the relationship.
Her mouth speaks wisdom, and loving instruction is on her tongue. Proverbs 31:26 (CSB)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort also. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy. Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord of one mind. Philippians 2:1-2
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Mentoring not only blesses us, but we are able to bless others.
A mentor in Janet Thompson’s book, Mentoring for All Seasons, stated: “Comfort with the same comfort we received from God in our difficult season. God puts people in our path going through something we’ve experienced and survived with his help and he expects us to reach out to them with the power of his love, healing, and forgiveness.” (p. 186).
And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8
Why mentoring?
- It builds you. God will use the mentoring relationship to build your confidence in yourself, but especially your confidence in His Word.
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Having a mature sister in Christ will help keep you focused on putting first things first, which will build your confidence. Character building is encouraged by having a godly woman walking beside you. When you’re in a mentoring relationship, you have another woman to share prayer requests and life challenges. Having a godly woman to walk alongside of you as you walk through life’s daily challenges is a blessing, but it also will illuminate the biblical foundation built through the relationship and the strengthening of your relationship with God.
In the fall of 2014, my husband and I learned that at the end of the year we both would lose our jobs. I know that God was teaching me to trust Him in all things, but especially with our careers. I reached out to my mentor Tisha and asked her to pray for wisdom and discernment with our job search.
As she faithfully prayed, I kept her updated with my search and interviews. It was the middle of January, she prayed that God would knock my socks off and He did. I had seven interviews scheduled in one week! I actually had to cancel one. Tisha was modeling a very important lesson, pray specifically and wait for God to show up! God answered our prayers and my husband and I both had new jobs by March.
How has mentoring blessed your life?
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Tammy Keene is the founder and leader of Touching Another Generation Mentoring Ministry at First Baptist Church of Riverview. I love this picture of Tammy!
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