Does your mentoring include establishing core values? (113-1)
Christian mentors must take care to help those they mentor establish the right core values. Read 2 Chronicles 24:15-19.
Jehoiada the priest has been instrumental in protecting the lineage of David; God’s chosen royal line that would eventually produce Jesus as Messiah. He hid Joash, a member of the royal line, from the Queen Mother Athaliah when she took power in Judah by murdering all her grandsons. Jehoiada hid Joash in the temple for seven years and eventually led a group of temple and palace guards to overthrow Athaliah and establish Joash as king.
Joash looked to Jehoiada as his mentor. Jehoiada did a great job leading Joash to do right in the eyes of God but failed to lead him to establish honoring God as his highest core value. Obeying Jehoiada was Joash’s core value and when Jehoiada died, Joash looked for someone else to obey. “After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king, and he listened to them. They abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols” (24:17-18).
What are some signs that the one you are mentoring has established godly core values that will outlive your leadership?
- Is there a growth process in the one you are mentoring that has them making more independent decisions that demonstrate godly personal core values or do they continually report to you to determine if their action was correct?
- Do you hear your words quoted or do you see principles put into action? Words are a good starting point but actions tell true direction.
- Is the one you are mentoring becoming a mentor themselves? A sure sign a leader has developed core values is when they are confident enough in their own belief that they are able to invest their knowledge in others.
- Does the one you are mentoring ever challenge your words or philosophy or do they continue to accept every word as fact? Look for signs that the one you are mentoring is thinking on their own and developing their own position.
- When other leaders have powerful positions that are opposite the core values you have espoused, is the one you are mentoring swayed by every new idea or able to establish and defend their position based on personal beliefs?
- Does the one you are mentoring seek out other godly counsel or are they too content with advice from only you? Encourage them to find answers from other godly leaders who have experience with the issue they are dealing with and seek God’s Word and wisdom on their own.
What are some steps a leader can take to insure those they mentor establish their own life-long core values?
- Discuss core values as part of the mentoring process and have them write out their core values as part of the process.
- Watch the actions for a period of time and discuss the actions compared to the written core values.
- Encourage the one you mentor to mentor others. What is taught tends to be truths that have been established.
- Decrease the mentoring time together so they are forced to make decisions on their own and seek other council.
- Quickly and firmly end the mentoring relationship if the actions of the one you are mentoring indicate they worship you.
Acts 14:15 “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.”
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Comments (3)
spiritual life is really more important than our earthly life*’:
What great insights. Thank you for this comment. Your wisdom will expand everyone’s thinking with a necessary truth. Mentors cannot give spiritual birth to those they mentor. They, however, can look for signs that spiritual life is present through the core values the person establishes. Knowing where the one we mentor stands allows us to challenge them with truths they may have overlooked. Accepting that truth is up to them.
My mind takes the above in two directions. One is the common small business problem of passing the baton of leadership to the next generation. The next generation may or may not have the same business values and passions as the earlier generation, especially if the baton is passed within a family.
The other direction is the fundamental distinction between regenerate and not, between having the Son and not, between being born of the Spirit and not. Of course in Jehoiada and Joash’s day, it may have been called something else, but the substance would have been the same: spiritual life or spiritual death. In John 3, recall that Jesus expected Pharisee Nicodemus to have understood from the Scripture (what we might call the Old Testament) what birth of the Spirit meant.
Subsequent to the story as recounted in your post above, Joash became responsible through complicity as leader for the murder of Jehoiada’s son–not a good sign that Joash was spiritually alive. And in the post-Jehoiada days, the fact that Joash let his heart be enticed to worship the false gods of his counselors does not suggest he was spiritually alive either.
Now spiritual birth is not something that Jehoiada or anyone else, evangelists among them, is capable of bringing about in the life of another, though God may be pleased through the life and message of an evangelist or a high priest like Jehoiada to bring about regeneration in a student like King Joash. The text does not clearly indicate whether Joash’s evident spiritual death-ness was at all on account of a failure on Jehoiada’s part, although commendation for Jehoiada’s spiritual stature and practice is strong. The text clearly lays heavy blame on Joash. If it lays any blame on mentor Jehoiada, it does so only obliquely in the matter of the lack of speed with which Jehoiada promoted temple reconstruction preparations and possibly insofar as he may have had any role failing to suppress popular high place offerings (2 Kings 12:3).
Failure to pass the baton of spiritual life may be indicative of a mentor’s deficiency, but it is not necessarily so. Failure to pass the baton of business passion and brand vector may be indicative of a mentor’s deficiency, but not necessarily so where the next generation is limited to a family member.
Still, on the whole … a father has a duty to raise his children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. A pastor must qualify himself for the responsibility of raising the church family in the ways of the Lord by showing proof in the lives of his children. A business leader, in desiring to pass on the core ethical values peculiar to his business acknowledges a duty to God in the means of passing that baton.