Mentor’s
Tip # 8
Bringing Balance to the Mentoring Program
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A Side Note Before We Get Started
For over the past two months, I have opened the floodgates of Biblical Life for mentorship. I have been impressed, surprised and, at times, overwhelmed by the responses and requests that I have received. Most of them have been from BLCS students and graduates. I was also a little surprised by those that have no association with Biblical Life desiring some type of mentorship in moving forward in their personal lives and ministries. (This just illustrates how great the need is.)
I have also been confronted with situations that have made me laugh, cry, sit in wonder and want to write volumes to aid those who were asking for help. I started several writing projects to meet those needs, but I soon realized each would end up becoming a book that would take months to develop. I realized that if I was not careful, I would end up with the desire to write 24/7 and burn out in the process. [Note: With producing one article a week, writing and teaching a new course each week, ministering on the weekend in our own local congregation and traveling once a month to conduct a seminar, burn out was looming on the horizon!] So I backed off for a couple of weeks to reflect and pray. My desire was to refocus and to maintain the integrity of what God had prompted me to do. So I want to take a few moments to share some parameters I am establishing for myself and all those involved in the mentoring program. I will answer a few questions in the process as well.
1.
The Purpose of the Mentor’s Tips
I have been asked why I am not writing on more theological or ministerial topics. Actually, I do that all of the time. They are in the form of the new courses I am constantly writing and teaching at BLCS. Over the past 26 years, I have invested thousands of hours in doing just that. To get that information, you need to take the courses. J
The purpose of the mentor’s tips is to place tools in your hands that are not usually covered in standard theological or ministerial education. They are about giving you productivity tools, insights, challenges and other needful things to help you personally and professionally, and to move you forward as you are learning ministry and theology. I know too many gifted preachers whose personal lives and ministries look like the earth before the first day of creation: complete chaos! It is not the lack of theological concepts that is holding their ministries back; it is personal organization, personal management, organizational management, and understanding the dynamics of moving forward! That is what the mentor’s tips are all about.
2.
The Frequency of the Tips
I started by producing one article a week to build some type of foundation for all who would read them. Those that have taken the time to have a sanctified time, a sanctified place and to become a sanctified person are on the road to transformation in their personal walks and ministries. If you have not done those three things, you will get nowhere, no matter how many articles I write.
I am going to throttle back just a little bit in the development of future articles. My goal will be to write two each month. I will add more if the Holy Spirit prompts me to. This will also give you time to assimilate and activate the tools I provide.
Knowledge is not power! I hate to correct Sir Francis Bacon, who coined that phrase: Knowledge produces power only when it is consistently implemented. An illustration would be: it does not matter how many men’s fitness magazines you receive every month if you don’t consistently hit the gym! In the same way, I can give you tools all day long; unless you consistently implement them, they will do you little good. [Did you notice all of the times that I used the word “consistently?” That is where the release of power lies!]
3.
Take Two Books and Call Me in the Morning
Some of the situations or questions that have been asked of me cannot be answered adequately in a short e-mail, phone call or article. Building a foundation toward discovering a truth and implementing it is more involved than that. To show you how this works, I read over 70 books to develop the truths I presented in the course “The Leader of One.” These books encompassed a high berth of subjects and authors, both secular and sacred. Without reading through all of them, I could not have effectively developed the concepts I presented in the course.
In the same way, you may be asking a question or needing help that is not going to involve a quick fix of information or even a quick prayer. It may require understanding some foundational issues of life, ministry, theology, psychology or productivity that you do not have the paradigm to understand. Therefore, I may refer one or more books for you to read through, reflect on and develop a new strategy toward victory in that area. This is an important part of the mentoring process: I am here to point you in the right direction to discover truth and to be empowered by it. Handing out nuggets of truth without the framework to understand or implement them will actually impede the process. It will cause you to think you know something when you actually do not. A powerful Hebraic concept that is useful here is this: you do not really know something until you can effectively do it. So in this process, Amazon.Com or Christianbooks.Com is going to become one of your best friends.
4.
Become Engaged in the Program
Just being a part of this program is not going to help you any more than getting fitness magazines will make you fit, unless you consistently engage in the process. A good number of students have requested to be mentored and that is the last that I heard from them: no reports, no goals, just silence. Don’t make this program like the treadmill you have in the corner of your family room that just collects dust! You are better than that! God has more He wants you to do than living a life of non-engagement! I believe He is strategically bringing individuals into contact with Biblical Life, and these tips are for a powerful purpose: He wants to release a new level of ministry in the earth. This means that each of us must become engaged in the process of becoming more than we are now. The only way God can get you to the next level of ministry is to make you a person who can flow in the next level! So make it a daily priority to implement the truths that I share. It may feel like you’re swimming upstream in mud. We have all felt like that at times. This is resistance from the enemy to impede your moving forward. You need to realize there is a reason the enemy is putting resistance in your path. He is afraid of who you will become and what will be released through you into the earth as you move forward! The more resistance you feel, the more afraid of he is of what you can be! It is time for you to turn that resistance into the Holy Spirit Gym for Mountain Movers. Resistance training builds muscles! Start with the molehill in front of you. Push back, refocus and learn to overcome it. Once it is out of the way, the enemy will bring a bigger hill! Good news: you have a chance to build greater muscle. How else are you ever going to become a person that can take mountains? It is time to bulk up, refocus, strategize and become the overcomer that you are destined to be in Messiah!
It is time for you to engage and be tenacious about it! Become a pit bull in the Kingdom of God. See a problem, latch on to it and refuse to let go until it is overcome! God has called you to become a mountain terminator, not to whine in PeeWee’s play house!
Keep moving forward in the Kingdom!
Final Note: In our local congregation, I just taught a new message on finances and blessing. You are not going to here this biblically balanced message anywhere else. I encourage you to download it using the link below:
http://www.biblicallifeassembly.org/library/mp3/currents/03_Currents_3.mp3
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© Copyright 2008 by Michael K. Lake, Th.D., D.R.E. All Rights Reserved. |