Mentoring in Digital Babylon
In order for us to make and to become resilient disciples in our accelerated, complex society, we’re going to have to find ways of improving the outcomes of our work together. Sometimes that means creating new models, and other times it means refreshing ancient pathways through modern life. Take mentoring, for example. It is both timeless and timely. Here are a few reflections on how to make mentoring work in our new context.
First, we have to consider what we’re trying to convey through the mentoring process. More than ever, it can’t just be life lessons and pithy maxims. (Young disciples can get Instagram Scripture memes without our help.) They need wisdom from God’s Word.
At one point in his life, Mark wrote down every biblical proverb on an index card and sorted the cards into thematic piles. As he did so, he discovered that each proverb falls into one of seven broad categories. These are the seven marks of a wise person, according to Proverbs:
As a mentor (or parent or young Christian), this list is a good measuring stick for your life and perhaps for that of your young mentee. Here are two big ideas for how to grow these qualities through mentoring friendships.
Three Paths to Wisdom
No matter how we define wisdom, experience is an essential part of acquiring it—which is why we expect people to grow in wisdom as they age (though that isn’t always the case). While there is no substitute for experience, we believe a mentor can amplify and accelerate the wisdom their mentee acquires by intentionally leveraging every experience to become a pathway to greater wisdom. This transfer of wisdom between generations is more important than ever because, unless we are intentional, young Christians will be raised by their devices and algorithms rather than by us.
The three main pathways for wisdom within the context of mentoring are reflection, selection, and projection. (One important aspect of wise mentoring is knowing which pathway to take.) Reflection is an opportunity to gain wisdom from what has already happened—from the past. Selection deals with the present and offers chances for a mentee to choose what is wise even as their experience is unfolding. And projection is the future path, where a young disciple can explore what might occur and acquire wisdom for what is to come.
Reflection
Reflection is the pathway of learning from the past. When Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” he is asking them to reflect on their past experiences among the crowds. The disciples offer their observations, and then Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” leading them to answer the question for themselves (see Matt. 16:13–16; Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20). This is reflection at its very best—and it is a path too rarely taken.
Effective, wisdom-acquiring reflection demands that we stop what we are doing to think about what we have done. It takes time and is often uncomfortable, because we often learn more from our mistakes than our successes. A wise mentor helps their mentee to pause and ask, “What happened? What did I notice about myself and others? Where did I see God at work? Where did I work with or against him? What do these choices mean for who God is calling me to be and what he is calling me to do?”
If pattern recognition is one way to define wisdom, then reflection is the process of identifying patterns from the past so they are recognizable now and in the future.
Selection
If reflection looks back and projection looks ahead, selection is concerned with becoming wise here and now. A good mentor helps their mentee zoom out from the present choice that must be made to see it as part of a larger opportunity for growth and development. This is also when a mentor can share their own experience to advise the choice the young disciple must make—because it is possible, and more efficient, to learn from someone else’s experiences. As Ben Franklin pithily wrote in his Poor Richard’s Almanack, “Experience keeps a dear school, but Fools will learn in no other.”5
Don’t let your mentee be a fool, unless they insist on it. Be generous with your experiences. Share your hard-won wisdom. As you guide your mentee through selection, help them notice patterns and predict outcomes. But don’t just give them the answer as if you were the answer key in the back of a math book. Show your work. Let them in on the secret of how you got where you are. Then walk with them as they make their own selection—even if it is a bad one.
Projection
Projection is the future pathway, where a mentor helps a mentee “project” into a situation or a relationship they have not yet been in. This might be done by giving them a task, engaging with them in a simulation, role-playing, or creating a story or case study wherein they are able to react with little real-world consequence. Projection is a scrimmage game in which everyone on the field is on the same team, even if they’re wearing different jerseys. The athlete builds skills and instincts they couldn’t develop any other way, and the coach gets a glimpse, before the big game, of how the athlete will play under pressure.
Jesus did this with parables. He projected his listeners into a story and allowed them to interact with it—thereby showing them deeper truth about his kingdom or their own hearts. Or think about the time he fell asleep on a boat during a storm as a carefully crafted simulation to see how his disciples would respond without his physical presence—something they would need to do after his death and resurrection. The disciples panicked, still not convinced they could fully trust the power of God over all forces both natural and supernatural. Jesus’s act of calming the wind and the waves was a demonstration of that power, bolstering their trust in him and courage for what was to come.
How can you help your young disciple practice wisdom for the future?
Another critical perspective to embrace when it comes to effective mentoring in digital Babylon is that it can no longer be only a top-down, older-to-younger process. Mentoring today has the potential to shape not only the young disciple but also the older Christ follower. This is especially true when the friendship is mutual rather than hierarchical. The reality is that we in the older generations need knowledge and, yes, wisdom from younger believers, just as they need these from us.
This isn’t the case just because young people know more about technology than older adults. The reason is actually much deeper than that. We believe that exiles are not just incidental; they must be instrumental in shaping the church (that means all of us) in digital Babylon. Daniel wasn’t just marking time in Babylon; God used him to propel his people’s faithfulness. Esther wasn’t just a sideshow; she literally saved her people. Peter called believers in the early church exiles not because doing so was clever but because God uses exiles. And if that’s true (it is), and you are not really all that comfortable with living in exile, maybe you have a thing or two to learn from people who are.
Think about today’s young people. They are smart, connected, ambitious, creative, and much more. We are absolutely amazed at how quickly our kids learn things from YouTube and other sources. They are often more informed—and wiser—than we realize. They don’t know everything, and we need to learn together to practice reflection, selection, and projection (among other things). But we’’d better be ready to admit that we need the next generation of exiles just as much as we hope they sense the need for us.
We even have a name for this kind of give-and-take: reciprocal mentoring.
Reciprocal mentoring opens a free flow of wisdom from one generation to the next and back again.
It offers older adults the chance to learn new tools and frameworks.
It projects mentors into new situations that require new or adapted patterns.
It helps older generations develop empathy and new insights into the experiences of the young.
It gives us tools to map the contours of a social landscape that is no longer “Christian.”
It generates courage to have difficult conversations with people we disagree with.
It helps us to lead with love in our relationships with those inside and outside the church.
It offers a framework and a passion for engaging the world.
It shines a light on a mentor’s box so they can think outside of it.
It keeps the mentor humble so they can continue their own hero’s journey.
A relationship of reciprocal mentoring isn’t quick and clean. Toes will be stepped on. Egos will be wounded. Crosses will be taken up. But:
If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. (Matt. 16:24–25)