I don’t want to get caught up in just trying to achieve in my life because I don’t think anyone can achieve enough to truly bring them happiness.

Other churches think they have moved beyond this topic because their groups focus on learning the word of God. They learn the language and speak of the church community. They know the right classes to attend. They learn the right past theologians to admire. They even begin to memorize and regurgitate the information they have learned from community. 

The breakdown for the individual comes when failure of this community occurs. This is inevitable because sin has the powerful way of infiltrating even the best of intentions (Romans 7). This failing of the community will all of the sudden make a various obvious reality even more obvious. People tend to fall in love with the people of God versus God himself. 

I think this is why a book like The Shack is so overwhelming when it is read by others. This book speaks to a true experience with God and involvement with people, groups, meeting, etc. is secondary. The real intent is to connect with God himself as the first priority and it is not mitigated to another group of people. However, the book only offers a fictional scenario and a fictional answer to the problem, because in real life we are called to meet together to work these things out with one another (Acts 2:42-47; Heb. 10:23-25). 

The question we have to ask ourselves daily is this: Am I in love with God or am I in love with people who say that are in love with God?

I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.  – John Brown (9 Marks of a Healthy Church)

I find this decision to spend so much money in this direction a fascinating aspect of who we are as species. We are hard wired for truth. We need it at our most inner most being. We search and search. We fight and fight. We ignore great calamities of the world in order to pursue it.

We want to have authoritative guidance, but we also want autonomy. We don’t like feeling stupid, yet when we are honest we realize we need to learn some things. We respect the accomplishments of others, but sometimes feel threatened and resentful. We have a respect for authorities when it suits us, and embrace relativism in other cases. The “we” here is, of course, a generalization: some people manifest this conflict less than others (or in a few cases not at all), but it seems an apt description of a general social outlook.

I really love this chapter in the book describing Lisa’s character. It really is true for me personally. I want to have this authority and desire to truly know, but if I am proved wrong I want to work it until I appear correct. Pride keeps me so often from admitting that I need to rethink my position and come at it again from a new perspective.

I believe God mysteriously bonds two people together into one when they get married. God no longer sees them as two individuals but he sees them as one. In this oneness they begin to work through the process of truly understanding unity. They begin to understand the process of sacrifice that while hurting at some moments brings great wonder and amazement. They can begin to learn how to truly commit themselves to someone beyond their own personal interests. They can act as mirrors for one another showing both the good and bad side of who they are. They can create shared meaning and value in a world that drives towards individualization. 

The list can go on and on. In a world where marriage seems to be falling apart I believe in the hope of marriage and all that it can reveal to us. I have experienced this in my own and it is the hope I have for those whom I get to meet at this precious point in their life. 

1. You need to approach them, don’t expect them to approach you. It is a rather bold thing to look at someone and say “I plan to mentor you so let’s go”. Involving yourself in a mentoring relationship requires your active pursuit of mentors, not the other way around.

2. Know why you need the mentoring. Most likely if you choose a wise mentor they are going to be someone whose time is in demand. They are going to need you to be a good communicator of what is going on inside so they can do an excellent job of framing it back to you with valid reflective thoughts. 

3. Do not be afraid to have more than one. Choose wise people who line up with various needs you might have. I have a mentor that I go to with financial questions and a different mentor about counseling. My financial mentor is not always the best equipped (but very capable) to mentor me in my counseling situations, but amazing in leading me through financial struggles. So make sure the mentor fills the bill for your needs otherwise it can be frustrating for both of you. 

4. There is no need for weekly meetings. I know the people that I have as mentors are busy with many obligations and people to manage. I know that when I schedule time I want to maximize it for them and myself. I try to make sure that when we get together I have a certain question, thought, or idea that I would like to get answered or knowledge about. Then we can be the most effective in our time together.

These are the thoughts I have on this for now … If anyone else has anything that they have learned from their mentoring experiences feel free to add on a comment. 

John Stott is an amazing pastor from England. I really love this passage about young and old people in church together and think there is a lot of truth to what he is trying to communicate.

“According to Acts 2:46 “they continued to meet together in the temple courts” and “they broke bread in their homes.” We note therefore that they did not immediately abandon the institutional church. Doubtless they became anxious to reform it according to the gospel. And already they understood that the sacrifices of the temple had been fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ. But they continued to attend the traditional prayer services of the temple (see Acts 3:1), which had a degree of formality, and they supplemented these with the more informal meetings in their homes . . . 

There is an important lesson to learn here. Young people tend to be impatient with the inherited structures of the church. Understandably so, for some churches are too conservative, too resistant to change. One might say that they are stuck in the mud, and their mud has set like concrete… We must of course listen to young people. But the Holy Spirit’s way with the institution of the church is more the way of patient reform than of impatient rejection. So don’t let’s polarize between the structured and the unstructured. If I may generalize, older people prefer the more formal and dignified services in the church, whereas younger people prefer the more spontaneous and liberated meetings in the home. We need to experience each others preferences. The early church had both, and we need both.”

I believe this sums up my personal problem with the “Church within a Church” model of ministry. We cannot exit all of the 20 and 30 somethings in the church services, meet together in a side room, and hope to promote unity as the Body of Christ. We need to work out our differences and truly experience each other. Remember the church is not filled with moms, dad, uncles, brothers, and sisters. God is the Father, and we are the children, that makes us all brothers and sister (no matter the age).