-
Why Many Mentors Are AWOL
We are experiencing a mentoring crisis. One key reason is that too many older women cling to an outdated formulaic idea of what mentoring is all about. When we hear the word "mentoring" we conjure up a picture that fit our experience as a young woman. Then we look in the mirror and don't see an adequate mentor staring back at us. Our preconceived ideas about what today's young women want in a mentor convince us we are not enough—but we are wrong. What we don't realize is that younger women today are far more likely to want a relationship with the woman in the mirror than the conjured-up perfect…
-
What’s “organic” ministry and why do many next gen leaders embrace it?
Recently, my students, future ministers, gave oral reports on ministries they visited and evaluated. For the first time, I heard several of them use the word "organic" as an adjective to describe healthy ministries, and lacking "organic" as a negative. What is organic ministry anyway and why are so many of my students drawn to it? I remember an older woman who exploded, "Organic!"– I'm beginning to hate that word. If everything is organic, how do we ever get anything done?" Her frustration grew out of several conversations with younger women, and, in her opinion, this organic thing was throwing up roadblocks to effective ministry, specifically mentoring in her case.…
