Mentoring: Jesus' Model of Servant Leadership

He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.

(John 13:4-15 KJV)

As we look at the leadership model Jesus left His disciples, we realize that it was much more than this foot washing that He referred to when He said, “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.” His model of servant leadership began on the day he called them and continued to the cross and even after His resurrection.

Jesus served His disciples in many ways during the time He walked with them. We can look in the Gospels at ways He taught them, equipped them, and corrected them. But more importantly, we see Jesus mentoring them. According to Ed Parsloe of The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring, “Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be."  If Jesus had only taught, equipped, and corrected His disciples, a vital element in their development would have been lost. You can teach and equip in purely academic and technical ways. You can correct based solely on right or wrong answers. But mentoring takes personal caring relationships and costs the mentor much more than just the time involved. To mentor is to serve.

During my time as a professional landscape designer, I had the privilege of serving five years as a teaching assistant in a community college landscape design program. During this time I hired several students to work with me as interns. They had been through several terms of the textbook stuff but lacked the hands on practical application of the knowledge they had learned. Reading about drawing a base map and perhaps actually drawing one on a hypothetical project is way different than crawling through blackberries to find a property marker on a client’s site. Sometimes I would go with them. Other times I would let them tackle it themselves. Sometimes I had to send them back.  I taught them, equipped them, and also corrected them, but more than that I shared myself with them. I had great respect for them and they returned that respect.  I paid them hourly, often times bought their lunch, answered their questions, and gave them more to think about.  Although I never lost money, I certainly put a crimp in my profit margin on those jobs. But my reward came seeing them excel in their own design businesses, in some cases far surpassing what I had done.

If our concept of pastoring is limited to preaching on Sundays and teaching a mid-week Bible study, we can miss the essence of pastoral work. The man or woman behind the pulpit may be the Pastor but are they pastoring the flock? The pastor of a church of any size more than a handful knows there is no way to build solid mentoring relationships with everyone, and especially not in an hour on Sunday mornings. Sermon prep, administrative duties, one’s own devotional life, as well as quality time with their families leaves little time or opportunity in most pastors’ lives to do a quality job of mentoring people. This isn’t a criticism, it’s just a fact.  A church may have a Pastor but should have as many pastors as needed to meet the needs of the flock.

A smart Pastor will pray for discernment to know those God has called to pastor in the congregation. His or her priority should be to train and mentor those workers (Eph 4:11-12+) and then utilize their giftings by providing multiple opportunities during the week for them to function in their ministry. That may be in the framework of home meetings, special relational groups that meet during the Sunday school hour, or an accountability group meeting at Starbucks on Tuesday nights. I’m not advocating any particular format, only the need to get back to personal time with real people in our increasingly techno-social world. I know many out there doing this very thing by providing space and time for people to grow spiritually strong.

I’ve been involved with churches that used small group leadership to their advantage and grew both numerically but most importantly spiritually. The Pastor used the mentoring discipleship model to train called leaders who would then be released to mentor others in a group. Additional leaders would eventually spring up in those groups, were set apart and trained, and then went on to lead their own groups, and the cycle continued. The fancy word for it is multiplication. I’ve also been involved with churches that either out of fear of losing control, or feeling that the traditional model of Sunday morning Pastor only ministry was enough, were stuck in a holding pattern, ran out of fuel,  and eventually crashed.

In the days ahead we might lose the luxury of worshipping together in large groups without restrictions that hinder the true gospel message. There are underground churches all over the world that put their lives on the line daily to be followers of Jesus. Don’t say it can’t happen in America. The players behind the scenes are already holding a winning hand. What we don’t know is when they plan to lay their cards on the table. We best be looking at and practicing a scriptural model before that time comes. Churches currently using small group formats of pastoral mentoring and support will be smart to put more emphasis on training and mentoring additional leaders. Jesus served the disciples and gave a wonderful model for us to follow. As we follow His example of servant leadership and serve one another under the Mentorship of the Holy Spirit, we fulfill Jesus’ desire that we do as He did.