Virtual Mentoring
Last year I was privileged to be part of an amazing process that resulted in Volume I of The Wikiklesia Project: Voices of the Virtual World. In addition to helping edit and format the book, I contributed a chapter. I have put my chapter here because it gives some insight into the early stages of my missional journey…and how I got to know the other Tribal Elders…and because I believe that Missional Tribe will be a space where virtual mentoring will become the norm … to the glory of God!
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Abstract
This chapter is for those who are serious about being disciples and making disciples in Christ’s Kingdom, but have somehow missed the opportunity to experience dynamic, life-changing positive mentoring.
It is especially for all those alums of the School of Hard Knocks, who took too many courses in Reverse-Mentoring (RM). You may not be familiar with the name, but you’ve certainly taken a course or two….
In RM, students basically learn what to do by not doing what was done to them, coupled with figuring out how they should have been treated. It is time-consuming and painful—sometimes tragically producing ministry-hindering scars and consequences.
But it also produces some great stories. Let this voice of the virtual world share an opportunity to redeem those RM courses—in your life and in the lives of others.
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Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility,
there is neither anger nor vexation.
Where there is poverty and joy,
there is neither greed nor avarice.
Where there is peace and meditation,
there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
St. Francis of Assisi
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Virtual Mentoring at The Abbey
By
M. A. Brown
Unhinderedly. This word always takes me back to my college class on Luke-Acts. Luke began his two-scroll treatise to Theophilous by highlighting the Good News of deliverance for the downtrodden-ushered in with the Year of the Lord’s Favor-and ended it with the Apostle Paul preaching that same Good News boldly and without hindrance while under house arrest in Rome! It was a powerful word about freedom in the 1st Century and it remains a powerful word about freedom in the 21st Century.
Technology is also a powerful word. It conjures up feelings of freedom on one hand, but it also whispers of slavery and idolatry on the other. Perhaps you’ve already pondered this aspect of technology’s intersection with faith. If not, I’ll plant that little splinter in your mind….
But this chapter is about virtual mentoring-and how it can be a tool for “unhinderedly” liberating those who are serious about being disciples and making disciples in Christ’s Kingdom.
Mentoring is one name currently in vogue for the ancient process of handing down knowledge and skills from one person to another. It’s a name frequently associated with the master-teacher. Another common name for this process is coaching. There are also other names, more associated with the learner, such as apprenticeship, discipleship and internship. I tend to use these words interchangeably, for the person as well as the process.
I’m especially interested in mentoring and discipleship because I consider them to be the core manifestation of obedience to Christ’s Great Commission. We have been commanded to make disciples who can make disciples. I’m disturbed that disciple-making disciples are more the exception than the normal result of our Christian Education programs and processes.
Sadly, there aren’t many true apprenticeships left anywhere…not in this age of silicon wafers and microprocessors. Life happens in nano-seconds rather than months or days-or even hours. Where are the master craftsmen? Many are passing away with those who have been called The Greatest Generation.
And who can afford to spend two years learning a skill, when the technology you start with is obsolete before you finish? Future Shock is truly here. Technology lures many directly into dangerously fast-moving virtual rapids-where many a bright entrepreneur has gone under-and away from apprenticeships which impart knowledge, skill and character from master to learner in actual hands-on, side-by-side work.
This is the same predicament in which many of us who are called to equip the saints for the work of ministry find ourselves. We’re expected to be the master-teachers who make disciples. But with whom did we work side-by-side as apprentices, gaining strength, knowledge, character and disciple-making skills? And who is stepping up to retrain us for this task in the 21st Century, where many of the skills we have honed seem woefully obsolete?
What a predicament-for the would-be mentor, yearning to pass on what has been well-learned, and for the would-be apprentice, yearning to learn and do and be. We seem unwilling or unable to spend the time and energy-to mentor and to be mentored. And our incredibly mobile society has many of us moving every two years-or less. We seem to have created an environment that just does not support dynamic investments in apprenticeships. In the Church this manifests itself as too few disciples making disciples and too few believers yearning to be disciples.
Whatever their education and on-the-job training, too few in ministry have been intentionally apprenticed. It’s the rare opportunity which allows significant access to master disciple-makers. More often it’s “sink or swim” in the School of Hard Knocks.
Down at the School of Hard Knocks, there are three basic courses of study: reading the words of the masters, observing the actions and outcomes of the masters, and reverse-mentoring. The first two are fairly self-evident, so I’ll just move right on to the third course.
In reverse-mentoring, students basically learn what to do by not doing what was done to them, coupled with figuring out how they should have been treated. This course of study, ironically, takes much longer than two years-sometimes two decades! It frequently results in a lot of less-than-ideal workmanship interspersed with the occasional brilliant outcome. It is very painful and sometimes produces scars and consequences that can hinder future opportunities. It also produces some great stories-through 20/20 hindsight and selective memory, of course.
I took way too many classes in reverse-mentoring, sad to say. I read and observed many of the masters-from a distance-but seemed to miss opportunities to engage with them. Why? I just didn’t fit the “normal” mold, in more ways that I have space to mention!
The seeds of virtual mentoring were planted….
Then, in January of 2006, God placed in my heart an amazing vision for a different way to plant churches. Wow…who would join me in bringing this outrageous vision to life? My attempts to connect with “normal” church planting groups helped me articulate and confirm the validity of my vision, but things just didn’t pan out…my vision didn’t fit their paradigm.
I needed help…and God delivered: virtually. Using the technology of the 21st Century-blogs and e-mail-God began to bring me virtual mentors. The Holy Spirit used technology to cultivate global relationships. And in the process, some neglected tools of dynamic communication-especially restraint and civility-got tuned up through electronic, non-verbal, non-visual communication. More about that later….
This open access to the power of words allows us to level the playing field in the exchange of ideas. It has given rise to places where some of the dreams of the oppressed, the discounted and the marginalized may be realized as they participate in the great discussions of our time. Their successful participation is based on their ability to listen actively, to discern the tone and direction of the discussion, to ask pertinent questions and to articulate their passion in the midst of a global conversation.
Because this conversation is neither verbal nor visual, race, gender, age, status (economic, social, educational or marital), location, nationality, and physical appearance have become “non-issues.” We are remembering that we can learn from each other, if we are willing to listen. In this wonderfully diverse environment, dreams long articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Shelby Steele and others have flourished: that there would be open access to this opportunity for global conversation, and that the value of our contribution would be judged solely by our ability to communicate the content of our character and ideas.
I’ve used e-mail for years, but came rather late to the blogosphere. I had neither the time nor the inclination. That changed this past January, when I found myself spending every spare moment at Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways blog. The richness of the conversations woven with such diversity in color and tone and texture and humor brought an amazing and unexpected blessing to my life.
Tuning up the “virtual” manners I had let slip (never fully developed?) in my “local” conversations has been especially helpful: not interrupting, listening fully before responding, not assuming context, asking clarifying questions, thinking before speaking-even choosing not to speak at all. The first one is compelled by the linear nature of the venue; the others are fantastic opportunities for exercising restraint…not very popular in our high-speed electronic culture that caters to immediate gratification!
Blogs give us the luxury of being able to “listen” fully to others (re-reading comments as many times as it takes!) and to express our thoughts fully without being interrupted. We may take the opportunity to read our comments before submitting them-where we can take back rash words or clarify fuzzy thoughts before they are “spoken.” (But beware the dreaded “cybergremlins” who sometimes hijack comments.)
What is most overwhelming to me, however, is how the Holy Spirit used a blog to establish a trans-local, neo-monastic, mentoring triad-three persons from different geographical locations who would otherwise never have met. We call our “virtual” space The Abbey-a place for electronic mentoring between Abbot the Elder (AbbE), Abbot the Younger (AbbY), and me-the Abbess. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
We three “met” shortly after the launching of Alan’s blog. We found ourselves drawn to each other’s comments on the various threads-recognizing echoes of our own “eclectic” thoughts. We had little trouble tracking each other’s ideas when many seemed lost. For the three of us, this was uncanny. We were not used to encountering resonance; dissonance was so much more common! We began to “talk” with each other in the various threads, grateful for words of wisdom and confirmation from someone who understood.
A growing desire to connect off blog was finally realized. We acknowledged our fiery passion for God, our quirky senses of humor, and our acute awareness that most people just don’t “get” us. We agreed it felt like “coming home” and “finding long-lost kin.” Most importantly, we were able to finally feel “normal” somewhere.
We quickly discovered just how wonderfully “unusual” our little group was…so much so that I was reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein-the scene where Igor is trying to recall which brain he brought back from the university for the doctor’s grand experiment. Marty Feldman, eyes swirling, taps his chin as he tries to remember the name written on the glass container. Abi-someone… Abi… Abi… Normal! And it hit me-we should call our virtual space The Abbey. So we did.
Each of us, here at The Abbey, is actively involved in ministry. I (a wife and mother of sons) am busy visioning counter-cultural church planting. Brother AbbE (a single man) is involved in developing strategic missional analysis tools and other writing projects and church consultations. Brother AbbY (a husband and father of daughters) pastors a growing missional congregation.
While The Abbey doesn’t take the place of “local” relationships, its value is “virtually” priceless to us. It encourages our hearts, souls and “quirky” minds to love God with all our strength. And it helps us love our “local” neighbors when we are better able to understand and love ourselves.
For AbbE, a mentor is someone who sees God at work in you in ways others rarely ever see (and sometimes avoid), leaving you with a greater sense of what could be. This desire for the voice of experience placed in his heart the seed of willingness, or perhaps the will, to become for others the mentor he was not able to find for himself. AbbY and I have been encouraged by, and learned from, AbbE’s gift to see the potential in all God’s image-bearers.
For AbbY, a mentor is someone who helps refine your thinking through robust debate in an environment free from any fear related to competition or the threat of loss of power or influence. AbbE and I have been stretched and challenged and our “swords” have been sharpened by the wonderfully free and transparent environment AbbY fosters.
For the Abbess, a mentor is someone who listens to you long enough for you to figure out what you really think, asking just the right questions without trying to tell you what to think-and then helps clarify what it was that you actually said. AbbE and AbbY have both listened, and been listened to, as we take turns rambling about in our “abi-normal” way.
We treasure The Abbey because God speaks to us through us. We are the Church, unhindered by distance, connected by technology and empowered by the Spirit. Three isolated cords mercifully woven by God into what Alan calls communitas.
Life at The Abbey facilitates learning in solitude and implementation in community-simultaneously. It’s like we’re writing a book where the authors can respond to each living chapter as the readers raise questions.
Well, that sounds vaguely familiar… maybe there should be a WikiMentoring book?
Intrigued? See how we did it at www.the-abbey.wikidot.com.
