Last January I was invited to a nine-month mentoring experiment/experience.  A large grant foundation (Murdock Trust) paid for about 70 people in the NW (AK, OR, ID, MT and WA) to go through training/review/etc. in the area of mentoring.  It’s been a good experience so far.  We’ve been given books to read and review and we are to come prepared to Canby Grove Conference center about once every three to four months for our on-site times.  This next week concludes my nine month experience.

It’s been neat to look back at my nine-month journey and see where God has led.  Nine months ago I was not positive that Youthmark would be my full-time ministry by now.  I was thinking about ministry and mentoring only within the context of my local church and network. I was not nearly as close with the likes of Bo Boshers, Jess Champers, Cory Freese and Mark Moder (they are all part of this experience and I’ve gotten to know each one well through this).  A direct result of the experience as been me discovering my own need to be mentored.  And as I have written about recently, I asked Barry St. Clair to mentor me.  

Mentoring is such a large part of what I hope to bring to the Youth Ministry arena through networking.  As I make all these phone calls and emails to set up times with Youth Pastors, my heart yearns for opportunities to influence and encourage our youth workers to be in relationship with youth/staff whom they mentor; but, perhaps even more importantly, that these youth workers be mentored as well!  Pray for the NW youth leaders and those they seek out to help shepherd them.

Thanks Murdock for affording me the opportunity to be blessed in many ways through this process!

Grace,
Brian