Melissa Kruger on Mentoring Relationships between Women | Word First

one of the things I love most in walking with other women and one of the things I've been blessed by most are people who have taken the time to mentor me and a lot of women I think we feel really intimidated about getting into these relationships and so if you're a younger woman and you would love the investment of an older woman in your life one thing I'd just encourage you to do rather than call her up and say hey will you mentor me well that can be kind of intimidating for what for an older woman to here one of the things I tell younger women to do is just to call an older woman and say hey could we get coffee and come with specific questions that you'd like her help with and then maybe again ask can we get coffee again and then maybe later say hey would you be willing to read this book with me and that way you're initiating this mentoring program or mentoring process with her without even necessarily calling it that which I think for some of us can feel really intimidating because people can say what does she exactly want me to do with her when she wants me to mentor her one thing that we've done actually in our church just set it up and that's the first way I was talking about is how I really like to think of mentoring happening more just relationally and organically within the church but another thing I think that's helpful is to set it up systematically in the church and so one thing that we've done is organize a system where we do mentoring groups by topics so we read different books these groups meet once a month and then when we sign up for them we actually don't say who the mentor will be we just say what the topic will be so women sign up it's one older woman to about three or four younger women and that in our church has helped just create this culture of mentoring and the nice thing that these groups they run for one year so you don't sign on for the rest of your life to walk with this person but it's a great way to build relationships with just a small number of people that are geared on how I need to grow in Christ more so some of the topics might be prayer they might be Bible reading they might be the concept of waiting or loneliness and it allows for situations where we and just mentor one on one or one on a few women and they're great encouragement so if you are looking for an older woman to mentor you or if you are looking to mentor younger women I just encourage you to do it because it's a blessing in the church well we care for one another in this way you