2. Practitioner's Podcast: The Difference Between Mentoring and Disciple Making

Are you part of a church leadership team committed to the mission of disciple making, but ready to learn more about the method, then join us at discipleship dot org's national disciple making for October 5th through sixth in Nashville. Navigator's church ministries has set aside the evening of October 5th for our discipleship dinner and dialogue.

We're looking for one church to join us for a personalized coaching session over dinner. To enter. All you have to do is visit navigators, church ministries.org. And tell us about your church. The winner will be announced on Friday, September 30th, but no matter what, we'll see y'all in Nashville.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the practitioner's podcast, where we're applying Jesus style disciple making to every day life, this episode, and all of our episodes are powered by navigators church ministries, which focus on helping churches. Make disciples who can make disciples for more information, check out navigators, church, ministries.org.

Justin, tell everybody who this episode is perfect for today. Yeah. So today we're talking about the difference between mentoring and disciple making. So this episode is perfect for somebody who's looking for more clarity. Around disciple making, but specifically the leader or the person who's just not quite clear on the difference between mentoring and disciple making.

Cuz a lot of people, , both in church world now a church world use these two terms interchangeably and our contention today is that they are not the. Ooh, I'm excited to jump into this. I think one of the things that often happens and we've talked about this before on this podcast is that common language creates common movement.

And so identifying why this is so important is gonna be huge. For the disciple makers who maybe sometimes think that they're actually doing mentoring or mentoring who really should be doing disciple making. So I have in my notes here that you have a fishing story for us. Yeah. So what, I'm a little by this.

Yeah. So, and it better be true. That's all I'm saying. What better way to talk about mentoring, disciple making than to talk about fishing? So I went fishing, , about a couple weeks ago with my dad and my kids. It was starting to rain in the afternoon. We were kind of huddled under the, the covering of the, the boat.

And we had some hooks baited already. So we just moved to the place. And for whatever reason, I was like, all right, I'm just gonna catch a fish here real fast. So I picked up a pole, threw it in the water, threw the hook in, and right. As soon as it hit. Something bit pulled this thing in about a five pound catfish and everyone was amazed that I had just done that, cuz it was like, all right, I'm just gonna do this.

So, , that's my fun fishing story. It's fun for me. I don't know if it's fun for anybody else, but. We're gonna be talking about fishing today. And here's why Tony, because we have two ancient philosophers, one being Jesus that taught about fishing and talked about it. So the first one is a guy named Lazu, who I think was from China.

I forgot to look up that detail, but we've all heard this saying, he's the one that said first give a man a fish and he'll eat for a. Teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever. Okay. So that was LASU and his, his framework there is that if you really wanna help somebody, don't just teach him. Don't just give them a fish.

That's not really helping them. That's only helping him in the short term. What you wanna do is to teach him how to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life. Now, Jesus also taught about. And we know this verse, right? Matthew four 19. We've talked about it in our podcast before Jesus said, come follow me.

And I will make you fishers of men. So both are teaching about fishing. Both are helping others to fish, both are seeking to help another grow. Right. So there's similarities here. Tony, what other similarities, , do you see in these two, , teaching. Yeah, well, one of the things that's really obvious to see between both of these guys is that they're, they're very small relational context.

, the person who's doing the pouring into, or, or maybe the, the disciple maker or the men mentor that person's gonna be older is gonna be more experienced. Basically what you're saying is both of these individuals have something to give someone else. Yep. Right. And, and that's true. And mentoring just like it's true in disciple making.

We're not acknowledging. You know, we're not, not acknowledging. I should say that both of these things have similar parts. , at first glance, it's easy to think that mentoring and disciple making look a lot alike. But the reality is there's a lot of differences there too. Aren't there? Yes, absolutely. And we are definitely not saying that mentoring is bad, right?

There's a lot of value in mentoring. Our whole goal in this episode is to clarify the difference between the two. And we have, , there's at least four ways that we're gonna share with you that we believe that mentoring is different from disciple making. Okay. So that first way that we're gonna share with you is disciple making is.

Is intended to be holistic all of life while mentoring is limited to a slice of life or a skill, right? Most of the time mentoring contexts are within the workplace even, or within a particular, , skill or, , something that you are seeking to, to grow in or learn. But it's not holistic in the sense of, , all of life, the way that Jesus did disciple making and talked about disciple making.

Yeah. And the second thing is that the disciple maker is the model that, , from first Corinthians 11 one. Right. And what can't, it can't be what you used to do or what you once learned. It has to be something that your. Continually doing, you don't get to take a break or stop. It's like when somebody says they retire from ministry.

Yeah. That's not actually true. Right. If you're called to it, you do it for a lifetime. So once you're, , a disciple maker, you're called to be a disciple maker for life and you have to continually be doing it growing, , you know, in, in the Wesleyan world, we call this the process of sanct. Of becoming more like Christ you're on a continual kind of infinite path to follow Jesus, wherever Jesus is gonna take us forever.

And that's the model of disciple making. Yeah. And commercially mentoring isn't like that. Is it because in mentoring I can mentor somebody, , in the workplace. For instance, maybe I, I did a job for 20 years and now I'm onto a different one. I could mentor them in how to do that job. And that would not be uncommon at.

But first Corinthians 11 one follow my examples. I follow the example of Christ means that we have to show what we're talking about. We can't just talk about it. We have to be doing it currently. Not just having done it in the past. All right. Let's take a look at the third one. The third one's really interesting.

Disciple makers play offense and defense. And if you're a longtime subscriber, you know, We've talked about offense and defense and disciple making. Now, what does that mean? , practically and succinctly, it means that disciple making is a relationship where we take what the, the person is giving us and we give what God is giving us.

So we play offense, intentionally planning, and then we're also playing defense, relationally responding in the mentor, mentee relationship. Classically. What we understand is that the mentees. Right. The mentees are subject to the agenda of the mentor. So when I'm mentoring someone which I've done, and I've mentored someone in the areas of podcasting and schedule setting, I'm just there to give them a message what they do with the message, what they decide, how to handle the message.

Well, that's up to them, but I'm only giving them this one message. Whereas when I'm discipling someone we're doing life together. Right. And it goes back to that holistic thing that we mentioned in point. But it's it's offense and defense. It's holistic. It's complete. Yeah. I love that. Cuz yeah. And, and the mentor mentee, it's the mentor?

, well really the mentee, right. Is the one setting the agenda they're normally like, Hey, would you help me with this thing? And then the mentor is like, okay. Yeah, I'll help you with that thing. And, and then once that's done, then the mentee is decide, oh, do I need more? Do I not need more? And when the mentees like, Hey, great.

That was a lot of help. I appreciate it. I'll see you later. Then the mentee drives that. Right. Would you agree that Tony is that what you're seeing as well? I, so it's, it's interesting, as I heard you say that, I was like, well, it's, it's kind of a, both end, right? The mentees driving the agenda, , in terms of what they want a problem solved.

And they believe that the mentor has the best solution. Yep. But they may not know what the solution is. And the mentor probably has like a. Answer for them. Right? Like, so it's, it's absolutely, you know, the, the relationship kind of engaged by the mentee. The, the why is usually by the mentee, how we're gonna get to the why set by the mentor.

But again, it's very, you know, kind of a transactional is probably a really good way to say it. Yeah. That the mentor mentee relationship is more transactional versus. Relational. And I've had some really good mentors, , that I could call about a particular area of my life, but that's different than a disciple maker because while the, the goals are different, right?

Yeah. Well said, okay. So we're, we're onto the fourth one. And for me, this is the most significant one. So the first three, again, disciple making is holistic. While mentoring is a limited to kind a life skill. , the second one we talked about disciple making, , you have to be the model. You have to be currently doing it and mentoring, that's not actually always true.

Not doesn't need to be true. And then the third one, we just talked about disciple makers have to play both offense and defense. They have to see what's happening in the person's life. Even if that other person doesn't see it. And help them with that. So the fourth one disciple making is generational. So the goal of disciple making, isn't just helping the person that you're discipling.

The goal is multiplication. So the goal is that they would go and help somebody and disciple them. In mentoring, we don't classically have that as part of the requirements of success. When you look at a successful mentoring relationship, it ends with the mentee. If the mentee has learned and grown in the ways that, , the two of them decided or talked about, they needed help in.

Then they deem that as success, but in disciple making, if only the person that you're discipling grows and they don't move it forward to the next person, then you haven't done what Jesus did. And that's not the big, , that's not, , the way that Jesus set it up. Right? Yeah. I, I, I think all of this kind of, , all, all of these four points really sets.

, kind of what the, the big foundation and the difference between disciple making and mentoring, you know, you know, mentoring is about helping someone reach their goals. Disciple making is about helping reach Jesus' goals for them. Mm. Yeah. And so in this, in this idea, you give up when you're discipling someone, I I'm not teaching them to be like, Right.

I'm I'm doing exactly what Paul said in first Corinthians. I'm teaching them to follow Jesus. Right. And my hope and prayer for every person that I disciple is that they follow Jesus better than I do. Yep. Yep. And, and that builds the kingdom of God. And, and I think, you know, as leaders, if we can, if we can just talk to leaders for a minute, that the importance of the distinction.

Is, , a pay now or pay later kind of idea. Justin, can you kind of elaborate on what we mean when we say that? Yep. So there are church leaders all over that are choosing to talk about mentoring and using that language instead of disciple making. And the way I view that is is you are choosing to pay later.

, instead of paying up front, but the problem is a lot of people never pay later, cuz they're never at a place where they feel like they can, , really make it clear. Right. But if we're talking about mentoring and I get why leaders do this, they do it because it's familiar. , they don't have to unpack it as much.

And those that they're trying to reach with. This, , vision of getting people to invest in other people, they use a familiar concept and they say, okay, well maybe you could do mentoring. That's what let's just mentor. And the problem comes when people are mentoring. And yet you're not seeing reproduction.

You're not seeing generations emerge because people are mentoring. They're helping somebody else. But if we go back to Lazu and Jesus, I, I think about it like this Lazu is saying a hand up is better than a handout. Teaching them to fish is better than giving them a fish. But Jesus is saying something very different to the disciples.

Jesus is looking at the disciples and he's asking them to change their very purpose and direction in their life. He is bringing that to them in mentoring. That's not how things occur in mentoring. It is, well, you helped me with this, right? And so for leaders, what I've seen over and over again, leaders use the concept of mentoring.

They get people in the front door, as those people get in the front door, they don't reproduce the way that we'd hope. And then the leaders are like, well, wait, I don't know why they're not passing this on. We're telling them to do. , and even if they are passing it on, they're missing the vision of changing their very purpose of what they're about.

They're just helping people, which is, again, I'm not anti mentoring. It's a good thing to do, but it's very different than what Jesus did. Yeah. Let me give you an example from my days at, , Ginsburg and I was at a very large church and I oversaw 120 small groups. So at one season we had a couple thousand people at the church.

There were 120 life groups there. We called 'em life groups, small groups, whatever you wanna call 'em. And what, one of the things that we would always talk about is teaching someone, mentoring someone to be the next small group leader and on, on the basis, right on the very kind of surface level of this.

That made a lot of sense. Hey, let me teach you how to lead a small group. Let me mentor you on how to lead a small group. And we would do this and we'd do this, we'd do this. And then we'd talk about it for a long season. And then we'd go up to someone and say, okay, it's time for you to lead. And they'd say, well, I'm not qualified to lead.

Hmm. And, and here's the nuance leaders and, and friends. The nuance is, is they weren't qualified to leave lead. Because the group was focused on following Jesus and we didn't teach them how to do that. Hmm. Right. So if you're just teaching someone a task, they're never gonna feel qualified to disciple someone, but if you make someone a disciple, they'll be more than qualified to do the task.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's such a great example, real world example of the difference that language can make and the difference that these two things can make in your ministry. , whether you sit in a church as a pastor, a leader in the church, whether you're an everyday person that's out in the workplace, making disciples of those around you.

Those four things, right? Disciple making must be holistic. The disciple maker must be the model, disciple makers play offense and defense, not just one of those and disciple making is generational. So those are four ways that disciple making is distinct from mentoring. They are certainly not the same and Jesus was teaching something really different than Lazu when he was teaching about fishing.

And so for those of you listening, I hope this is helpful. In terms of developing that clarity around the difference, because one of our big goals this season is helping develop further clarity around disciple making. So friends that takes us to about the end of our time today. , I wanna give you our takeaway and action step before I do.

, don't forget to hit that subscribe button where every listen to podcasts, , reminder these episodes are coming out every other week. And so maybe on the off week, you go back and listen to season two of the podcast to get caught up. If you haven't listened yet or go all the way back to season one and see how much we've grown in podcasting , , cuz it's been a journey.

So here's your takeaway, mentoring and disciple making are not the same. Mentoring is about helping someone reach their goals. Disciple making is about helping reach Jesus' goals for them and your action step, consider your language because it will impact your culture. Consider your language because it will impact your culture.

We're so thankful for each and every one of you guys. We look forward to connecting two weeks from today. As we continue on this idea about the disciple maker's loop, I'm excited to get into it with each and every one of you we'll connect real soon.