'Mentoring is about coming alongside someone to support, encourage, challenge and inspire them. It's about facilitating someone to make their own decisions and to take ownership of their lives and to guide them in a positive direction. It's a relationship that allows them to be totally honest, without judging them, but encouraging them to run wholeheartedly after God. It's about helping to break down the spititual/secular divide and helping them to apply their faith to the whole of their lives. It's about leading humbly by example and being honest about your own weaknesses and shortcomings. It acknowledges that the little things in our lives matter to God. As a mentor it challenges me to grow closer to God myself as I have a responsibility to set a good example.

Around 40 people came to our first mentoring training day in Christchurch, Bournemouth on Saturday. Here are some of their comments:

• Helped us to explore mentoring in greater depth and gave us a structure to lean on
• Non-threatening and encouraging (it is so easy to feel self condemnation and not measuring up on these sort of days)
• It was very helpful, but what really helped to earth the theory was the practice sessions on asking the mentoring questions and actually going through a goal setting process
• Thank you for an excellent day. I rarely maintain interest in an event for a whole day – you achieved what I thought was impossible! A thoroughly enjoyable and helpful day.

Don't miss out! We're in Worcester on the 14th March and Chesham on the 28th March, with more events being booked up. See our events page for more details.

Here's another reflection on what it's like to be mentored.

During a week's training before heading out to Uganda in my gap year, I received some excellent teaching about the role of mentor/mentee relationships, the biblical support for them, and how they aid personal and spiritual growth. This teaching stayed with me and since then I have always endeavoured to have a mentor where possible over the last 8 years.

I have found the experience invaluable. It is an incredible privilege to have an older, more mature Christian lass commit to investing prayer, mentoring hours and listening to God time on your behalf. I meet with my current mentor every 2 to 3 months depending. It is seriously businesslike; no comfortable girlie chit-chat! My mentor will have been praying for me beforehand, so sometimes will have particular things to ask me about that God may have put on her heart.

Mentoring training is a key emphasis for us this year. We're hosting training events for both men and women and over the next few weeks will be featuring stories from people who mentor or who are being mentored. Here's the first from Andrew Rowlandson, a management trainee at Aviva:

Mentoring for me has quite simply been life-changing. Over the years of being mentored through adversity and privilege I’ve developed a lifelong friendship with my mentor. I’ve been encouraged to take a step back from my faith and explore different approaches and expressions of following Christ uncompromisingly whilst relevant to today’s society, to stand firm in my faith when challenges have come and to step out of my comfort zone, take risks and see my God-given passions put into action. As my faith has grown faster than before I have learnt to pursue the areas of my life that cause me to come alive and embrace more of who God has made me to be.