Mentoring Made Real: The Power of Authentic Connection

Nancy Lindren: Good afternoon and welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. You have been prayed over. Did you know that? I have prayed for you and asked God to just light a fire within you when it comes to mentoring, so if you feel like your seat gets hot, it’s because I prayed. It’s not a hot flash; it’s God moving.

We’re going to start out this time together in prayer. We want God to show up today, don’t we.

Father, we invite You here. We want You to speak to us. We want Your Spirit to flow through this room. Do what only You can do. Would You light that fire, God? Would You put people in our path that You know You want us to be a part of, to step into their lives. God, we’re here to hear from You, and we give this time to You in every way. In Jesus’ powerful name, Amen

Before I even start, I need to share a “Heaven rules” story with you. I’m sure we all have them. Some of us probably got to this place miraculously, and some of you maybe had some hurdles to get over. I know for me, about a year ago when I was here last year, we had the most amazing time. Shannon, my dear friend and I came, and we had a table. We set it up, and we met so many amazing women. We said, “If there’s any even we want to come back to it’s Revive Our Hearts, or True Woman.”

Back in February, we started praying, “God do You want us to be back here this year?” We knew it was going to be a busy season in our lives. I said, Shannon, let’s pray for one week, and let’s ask God if we’re supposed to come,” because we knew it was going to be kind of not logical that we should be here, but if God wanted us to be here, we wanted to be here.

So for one week, we prayed, and on day number seven, I woke up, and I said, “Lord, I don’t think I’ve heard from You yet. Would you speak to me and tell me so specifically if You want us to come to this conference?”

And I tell you what, that afternoon, I got a call from a staff person at Revive Our Hearts saying, “Would you lead a breakout?” And I said, “Yes! I don’t even have to pray about it.”

So I am here because God wants me here, and He wants you here. I know He does.

I have just to tell one more piece to that story. I was in the middle of writing a book called Mentoring Made Real, and I wasn’t done with it. A friend prayed, and she said, “Nancy, wouldn’t it be so cool if you could talk about your book and have it be done by the time you get to that conference?”

I said, “That would take a miracle.” And the miracle happened. It was done on August 15. It was completed in time to order those books and have the shipment arrive in time for this conference.

God gets so much glory. But here’s another piece to the story. On Tuesday of this past week, the day before I was leaving to fly out, I thought, “Maybe I should just call someone at Revive Our Hearts and just make sure all the books got here.

So I called, and I talked to Sarah, and she said, “You know what? There’s only two books that are here out of the four hundred that you ordered.”

I kind of went to panic, and I thought, “Okay, Lord, after all this. I’ve written this book. We’ve done it together, Lord, and there’s no books here.” I just had to stop and say, “This is a Heaven rules moment.” I am going to choose to say, “Heaven rules. I trust my God. If He has brought us this far, He will take care of everything else.”

I had some books at my house. I packed them all up in my suitcase. They weighed over fifty pounds, and the guy didn’t even notice at the airport. That was a miracle. I bless him. I was praying over him.

I brought my little stash that I had. I put them out on the table, and I said, “Lord, just multiply these books. If this is all that we have here, just put them into the hands that You want them to be into.”

Here’s what God did. Yesterday, actually my assistant called UPS and Amazon, and just really wanted to get to the bottom of where these books were. Amazon said, “We will reimburse you for the books, and even if they show up, you can have them for free.”

We get here, and we’re praying. There’s no books here except the ones I brought. Yesterday at 3:00, all the books show up. They’re all here!

So that’s my Heaven rules story, and it’s an amazing one. It’s miraculous. It’s only God, and He’s going to do the same for you. I know He will.

Even in this hour today that we have, I so want Him to speak to you so personally and just to tell you the things He wants you to know. I’m here to just speak and let those words come through my mouth, but I want the Lord to do the speaking.

We’re here to hear from Him. I would love to hear, and actually, first, even before we talk about mentoring, I want to shift the mentoring mindset that most of us have in our heads that we can’t do this. Mentoring is too big. It’s too much. We don’t have enough to offer. So many of us feel like we’re not qualified. We’re unworthy. All of those thoughts.

It starts right here in our mindset, and I want to make a shift in that and make it doable, that we can do this. We are equipped. God has given us what we need. I’ve seen that in my own life, and I want to see it in your own life, too.

I just want to hear from you. How many of you have had a mentor in your life that has had a great impact on you? I love it. Many hands going up.

Just shout out a few words that you would use to describe that mentor, and we can just hear. What are some of the character qualities that you’ve seen in her that have made such an impact on you?

Wise, passionate, spiritual leader, mother, spiritual mother, older, grace, unconditional love, challenging, prayer warrior. That’s my passion, too.

I love it. We could list a whole lot of attributes, couldn’t we? I’ve had women in my life that have been the same for me.

How many of you have been that mentor to somebody? Are most of you mentoring right now? Okay, fewer hands, but I see them. I’m so thankful for one each of you that are doing that now.

I want all of us in this room to have a passion to do this. We can do this. It is simple, and yet it is so powerful, and it is so needed in this world today.

Twelve years ago, I met a young mom in my neighborhood. We met at a block party, and we just stood there and began to talk, and we connected. There was just something about her I just loved, and somehow she connected to my heart.

Soon after that time together, she sent me a note in the mail, and it said, “Will you be my mentor?” And I thought, “What does that mean? What are your expectations?”

I didn’t feel like I had a lot to offer. I was kind of doing some mentoring naturally and organically, but no one had ever said those words to me. I didn’t see them written out, “Will you be my mentor?”

You first kind of go to fear, and then I went to the Lord, and I said, “God, do You want me to do this? Will You show me what it looks like to do it?” I felt like He was saying, “Say yes. Say yes.”

So I did, and I invited her over to my house, and of course I brought my stack of Bible studies and books, and I thought she would just want to go through something like that. Well, Sarah showed up, and she didn’t want all of that.

She had a lot of burdens on her heart. Her oldest daughter was five years old and going off to kindergarten, and she was so nervous and so scared, and she just wanted to hear how I handled it.

We had four kids in six years, and I was a little further down the road than she was, and I just shared my heart with her of how I did it. We talked about God. We prayed together.

I left that time watching her eyes light up so much. That meant so much to her. We didn’t have to do an in-depth book study. I needed to show up real and honest and let her be real and honest, and we had the most amazing time together. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with this Sarah.

That really kind of launched me into a ministry that God was calling me to start, a mentoring ministry that happened a few years later as I was sitting on my couch one day on a Saturday morning. I’ll never forget it. It was as if God just showed up, and He was sitting right next to me on that day, and He asked me to start a mentoring ministry.

Specifically He gave me details of the plan, and I’m writing down as fast as I can in my journal. I’m asking Him questions, “What does this look like? How do I do this?” He’s speaking to me very clearly. I don’t hear Him audibly, but within every cell of my body, I know God has met me on my couch, and it was powerful.

I just said, “Lord, if You’re calling me to start this ministry called “More” . . . My Bible was open to Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (NIV)

That was His Word going out and speaking to me, and I wanted women to experience more. More of Him, more peace, more fullness of life. I was around a lot of women that really were feeling empty and anxious and fearful and worried. I wanted them to experience that abundant life. That was my heart, and I knew it was God’s heart too.

As God put this on my heart, I just said, “Show me how it’s supposed to look.” One by one, that next year, He put thirteen young moms in my life, and I just began to show up. I would take them out to eat for lunch. I would have them over for coffee. We would go to the park. I hung out with these young moms.

I listened to them a lot, and I let them talk and share. I was a safe place for them to be honest with and real with. I could see it in their eyes, the impact that this was making, especially as every time we would pray together, we would take all of our concerns to God. That made the greatest impact of all. I began to see God is doing something here. There’s something to this. This doesn’t have to be that hard. We can do this.

I feel like God has put me on this planet to be a voice to say to you, “You can do this too. This is not that hard. If I can do it, you can do it.” I’m as ordinary as they come. Even if you feel small and ordinary, God can use you in the life of another woman.

It’s just so encouraging to see what God does when we’re available and we show up and we say yes to Him.

Three steps. If we’re going to shift our mentoring mindset, I want to talk about three things we can do. The very first thing we have to do is talk about dispelling our fears, because we all have them right? We have those fears that rise up.

Dispel the fears. We need to get rid of them. We need to notice and acknowledge that they’re there, but then also just say, “No more. I’m not going to fear.”

There’s so many fears that can say, “I’m not enough. I don’t know what to say. What if we don’t connect?” It’s all the “what ifs” and the red flags, and the “What if this doesn’t go well?” But I want to say, “What if it does go well? What if it really makes an impact on another person’s life?” I want to be a part of that.

We need to dispel those fears and get rid of them, and really just say, “No more.” No more to those fears. They’re not going to control us. They’re not going to rule us.

We also want to look at what the Bible has to say about mentoring. I think it’s so important. Jesus had a lot to say, and He modeled what it looked like to live a life of mentoring. I think the very first passage I think of is Matthew 28:18–20. If you have your Bibles, open up with me, or find it on your phone. These are the key verses, I feel, Jesus was saying before He left this earth. It was His last words to His disciples.

I think we need to pay attention to those last words. What are they? Jesus said this, Matthew 28:18–20. “Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”

Right there we see that we are to go and make disciples. I love that Jesus didn’t say, “It can only be done this way. You have to be on a stage, speaking to at least 10,000 people, or you have to have social media followers of 20,000 or more.”

No, you can disciple people God has put right into your life, just as simply as walking alongside them, loving them right where they’re at, being Jesus to them, living out what it looks like to be a lover of Jesus.

To go and make disciples. I believe mentorship is a form of discipleship. It may not use those words in the Bible. Mentor is kind of a modern-day term, but mentorship is a form of discipleship.

I see mentorship as being more relational, side by side. You’re coming alongside another person, where discipleship, sometimes you think of that teacher and student. You’re teaching them doctrine, you’re teaching them the things of God’s Word. Maybe you’re doing a Bible study together. Maybe there’s deeper discipleship.

I love the relational discipleship, the one-on-one, the prayer-focused mentoring. That’s what God put on my heart as He asked me to start this ministry. I believe that’s a key part of it.

He ends these verses with, “I will be with you always.” I love that. We do not have to mentor by ourselves. We have the Holy Spirit in us, giving us power, giving us the words to say, and we are not alone in it. That gives us confidence right there. God is with us.

That word teach makes me think of the Titus 2 passage which many of us are familiar with, the older women are to teach the younger women and train. It uses that word in there as well. I don’t know about you, but does that intimidate you, those words teach and train?

Those are kind of heavy words. What does that look like? Do I have to have a white board and tell them the one, two, threes of how to do this? Teach and train just always made me feel kind of nervous. I’m not good at that. That’s not me.

I think of teaching and training as more about modeling and living out in front of another person, just sharing with them the greatness of God and who He is in your life. It’s truly just the overflow. You spend time with Jesus. You get to know Him, and you overflow with Him. You let that come out. They’re listening to you share. They’re hearing you talk about how much you love Jesus, and in a way, they’re being taught.

I’ve had women say, “Thank you for teaching me,” especially how to pray. It’s not like I’m saying, “Here’s how you have to do it.” I just pray, and I invite them to come in and pray with me. That’s where they hear me talk. They hear me talk to this best friend of mine that I love so much, and they then begin to understand, “I can talk like that to God, too. He’s not far off. He is near. He’s personal, and He cares.”

Then when we see Him start to answer our prayers, look out. We feel like this amazing God, He knows us, and He wants to answer these prayers.

It’s so fun to me to see how God can take that teaching and training and really turn it into modeling and just living out a lifestyle of prayer and a lifestyle of mentoring.

Another verse that I really love is Galatians 6:2. This is just another example of what it can look like to mentor. Let’s just turn to that, if you can find Galatians 6:2. I love how it’s worded in the NLT, and that’s the translation I’m reading from today.

It says this: “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.”

Don’t you love that? It kind of makes me laugh. That is for all of us as mentors. We’re really not that important when it comes right down to it. God is the important one, but if we can share each other’s burdens and come alongside another person. They can feel safe enough to share the hard things and the things that worry them and keep them up at night, and we can listen to that and take that and share it. I think it’s a beautiful picture of what mentoring can look like.

I think of the verse how we’re supposed to cast our cares upon the Lord because He cares for us. I just picture a big old fishing pole. It’s not like that mentee is casting her cares on us and all of a sudden we have all the burdens on us. It’s like together we’re hanging onto the fishing pole, and we’re putting all those burdens on the end of that hook, and together we’re casting them out on Jesus. And it makes it so much lighter for both of us. It’s not like we’re taking each other’s burdens on, but we’re sharing, because we’re hanging onto the fishing pole together.

That’s that visual that God’s given me. It’s a beautiful picture of walking alongside another woman and sharing a burden of hers together. It’s a beautiful example of mentoring.

One final chapter I want to look at is Psalm 145. There’s many verses we could look at. This is my most favorite chapter in the whole Bible. I think it’s an example, a great example of what it means and what it looks like to be a mentor, and what it sounds like.

Psalm 145. I love it so much because it talks about the greatness of God and who He is. That’s really what we’re doing as mentors. We’re pointing people to God, telling them, this is who He is.

It says this:

I will exalt you, my God and King,
   and praise your name forever and ever.
I will praise you every day;
   yes, I will praise you forever.
Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!
   No one can measure his greatness.
Let each generation tell its children (and I say, “Let each mentor tell their mentees”) of your mighty acts;
   let them proclaim your power.
I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor
   and your wonderful miracles.

And it just goes on to say, speak that out. Declare it. Proclaim it to the next generation. They have to hear about the greatness of God. That’s what a really good mentor does. It’s not about us coming with all the great advice and all the answers. It’s pointing to our great God and saying, “This is who I’ve come to know. I know this is His character, and we can rely on His character. He’s true, He’s faithful, He’s good, and we’re pointing to Him. They fall in love with Jesus, and that’s the goal in mentoring, right there.

We’ve talked first about we’re going to dispel our fears, and secondly, we’re going to display the four pillars of mentoring.

Those are kind of my own words that I use, but I love them, because in all these years that I’ve been mentoring, I feel like these four words have come to the surface of what is mentoring all about. What do I need to do? 

Most of us are in this room thinking, “I’m somewhat feeling ready. How do I do this?”

I just say there’s four words: love, listen, encourage, and pray.

I love that you’re all taking notes. That’s so great.

I’ll repeat that again. Love, listen, encourage, and pray.

I just want to start with that word love. I think if a woman steps into your life and she knows that you really care about her, and it’s not about you. You just care, and you show up, and you look in her eyes, and you let her talk. You see her. You let her talk, so you hear her. You get to know her. She is going to feel so loved.

That makes a big difference. It’s huge. If she feels loved, she will feel like, “I can tell you anything. We can go to God about anything.” You’re going to connect in an authentic way in that loving relationship. So it starts with love and really seeing that person where they’re at.

Then listen. I say over fifty percent of mentoring should be listening. That’s probably not what the world would say. The world would say you need to be talking. You need to be passing down all your wisdom and insight and advice.

I feel over all these years as I have stepped into these kind of relationships, the more I listen and let a woman talk, she just feels loved and feels like she’s heard. She can process it and share it and get it off her chest, and her load is lighter because of that, as well.

I think of one story. One of these mentees I had, I was meeting with her. I showed up, and I just asked her one question, and she talked for one whole hour. I don’t think I said one more word. It was kind of funny, I just sat there listening.

At the end, she said, “Okay, I have to go now, but thank you for all the advice you gave me.” I said, “You are so welcome!”

I didn’t say a thing, but that gave me a picture of this is what it looks like. You listen well, and they feel like they’ve been heard, and you don’t even have to give them advice, but they feel like you’ve given them advice

God can do that, even as we listen, He can be stepping in and sharing things with them that we don’t even have to say. What freedom is that, right? It’s not on our shoulders. It’s not on our shoulders to have all those answers. Do more listening than talking.

The Bible talks about that. It’s scriptural. “Be quick to listen and slow to speak.” I want to be like that as a mentor. I want people to feel like they can tell me anything, and I’m really going to listen.

I remember one retreat we were at, and I offered to mentor women, to come downstairs and have one hour with me. There were like eight women there. I said, “I’m just going to be available, if you want to come down and meet with me. I’m here to listen.”

One by one, these women came, and they just began to cry before I even said anything, because they finally had someone who was willing to hear the really hard stuff that they didn’t share around the kitchen table, as we were all meeting together. They came down and sat with me and cried and just shared their burdens.

I prayed over them, and we had the sweetest time, but again, it was another visual of, “Nancy, this isn’t about you. You just be available. You show up. You listen. You let them process, and God will do what only He can do.” It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Encourage. You know, the word encourage is a simple word. It says en courage. That means put courage within somebody else. So when you encourage someone, you are planting those seeds of courage for them to do the hard things, for them to see God for who He really is.

There are so many ways we can encourage. Not everyone has the spiritual gift, so some really have to practice it and work at it. Encourage can look like, maybe even sharing something that you learned that day in your quiet time.

Oftentimes I leave my Bible wide open, and I say, “Lord, would You use what You’ve poured into me? Throughout my day, let me pour it back into somebody else.”

It's amazing to watch through phone calls or texts of people saying, “I need prayer,” and I say, “You know what, my Bible’s open to this passage, and I’m going to encourage you with this today. I don’t know if it’s what you need, but God gave it to me, and I’m going to give it to you.”

It’s being filled up, and then we pour out. Encouragement is so important, and so much of it can come through your own story. Maybe you feel like, “Okay, I’ve been through some hard things, and I haven’t done this well in the past, and maybe my kids haven’t turned out well. How could I ever be a mentor?” God has that story for you for a reason. Someone needs to hear your story. Your story can go out in power.

It says in Revelation 12:10 that we defeat the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. So speak the word of your testimony and let God use it to encourage someone. We don’t know what they may need, but God knows. Don’t hold back on sharing that story and sharing what God’s doing and sharing about Him, using His Word.

Talk about powerful encouragement, use His Word, His Scripture. We know it goes out and accomplishes what it was sent to do. It does not return empty or void, so even just reading one verse. Here today, I don’t know how God used it to speak to you, but I’m going to speak it, because it’s powerful, and it goes out with great force, because God’s behind it.

That’s encourage. Then pray. This is the one that gets me the most excited, because I have seen God move, and I have seen God answer prayers so specific.

There was one season where, I think it was five women sitting around my kitchen table at different times, wanted to get pregnant, and they couldn’t get pregnant. We prayed that God would help them conceive, and I felt like they were all conceived at my kitchen table. God answered one by one as we cried out and prayed together for a baby.

That’s just one example, but I’ve experienced so many examples of united prayer, going to God, crying out, saying, “God, here we are, we’re just coming to You, asking You to move,” and He does. He does. He wants us to do that.

I like to say, and it’s in the Bible, too, that the heart . . . We pray with the heart, but the heart has eyes. There’s a verse that talks about the eyes of your heart, that we will see God. That we will come to know Him. In prayer, I like to use the eyes of my heart when we pray.

First of all, we look up. With those eyes, we look up, and we praise God. Every time we meet together—my mentor, my mentee—whoever’s meeting, we look up, and we praise God. We pick an attribute of God. We’re focused on Him. We see how great He is. We use verses, we praise Him, we tell Him how much we love Him.

I can’t even tell you how many times I feel like I could be done with prayer after the praise time, because all of my issues down here have gotten really small, because He has gotten really big. I love starting with praise. I think it’s so important to look up first.

Secondly, to look within and to confess. I know that can be an awkward thing if you’re not used to confessing out-loud, but it’s very biblical, too. James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (NIV)

I love confessing out-loud with another person. I think it breaks strongholds. I think it brings things out in the light that have been hidden. God can do a lot with something that’s brought into the light and it’s no longer hidden. He can break those things, that sin that we’re dealing with.

When I hear someone pray something and confess something, it’s like, “Oh yeah. Me too, Jesus. Thank You that You forgive us. Thank You that I can bring it to You.” It’s a really powerful time.

I think if we just do this natural mentoring and don’t intentionally focus on that, we would skip right over that part, because that’s not always easy to do that with another person, but I think it’s so important to do it.

Thanksgiving. To look around in thanksgiving and to stop and truly look behind us and say, “God, what have You done in the past?”

I can go way back years ago. I’ve been walking with Jesus for fifty-three years, so I have so much history with my Jesus. There’s nothing He can’t do. I believe that with all my heart. I believe He’s a miracle-working God, because I’ve seen Him do it. He’s been so faithful to me.

To look back, but also to look right where you are today. “God, what are You doing today?” Stop and be thankful for that. Take time to give Him the glory for it.

Look ahead. There are many times I say, “God, I don’t even see the answer.” Just like with those books arriving. “God, I don’t even know if they’re going to show up, but I’m going to choose to thank You. You’re absolutely ruling. You’re in charge. You’re able. I know You’re able.”

Then to be able to say, “Wouldn’t it be just like God to do that?” Then He does it. Your faith just grows. I’ve seen Him do it over and over again, to answer those prayers. We need to be thankful.

Thankfulness changes us. We can not be anxious and thankful at the same time. Did you know that? Our bodies can’t physically be anxious and thankful at the same time. I want to be a woman who is thankful a lot, because I don’t want to be anxious. I want thankfulness to be such a part of my life.

The final one, the final principle of prayer, is we go to God and we ask Him. We look to Him and we ask Him. We come boldly to Him.

There’s a story in the Bible that talks about the blind man by the side of the road. Jesus came to him and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“What do you want me to do for you?” I picture Jesus standing there every time to Him andI pray, and He says, “Ask Me.” He says it all throughout the Bible. “Ask Me.” He wants to do things for us. He wants us to come to Him, so we can come boldly and look at Jesus saying, “What do you want Me to do for you? I’m able, but you need to ask”

We come with boldness, and we put names and Scripture. We use the powerful Word of God that goes out and does greater things than we could ever do on our own. We pray specifically for each other, both of us. She’ll pray for me, I pray for her. We go to God in prayer.

That is the most encouraging time together, and that is the thing I hear most often. Women will come back to me and say, “Nancy, this has changed my life,” and I love those words, because God gets all the glory for that.

Most often it is the prayer time that has changed their lives, because they’ve come to know God. They’ve seen Him answer these prayers, and they know they can go to Him at 2 a.m. when they’re nervous, and they wake up, and they’re fearful. They don’t have to have my number nearby. They can go directly to their God that they have come to know.

That’s my goal in mentoring. I just want them to know God more. It’s not that I have to have answers. I want them to know God. It’s been such a thrill for me to see women come to know God.

I would just like to talk about even the third thing today. It is after we dispel our fears, and after we display the four pillars of mentoring, we are going to deploy the friendships. I had to have that start with a D, right?

Deploy the friendships. And I use the word deploy because deploy means to prepare yourself to take action. To position yourself to take action.

I want everyone in this room to be thinking, “Okay, God, here I am. I’m willing. I’m available. Where are You positioning me? Who are You putting in my life? Who’s right around me that I can begin to pour into?”

Or maybe I need to ask someone, would they be my mentor? It goes both ways. I always want to have someone pouring into me, and I always want to have someone I’m pouring into.

Deploying those friendships, to position yourself. I’d like to say three things about that.

First of all, like I’ve already shared, start it with prayer. “God, who do You have for me? Who do You want me to pour into?” Go to Him first. He’ll show you.

Maybe it’s someone you’re not even thinking about. Maybe it’s a niece or a cousin or a daughter or a co-worker or someone you meet at the park or a neighbor, and you just haven’t even thought about them, but what if God says, “Here you go. Here’s the one I’ve chosen for you”?

He did that for me in that first year with those thirteen moms. He just kept saying, “Here you go. Here’s one more,” and I’d say, “Okay. I’ll just step in, and I’ll let You do it.” And I watched Him do something really amazing in their lives.

I want you to start with prayer and ask Him, “God, what does this look like for me?”

Secondly, pursue. Once God has put a name on your mind, go after her. I love the word together. We use that in a lot of our mentoring guides. Every time I’m speaking, I’m talking about how we need each other. We need to come together, be together, and move together.

That word together, if you look at it, there’s three words in there: to get her. So go after her. Go get her. Pursue her. Don’t sit back and wait for someone to pursue you. That might not happen, but if you take a step of faith . . .

It might be scary. I was scared when I invited Sarah over, but I did it anyway. I would have missed out on the most beautiful relationship that we have to this day. We are the most dearest of friends. I would have missed out if I would have said, “Nope, that’s too scary. I’m not going to do this.”

Pursue. And she pursued me. She was nervous to write that note in the mail. She felt like she was proposing to me in marriage. What if I said no? That rejection can be a scary thing. Don’t be afraid to pursue and go after that woman if God’s put her on your heart.

Finally, I say participate. Just get involved. Maybe you don’t have people in your life, and you think, “Where do I even start?” I encourage you, get to a local church. Get involved. Go to a gathering of women. That’s where you’re going to connect and meet. Be around other people. We’ll never get to know other people if we’re not around people.

Participate and get involved, and just see what God might do in those natural settings of gatherings of women.

Pray, pursue, and participate, those three ps, as you step out, as we deploy these friendships.

Finally, as I talk about friendships, I use that word specifically, because it’s been so fun for me to see the beautiful friendships that have come out of mentoring.

You think it’s more formal, and you think we’re just doing this to get to know each other, but then God does something. He authentically connects us, heart to heart, and these beautiful amazing friendships have come about, that have been reciprocal. I feel like these women have poured into me as much as I’ve poured into them, and we’ve become the dearest of friends.

I just want to pause right now and introduce you to one of my dearest friends who I’ve had the privilege of mentoring in the past, but I want you to hear from my dear Shannon. She’s a voice of this younger generation. She’s so young and beautiful, isn’t she?

She has three little kids, and I love them. I’ve adopted them as my grandkids. They come and have sleepovers at my house. It’s so fun. She’s in my life, and God’s put her there for a reason.

I just want her to share the impact of mentoring in your life, Shannon,

Just a quick backstory. I’m originally from Indiana. After I married my husband, he took a job in Denver, so we moved there in 2013, nine years ago. I was a brand new mom. I had a newborn. I knew nobody there. I had no family there. I was trying to figure life out.

I found a MOPS group, actually, which was huge. MOPS—Mothers of Preschoolers—anybody? Yes. Actually, it was five years ago, I met Nancy. It was a very divine appointment. At a MOPS group, she was the mentor mom at the table I was assigned to.

I had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and I was pregnant, very pregnant with my third. I found out about this mentoring ministry that she had, and I had been looking for a mentor. I had actually asked someone to mentor me from my church, and it just kind of didn’t pan out. I asked someone else to mentor me, and she said no.

I had gotten to know Nancy a little bit. We had known each other for about a year. I was part of the ministry. I did a little bit of work with more mentoring, and I think she took pity on me and offered to mentor me, which was so sweet of her.

That was in 2019, and little did I know that about six months later, I was going to face a storm that I had no idea was coming.

I had learned, my husband had told me he had been unfaithful to me earlier in our marriage. Nancy, of course, was one of the first people that I called. She entered the pit with me, that darkness that I was sitting in, in the moment, and prayed with me. That was one of the first things she did. She said, “We’re going to pray.”

I can attest that she practices what she preaches. Every word she has said here today, she practices. She is such a dear person to me.

She walked alongside me during this very difficult and very emotional time in my life. She didn’t have advice. She had not walked that herself, yet she had Jesus, and she was always pointing me to Jesus, and she still does. We’re not in a formal mentoring relationship anymore, but we are, like she said, dear friends.

I think it was maybe a year ago, I was just really struggling. I was frustrated with my husband. We are still together. I remember just saying to her, “I’m praying, praying, praying for certain things, and God’s not answering these prayers. Why am I even praying?”

She said, “Shannon, that’s a lie. You don’t need to believe that it’s pointless to pray.” It was where I was at, in that moment, and she spoke truth over me and reminded me that, no, that’s the one thing that I have, that I can turn to our God and pour out anything that I have to Him. Even if my situation doesn’t change, I always feel better after praying and having someone pray with me.

I have learned over my time of knowing Nancy and praying with her how to be a prayer warrior, even more so than I was before. I have gotten the privilege to pray with many moms. I have the opportunity to serve in my MOPS group now as the coordinator, and I get to pray with these moms in the way that Nancy has prayed with me.

My mother-in-law and I pray together, and it’s just a really sweet thing to see somebody invest in you, and you can then invest in others. It’s exactly what she’s talking about. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

This book that Nancy has recently written and had published Mentoring Made Real . . . Funny enough, she talks in chapter ten, if you don’t mind me reading just a tiny little bit, about revival. And I have to say this word has been on my heart for several months.

Revival, it’s always on my heart, particularly with my MOPS group that I’m a part of in Golden, Colorado, but also with mentoring. She writes:

What if the next great revival comes through one-on-one prayer-focused mentoring? Can you see it? With such a desperation for connection and a tireless pursuit of truth among younger generations today who desire more in their own lives, mentoring provides the perfect platform to spark a revival. I have friends who have prayed for revival for years and years. Could revival happen through one changed heart at a time?

I had not read chapter ten prior to me . . . I got to read the first three chapters before the book was released. One of the things I had said in a prayer, I said, “A revival is upon us, and I know You, God, can use this book as a catalyst. Light the flame, and let’s have a bonfire.”

That was confirmation when I got to chapter ten and was reading about revival, I’m like, “Yes! This is so exciting!” This book is going to spark something even bigger. The ministry has tons of resources that can be used.

I see all of you as the sparks. Every one of you is this spark. Whether you use this book and read it for encouragement, if you use one of the resources, or whatever God puts in your hands, He’s going to use that to fan you, and you’re going to turn into this brighter flame that catches with others, and we’re going to have a great bonfire together of revival. I’m excited about this.

Thank you for letting me share a little bit.

She gets me excited, doesn’t she? She’s awesome. Oh, Shannon, thank you for sharing that. That was beautiful.

This is the picture right here, you guys. I want you to see this. I’m just an ordinary woman, but Shannon comes along in my life, and I love her, and we just meet together. We start praying together.

You should see how God’s using Shannon to meet with all these young moms. He’s using her. She’s now a mentor to a lot of people. So this beautiful ripple effect. This is what it can look like. This is just one little picture.

We’re small, but God is so great, and He’ll do that. He’ll multiply our little that we have, our little two fish and five loaves that we think is really small, God can take it. He’ll break it, He’ll bless it, and He’ll spread it, and He’ll multiply it.

I’m seeing that happen. I do believe with Shannon, I guess wrote it, so I must believe it. Revival is going to happen if we step into these kinds of relationships. I believe it.

I would love to stop right now and pray. We have all these women in this room today. The very first thing I want us to do is just be quiet before the Lord and listen to Him. God, what does this look like for me?

Then I’m going to lead us into another time of prayer together, but let’s just stop right now. God, would You speak to each one of us what You want us to know? What You want us to see. Who is it that we can step into their lives and point them to You? God, speak to us now.

Lord, thank You that You are so personal. I believe You’re speaking to each woman here what You want them to know. We’ll never know that, but You know it. Thank You. Thank You for the things that You will reveal. Thank You for how You will shed light and illuminate people.

God, it’s all about loving You and loving people, so show us how to do that.

Father, now as we join together in prayer, we’re going to unite together and ask You for an outpouring of Your Spirit across our globe. God, would You bring revival? Would You do it? Start it right here in this room.

We can imagine what it could look like if we went out from here to our places, and You just began that ripple effect, that bonfire. God, do it.

We’re just going to lean in to a person next to us, either in twos or in threes, and begin to pray: “God, would You do something so special? Would You spark it? Light the fire. God, do it in us.”

Even just say a name that God’s put on your heart, and let someone else pray over you. Let’s just take the next few minutes to just join together, even if you don’t know the person sitting next to you, let’s pray together in united prayer and ask God to do something special.

Don’t look at each other and tell each other. Just go right to prayer, and let’s see what God might do.

Father, thank You so much for this time together. Thank You for listening to our prayers. God, thank You that these women are fired up, and they’re hard to stop praying. I love it. I know.

We’re going to wrap up this prayer time together. We believe God has met us. I love it! We can’t even stop you from praying. It’s so great. It’s so great. God is going to do something here. We believe it. We believe it.

Thank you, Jesus. We can’t stop them! God, we thank You. There is a revival happening right now. We feel it. We feel it. You are here with us. God, You’re going to use these women in this room. I believe it with all my heart. I believe Your Spirit is in them. They have what they need. They are equipped. God, You’ve put within them everything they need to go out and do this.

Would You amaze us with answers to prayer that we can talk about for years to come because we prayed right here today? We are believing You for such great things. We can’t wait to see what You’re going to do. We love You. We honor You. You’re going to get so much glory from this time together. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.