Mentoring Means Encouraging and Praying

Dannah Gresh: Nancy Lindgren speaks from experience when she encourages mentors to pray with those they’re mentoring.

Nancy Lindgren: Often it’s 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! That’s my goal in mentoring. I just want them to know God more.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, for August 1, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Yesterday and today on this program, we’re focusing on what some refer to as “the Titus 2 mandate”—the idea that God expects older women to teach younger women about a bunch of things listed there in that passage. 

Now, I don’t know if you feel old or not, and I don’t know if you feel particularly good at teaching or not. But you are older than some people you know, and you have learned some things that you can pass on.

We’ll hear from Nancy Lindgren in just a moment, but here’s our own Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, to help set the scene a little more.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Older people, let me say to you that you’re supposed to be a model. You’re supposed to be an example. Your character, your lifestyle should be worthy of respect. You should have a life that others can point to and say, “That’s what I want to be like when I’m your age,” a life that’s worthy of emulation, a life that’s worthy of following. Because you follow Christ, you should be a model.

But here’s something else—you should also be a mentor—not just a model, but also a mentor. You need to be drawing on your life experience to provide encouragement and exhortation and challenge to those who are younger.

Now you say, “I’ve blown so much of my life. I’ve made so many wrong choices. I’ve failed in so many respects.” I’m sure the older you get the bigger catalog of failures you have that Satan can throw up in your face and say, “There’s nothing you could offer.”

Teach out of your failures. Teach out of what God has shown you where you did blow it, where you didn’t trust Him, what you learned through that, where God found you, about the addictions that you had, about the ways that you failed. Teach out of your life, and help those who are coming behind you to be guarded and protected in their steps. My life is so much richer today as I’m getting older because of older people who have poured into my life and have modeled for me and mentored me in the ways of God.

I want to challenge you older people to be willing to take initiative and reach out to younger people in the community of faith. One of the things I hear about older people, about older women in the church, I hear it said, “They just don’t want to mentor.” Then, of course, I hear some of the older people saying the younger people just don’t want to be mentored.

You know what? Whether you’re younger or older, take the initiative. Reach out. If you’re older, find a younger woman. You don’t have to be a PhD in theology. You don’t have to have been to seminary. You don’t have to be a great Bible teacher. Just open your life and open the Word of God, and come alongside some of these younger women and be willing to share out of your life.

Then just a brief word to those who are younger. Job 12:12 says, "Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days." You can be young and wise. But there are some aspects of wisdom and understanding that you only get with life experience. Remember that.

Then remember that God cares about how we treat older believers. They are to be treated with honor and respect. Leviticus 19:32 says, "You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord." The way you treat older people is an evidence of the way you treat the Lord.

That doesn't mean that they will never do wrong. But the apostle Paul taught pastors Timothy and Titus that if they are wrong, those older people, when you appeal to them, you are to humbly and respectfully make your appeal. It's not that you can't challenge the lifestyles the older person is making. But Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 5 not to "rebuke an older man but to encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, [older men as fathers,] younger women as sisters in all purity" 9v. 1).

Then younger women—and we are all younger than somebody, and we are all older than somebody—be teachable, be humble. Value the life experience of the older women around you. Solicit their input. Receive instruction and correction with humility. Ask questions. Listen.

Again, I have learned so much by finding older people. I went and sat down years ago with my pastor friend, Ray Ortlund and his wife Anne (Ray is now in heaven), and asked them for counsel. I asked them for input. I'm so glad I did because in a matter of months Ray was in heaven, and I didn't have another chance. 

They poured into my life over that lunch. There were some tears. There was some wisdom shared. I'm still living on much of the rejuvenation and the encouragement and the grace that I got from that older couple as we sat over lunch together.

Ask questions, listen, learn. Learn from their lives. Learn from observation. Learn by listening to what they have to say.

If you want to be the kind of older woman who brings glory to God, then learn from the lives of older women who have already walked there before you.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth looking at Titus chapter 2, about older women teaching the younger women. As she put it, we should be not just models, but mentors.

Mentoring is a passion of our guest today, another Nancy—Nancy Lindgren. Stay tuned, because I’ll tell you after she speaks how you can register for an online training event on mentoring that Nancy Lindgren will be cohosting tonight.

Yesterday on Revive Our Hearts she helped dispel fears we might have when it comes to mentoring. And then she challenged us to display what she called “the four pillars of mentoring.” The first two, she said, are loving and listening. Here’s Nancy Lindgren, with pillars three and four. 

Nancy: And then, 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, who 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 outloud, 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 outloud 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 cannot 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 I come to Him and I pray. 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 p's, 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. 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 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 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.

Dannah: And what followed in that breakout session from True Woman '22, was that Nancy Lindgren led the women in a time of prayer, asking God who He wanted them to reach out to. Maybe you can do that sometime today, too.

Don’t you love that connection Nancy made between mentoring and prayer and revival? I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. 

Well, the book is Mentoring Made Real: The Power of Authentic Connection. It’s by our guest speaker today, Nancy Lindgren. You can order a copy when you click on a link that you’ll find in the transcript of today’s Revive Our Hearts episode, at ReviveOurHearts.com, or through the Revive Our Hearts app.

I mentioned earlier that Nancy Lindgren will be joining Leslie Bennett and me to host a special, online training event tonight. Our own Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will be there, too, with a greeting and a challenge. This is for any woman who’s interested in mentoring other women. We’re calling it Mentor Me, because that’s what women all over the world are saying. “Mentor me, please!”

So, even if you can’t watch it live tonight, if you go ahead and sign up, you’ll be able to access the recording anytime over the next seven months. 

On top of that, when you register for the Mentor Me training event, you’ll receive these exclusive premiums:

• A digital notebook filled with mentoring tools and bonus resources
• Free Adorned digital small group study guide, useful for group or one-on-one study
• A $15 discount to be used on a purchase in the Revive Our Hearts online store

Remember, even if you’re not able to participate tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. (EDT), it’s no problem! You can go ahead and register now and then stream the training session at your convenience.

To sign up for Mentor Me, just head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Well, have you ever wondered how the book of Revelation ended up in the Bible? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will talk about that tomorrow.

Nancy: God gave it to Christ to give to His angel to give to John to give to us. It’s an eyewitness account. John saw these things. He heard these things. I think that’s part of what makes it so compelling to us today.

Dannah: Please join us, as Nancy embarks on a series looking at the messages—the letters— to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, starting tomorrow, on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you mentor others toward greater freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.