Courtney Tarter is a friend and previous staff member of CBMW. This blogpost originally appeared at In View of God's Mercy. Ms. Tarter concludes with this post, her three-part series including Part I and Part II.
We have now talked about the reasons why we mentor and who we mentor, and now I will conclude this brief series with how we mentor. In reality, there is no "special formula" for us to follow. There are, however, areas that older women are to instruct the younger women. And while we are exhorted to teach in these areas, we are not told step by step how we are to go about doing so.
Older women are to teach younger women how to live godly lives. Titus 2:3-5 and Proverbs 31 are our God-ordained guidelines for biblical womanhood. Teaching a younger woman how to "love her husband" will look very different if you are a mother teaching your daughter that her response to her father now reflects how she will respond to her husband later. Or, if you are an older married woman teaching a newly married woman how to respond biblically to her husband when she feels her tendency toward Eve rising up in her.
First, teaching and mentorship is an intentional activity. Discipleship does not happen by passively living life. Rather it happens when older women move out of their comfort zones and discerningly teach and lead younger women towards Christ. As single women we too have a responsibility to teach biblical womanhood because we are born women- we do not become women. If we are not intentionally cultivating womanhood in our own life, and then pouring it into the lives of others, we will by default become like the world around us.
Secondly, discipleship is about community. Only within a redeemed community can we see life-on-life relationships that seek to sanctify and sharpen one another. As Christians we are called out of a community of darkness and into a community of light-and that light is Christ. Discipleship happens when we realize that it is not simply a new program or system put in place to make "friends." Rather we are redeemed sinners living for the King, who will return to make all things new. This is the basis for our relationship. If our discipleship is not serving and building up the local church, then we have missed the mark in some way.
It is important to ask ourselves if our relationships are moving us toward biblical womanhood or away from it. If they are moving us away from it, then we are not mentoring in the way that God has designed. In your efforts to disciple do not feel discouraged if your activities seem less than ideal. What is most important is that you are obeying God's command and desiring to see women grow in Christ. As we grow as the disciplers and the discipled many practical issues will fall into place. Know, dear Christian, that your efforts are not in vain.
As I conclude this short series here are some practical starters for discipleship:
I can recommend these helpful books for further study:
Let Me Be a Woman
Biblical Womanhood in the Home
The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood
Girl Talk
Feminine Appeal
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Male & Female He Created Them: A Study on Gender, Sexuality, & Marriage can be purchased online at Christian Book, Christian Focus, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.
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