I wrote this post several years ago now but it still seems worth sharing from time to time. I think particularly at this point in time, where there seems to be something of a crisis in getting people to go into pastoral ministry or keeping anyone there who has taken the plunge. The question often hanging over this is: how do we keep people in pastoral ministry? Why are people burning out and what can we do about it?
Without fail, one of the answers that always pops up is mentoring. We just need more mentors. We need more older pastors and former pastors to take younger pastors under their wing. Then all the young pastors will gain from their experience and all of them will stay in the game over the long haul.
It isn’t the case that this answer has no merit. There is clearly value in older pastors helping younger pastors and letting them learn from their experience. I am just not convinced that the answer lies in making this a mentor/mentee relationship. Nor do I think it uniquely needs to be done by older more experienced hands (good and helpful as that can be). I just think what we need is more friends. Friends who can support us as friends who have a bit of understanding about what we’re doing.
The post below goes into a bit more detail about that and explains precisely what I do and don’t mean here. But I just wonder if we’re too quick to formalise things when we might be better served not doing that.