I got this book while attending a course on the teacher as a mentor for my Church’s Sunday School. The speaker there made a good point that kids nowadays can get any information they want from the internet; what they really need is to have someone they trust who can guide them. In this way, a teacher has to be a mentor as well. This was one of the books on mentoring that was recommended.

Spiritual Mentoring goes through the basics of what is mentoring and the elements that it consists of. When appropriate, the book talks about Augustine, Aelred of Rievaulx, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa or Avila, and Madame Jeanne Guyon and their contributions to the understanding of Christian mentoring. However, if you’re looking for a biography of the aforementioned Christians, you would be mistaken – they are only referenced when appropriate.

The book defines spiritual mentoring as the relationship between the mentor and the mentoree that helps to advance the mentoree’s faith in Christ. For this to happen, there needs to be trust, intimacy, accountability, and empowerment. What struck me most deeply was the section on “imperfections commonly found in beginners”, found from The Dark Night by John of the Cross. The first on the list was spiritual pride. As the book writes:

“These beginners feel so fervent and diligent in their spiritual exercises and undertakings that a certain kind of secret pride is generated in them which begets a complacency with themselves and their accomplishments, despite the fact that holy works do of their very nature cause humility.” 

As someone who really enjoys theology and debate, this is something that I have to be extremely cautious about. It’s very easy to have pride at knowing more than others that it overtakes the purpose of studying the Bible. The other points made were very prescient as well, and it made me want to read The Dark Night.

This was a great book. It’s packed full of information and each section ends with points for both mentors and mentorees to consider. I found it way more helpful than any of the Intentional Disciple Making Church materials by Benny Ho, and would recommend this book over those.