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-IPC is a tool to help us understand our mentee (and ourselves)
Identity is WHO WE ARE
Purpose is WHAT WE DO
Community is HOW WE BLESS AND ARE BLESSED BY OTHERS
I want to paint a mental picture for you on the canvas of your mind: Imagine our IDENTITY in Christ being a firm foundation. The bedrock that Jesus talks about when he mentions the wise builder who built their house on rock instead of sand.
We should always consider our identity as being firmly rooted like the foundation of the Golden Gate Bridge that runs over 100 feet deep down into bedrock to sustain the wind, ocean currents, and incredible weight of its load.
Our IDENTITY in Christ is forever. Our foundation should be unwavering. It is the perfect support for the actions of our PURPOSE. So, if identity is the foundation, purpose is the dwelling built upon it! It is the construction of our life’s walls and roof. If we have a high sense of identity but no practice of our purpose, what good does it do anyone? A slab is not a house!
In the Bible, James tells us that forgetting our PURPOSE is like walking away from a mirror and forgetting what our face looks like. We must be DOERS of the word. James 1:22-25
So, our purpose is the house built on the foundation of our lives. Our community is who dwells inside! Your purpose is meant to be fleshed out with the people who make up your community. It is building a house and inviting people inside it!
Who makes up your community? Are they people who reinforce your identity and purpose or do they distract you from living out who you are in Christ?
COMMUNITY is powerful. It’s why we encourage our mentees to surround themselves with healthy and positive people who will be an encouragement. It’s why we invite them to church and why we meet with them every week to chat and pray together.
Christians are not called to exit general culture for the sake of their own holiness. If that were true, no one would hear the Gospel because there would be no one to preach it! However, our mentees should be mindful about who they let into their close “community” as they will be impacted by them. As people, we rub off on each other!
Encourage your mentee to be a light in the darkness but also remain in community with those who love Jesus and have a true sense of who they are and why they’re here!
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Please follow @youcanmentor on social media and give us a 5 star rating! If you are a part of a mentoring organization, we'd love to get to know you! Please reach out to us!
Contact us at zach@youcanmentor.com or at www.youcanmentor.com
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Please follow @youcanmentor on social media and give us a 5 star rating! If you are a part of a mentoring organization, we'd love to get to know you! Please reach out to us!
Contact us at zach@youcanmentor.com or at www.youcanmentor.com
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring organizations through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples. Learnmore@youcanmentor.com or follow us on social media. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hello. You can mentor listener. This is John b with your mentoring minute. Well, here we are episode 4 of our IPC series, and this time, we're going to talk about community. If you will remember, the IPC is a tool that we use to help us understand our mentee and also ourselves.
Speaker 2:Identity, simply put, is who we are. Purpose is what we do, and community is how we bless and are blessed by others. And that is the IPC. If you will remember, we are using the model of King David and his relationship with Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth. In one chapter of scripture, we see David having a very clear understanding of his own IPC.
Speaker 2:And when that is established, we see him being able to speak into the life of Mephibosheth. We see him invest in his best friend's son by instating that IPC, identifying Mephibosheth for who he is, speaking into his purpose for by giving him land that is rightfully his, and finally, giving him community by inviting him to his table each and every day to eat with his family. And so with that, I want to paint a mental picture for you on the canvas of your mind, if you would allow me to. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that our identity in Christ is being a firm foundation. This is nothing new.
Speaker 2:Right? We consider the bedrock that Jesus talks about when he mentions the wise builder who built their house on rock instead of sand. We should always consider our identity as being firmly rooted like the foundation of the Golden Gate Bridge that runs over 100 feet deep down into bedrock to sustain the wind, the ocean currents, and the incredible weight of its load. I don't know if you guys have ever seen that particular bridge, but it is truly a marvel if you've ever been up to San Francisco. But you must know that that thing is an engineering masterpiece, and that its foundation goes deep, deep down into the bedrock because it is such a violent situation there above sea level.
Speaker 2:So our identity in Christ is forever. Our foundation should be unwavering. It is the perfect support for the actions of our purpose. So if identity is the foundation, purpose is the dwelling built upon it. It is the construction of our life's walls and roof.
Speaker 2:If we have a high sense of identity, but no practice to our purpose, what good does it do anyone? Remember this. A slab is not a house. Right? A highly developed identity with a total lack of purpose does not fare well when it comes to ministry.
Speaker 2:In the Bible, James tells us that forgetting our purpose is like walking away from a mirror and forgetting what our face even looks like. We must be doers of the word. Right? That is James chapter 1 verses 22 through 25. Read through that if you get a chance to this week.
Speaker 2:So our purpose is the house built on the foundation of our lives. So then our community, that is who dwells inside. Your purpose is meant to be fleshed out with the people who make up your community. It is building a house and inviting people inside it. So who makes up your community?
Speaker 2:Are they people who reinforce your identity and purpose, or do they distract you from living out who you are in Christ? Listener, we all know this. Community is powerful. It's why we encourage our mentees to surround themselves with healthy and positive people who will be an encouragement. It's why we invite them to church, and it's why we meet with them every week to chat and pray together.
Speaker 2:So in my years of youth ministry, I don't know if you ever remember this in youth group, but we would do an activity where we would have 2 students jump up on stage, and we would have a student get up on a chair and a student standing on the floor, and they would the student on the chair would try to pull the student on the floor up just as the student on the floor would try to pull the student on the chair down. And, invariably, you'd always have the kid come off the chair and as opposed to being able to pull the kid up onto the chair. And that kinda gave us that visual to say, hey. It's always easier to pull someone down than it is to lift someone up. And so we always wanna be surrounded by people who lift us up as opposed to tearing us down.
Speaker 2:So Christians are not called to exit general culture for the sake of their own holiness. Right? If that were true, no one would hear the gospel because there would be no one to preach it. However, our mentees should be mindful about who they let their close community as they will be impacted by them as people we rub off on each other. So encourage your mentee this week to be a light in the darkness, but also remain in community with those who love Jesus and have a true sense of who they are and why they are here.
Speaker 2:And that is our mentoring minute. I thank you so much for listening to our IPC series. These last 4 IPC episodes, I hope that it has been helpful again, not only to remember a way to consider our mentees. Do they have a strong sense of who they are in Christ? Are they living out their purpose and are they mindful of their community, but also mentor.
Speaker 2:Remember, this is something for us as well, that we are mindful of these things and that we are lifting, these things up to the Lord, that hopefully our purpose in our community is reflecting who we are in Christ. We thank you for listening and wanna remind you that you can mentor.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning into the You Can Mentor podcast. Please share this with other mentors and download our free resources on our website. You can also order Zach's book, You Can Mentor, or John's book, Mephibsheth, on Amazon. Lastly, we'd really appreciate it if you gave us a 5 star rating on whatever listening platform you are tuning in on. If you'd like to connect with us further, please contact us through our website because we're always looking for new guests or connections.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And remember, you can mentor.