The one thing that is associated with colleges and universities are fraternities. In these fraternities each person is a brother or a sister each other. This is a sign of relationship to keep the fraternity together to prevent it from breaking up.
In the book of Ephesians, Paul talks about oneness in the church. To keep this oneness in check, we have to do a personal inventory from time to time to prevent dissentions and fractures within. Sometimes, that isn’t enough. This personal inventory may have to be watched over a period of time or long as it takes.
Leaders and mentors in the church have more of a long-term commitment and the personal inventory check is more advantageous. Things of habit, practice, or routine may send the wrong signal to the one that is watching. It’s admirable to say or to know that the boys are picking up good things to live buy. But, it’s never said or discussed the undesirable things that’s picked up or observed.
As a mentor or leader, there isn’t going to be someone there for the mentor or a leader to look up to for guidance of how to live the life of Christ in front of these boys. The guidance comes from being away from these boys for brief moments at a time. In these brief moments seclusion, recreation, constant seeking God’s face, and/or recuperation is valuable to maintain a good example for others to see.
It’s a wonder of how a mentor or a leader knows what to do with these boys at a given moment. The one thing that’s got to remembered is you don’t have to be right all the time or be the perfect leader or mentor to these boys. The important thing is to be with them, to care about them, and to put them first. The next thing is to spend some individual time with them that will develop that fraternal or oneness in Christ that no one else can take away. That’s the reward of the mentor or leader gets when they’re around boys all the time.
There will be times when heads will butt and tough times will come. The one thing to know is it won’t be around very long. The restoration or the getting back together makes the bond between boy and man stronger. It can’t get any better than that.
Mistakes will be made, lines will be drawn, places will be established that are known not for most to enter but the privileged. That’s normal living.
Christ had a fraternity of thirteen disciples for three years. He knew what to do and when to do what He had planned to do with the disciples. Twelve of the thirteen disciples went on doing what Christ had mentored in front of them for three years. As for the thirteenth disciple, he didn’t do what he had been shown by example by Christ. As a result, he didn’t last long enough to see Christ’s crucifixion, which was the basis of a victorious life in Christ.
Mentoring or being a leader in front of boys is a lifestyle not all can do. Like anything else, it’s a privilege and an opportunity that a Christian should follow if that’s what God wants him to do.
Mentoring or leading others is seeing the need to include them in your life because their without someone that can even up the odds to do what Christ wants them to do in their life. And when the mentor or leader does that, he just filled the gap in someone else’s stead that wasn’t there or couldn’t be there all.
So, the outcome of mentoring or leading others is to the person and the church. It keeps the church stable for each other enjoy each other and to have a fellowship (fraternity) going within the church. When that happens, the outside will see this.