There’s something stirring in the hearts of women around the world. Hearts are beating with the thrill of changing the world and young women are no longer satisfied with doing motherhood alone.
Mentors are on the march and mentees are once again ready, willing and able to begin a journey that will encourage, challenge and change women’s lives on both side the mentor/mentee equation.
No longer are young mothers wandering their way through life, struggling to figure things out on their own. The older generation is rising to the challenge and answering the call to be Titus 2 women in 2012. The church is awakening to a brand new era of mentor mania and The M.O.M. Initiative couldn’t me more excited!
But many moms hang in the balance. They live their lives beyond the mentor’s reach. Churches gather together offering specialized classes where moms can find the help and hope they long for. Yet 26% of America’s children are being raised by single moms and over 60% of single moms don’t attend church. These precious moms are women who are trying to do all and be all and are in desperate need of a helping hand and a caring heart.
Mentoring doesn’t always happen in a classroom. It’s often the result of an intentional fostering of a relationship developed by spending time together and ministering to a young mom at the her place of need.
Today, it’s time to go beyond the four walls of the church and take mentor mania to the streets. Here is a list of ten ways you can mentor a mom who is either single, unchurched, disengaged or all the above:
1. Go to a home for unwed mothers or a crisis pregnancy center and join the mentoring ministry there. If they don’t have one, offer to start one.
2. Go to the local juvenile shelter and offer to mentor young moms there. Imagine the difference you can make in the life of the young mother and her children by just giving the gift of yourself.
3. Minister to young moms at a woman’s shelter for battered and abused women. What a wonderful way to help them break the cycle of abuse in their family by sharing the love of Jesus as you mentor them on how to be a good mother.
4. Offer to mentor a few moms in your neighborhood. Either individually pick them out or make up flyers and pass them out in your neighborhood. Put a sign in your yard saying you are offering parenting classes for moms.
5. Offer to hold a mentoring ‘class’ at a low income apartment complex. You’ll have to get permission to hold it in their community center or perhaps you can hold it in a resident’s apartment. But you’ll be surprised how many will come… especially if you offer childcare.
6. Mentor prisoners. Over 75% of those in prison come from single parent homes. That’s not an indictment on the mom, it’s an indicator that these overworked and overwhelmed moms need a helping hand. Those who have ended up in prison not only need to know they are loved, they need to know how to love their own children well when they get out so the vicious cycle doesn’t continue.
7. Mentor teen moms. Offer to mentor young moms who are still in school. Help tutor them so they can get their diploma. Take them under your wing and show them the love of Jesus as you help them understand what a mother is and what a mother does from a biblical perspective.
8. Mentor moms at the local homeless shelter. Many moms become homeless because it’s so hard to find a job and come up with the money to pay daycare at the same time. Plug into the local homeless shelter and begin mentoring young moms there.
9. Organize a play day for children while you also offer a mentoring luncheon for young moms in a low income apartment complex or neighborhood community center. Get the names of those who are interested in a mentoring relationship and begin nurturing that relationship as you pour your life into hers.
10. Notice young moms who are struggling and invite them to lunch. Look for ways to strike up a conversation with young moms whom you see are struggling. You see them everywhere. In the local mall, grocery store, convenient store and Walmart. They’re everywhere. Moms silently crying out for help yet too afraid or too proud to ask. Become their friend. Be a living epistle to a young mom who needs to know it’s going to be alright.
There really is a resurgence of women who are rising to the call. They’re actually making mentoring the new black. I absolutely LOVE that! But it’s easy to be a mentor within the four walls of the church. It’s much more difficult and requires that we are much more intentional if we are going to take Titus 2 to the streets and make mentor mania missional.
“These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.” Titus 2:4-5
Are you ready to mentor young moms when it’s inconvenient? Will you enter the world of the unknown and get messy to make a difference? What would you add to this missional mentoring list?
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