My first mentor was a kindergarten teacher. Having cut my spiritual and natural teeth on preaching, I hardly expected to be schooled by someone who taught me the art of de-escalating chaos in a room of 4-year-olds.
This relationship imparted the core of my mentorship DNA. The lesson? If you can successfully coach a room of 4-year-olds, then you have the tools you need to lead an international ministry.
Twenty-one years later and I recognize that my success in raising disciples is not because I’m a great mentor. Rather, it’s because I mastered being a disciple! I enjoyed going deeper with this subject in this episode of Next Gen Prophets on the Charisma Podcast Network, and I know it will inspire you.
For now though, let me cut to the chase and give you the bottom line of what it will take to pick the right prophetic mentor to propel you to prophetic office and then to master discipleship.
Pick a Mentor Who Matches Your Potential
Admiring someone’s anointing or ability to preach does not qualify them to mentor. The first step is recognizing what potential you have as a prophet. From there, ask yourself, “Can this mentor grow my existing potential?”
I have seen many make the mistake of hoping that a mentor will add a potential to them that they didn’t have before. Save yourself and your mentor the heartache! Be coached by someone who matches the potential God has given to you!
Be Self-Aware
As you rock the role of disciple, you will soon qualify to mentor others. When this happens, you will want to take the wealth you gained from your discipleship relationship with you. So, while you are in a season of discipleship, be aware of what you feel and struggle with.
Don’t be so quick to skip through the process. Rather, take stock of the struggles and victories you experience. A time will come when you will be the mentor and the good ones remember what it was like to be a disciple!
Be a Good Student
Be exemplary! These two words are probably tattooed on my team members’ minds by now. If we are going to do something for Jesus, then let’s do it well! As a disciple what can you do to prophesy better, minister deeper and serve longer?
This will require a lot more than receiving impartations all the time. Rather, it will require self-study. Has your mentor written a book? Read it! Has your mentor taught a course? Study it! Study and show yourself approved. This qualifies you for promotion.
Be a Good Minister
I will let you in on a secret. As an apostle, my passion is to see God’s people experience Him personally! When someone comes along who shares my heart to give all they have for Jesus … I want to work with that person!
As a mentor, what would be the point of giving your all for someone, only for them to never pay it forward? Don’t stop at study! Stand up and do the stuff that you see your mentor do.
What You Sow, You Will Reap
Finally, what you sow into your role as a disciple is what you will reap as a mentor down the road. The price you pay today is the treasure you will reap tomorrow.
Let’s go deeper with the great commission. Let’s become—and then also make—disciples in every nation! God’s people are waiting for you to qualify.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
For more, listen to Next Gen Prophets on the Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}
Colette Toach is originally from South Africa, and with ministry divisions in South Africa, Mexico, Switzerland and California, Apostle Toach is foremost a wife and spiritual mother. She established a prophetic training school that has been in place since 1999. Apostle Colette and her husband, Apostle Craig Toach, work with their fivefold ministry team to raise up leaders across the globe.
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