A Mentoring Relationship

In the course I am teaching for Rockbridge Seminary, one of the requirements is develop a relationship with a mentor. I was surprised at how we could build community online when I took the faculty orientation course. Having been through two courses here, I see the same thing happening. I feel like I know Sean and Tyler well even though our face-to-face meetings have probably been less than our online interaction.

One of the opportunities Rockbridge students have to include even more of the "human element" in their experience is to utilize well the requirement to have a mentor as part of their course. The mentor should be in full-time ministry or retired from full-time ministry and should be available to have at least some form of weekly contact (in person, by phone and/or by email). The mentor may be in the student's church, a ministry leader in another congregation nearby, or in another city. If your mentor is indeed in your church or local area, then you can have the face-to-face interaction that can be encouraging to you. Others will have to even a distance relationship with their mentors.

Randy Bennett, our lead teacher this term, gives this advice to those of us who are teaching individual courses: "I've started alerting my students early on that scheduling an appointment with their mentor at the close of the course has been one of the biggest challenges the students face. In this day and age of world wide mission trips, many of the students find that their mentors are half way across the globe just when they need their final report. I encourage them to take a close look at the final four weeks of the course when most of the challenging assignments are due and adjust their calendars as necessary."

That is something to take into account. Will the mentor (for Rockbridge students) be available at the end in such a way for them to get and submit their final report?

I haven't got it figured out exactly how to do this, but I think it would be helpful for our Preachers Meeting participants. Our monthly meetings do add a practical and human element, but to have a mentor, such as your pastor be able to interact with you about your course on a weekly basis (or at least a couple of times a month) would be helpful.

Tyler, Sean, and Ben, What do you think?