Mentoring Seminary Students: 5 Lessons Learned After 2 Decades

Would you ask a newly married couple on their honeymoon for marriage advice? Probably not with a straight face. But that’s what it felt like when a small group of seminary students asked me to be their internship mentor during my second year of full-time teaching. With my feet barely past the starting line of my now two-decade run as a seminary professor, I started taking on interns. Though I had personally been on the receiving end of profound and life-changing mentoring from high school through seminary, I found transitioning from mentee to mentor to be more challenging than that of going from doctoral student to professor. Ill-equipped and unsure, I was hesitant to impart wisdom I didn’t think I had to students who were literally just a few years younger than I. This wasn’t a case of imposter syndrome. No. I was an imposter. Young fool that I was, I took on that handful of interns anyway. At least I let that first batch of students know I didn’t know what I was doing. We would have to learn together. And we did. The following are some of the crucial things that the Lord has taught me about mentoring students who are trying to sort out their vocations. 1. Weigh one-on-one vs. sma...