How Do Mentoring and Discipling Differ?
Often used interchangeably, especially in a religious context, mentoring and discipling indeed share a lot of similarities. For example, the basis of both is a long-term relationship between a typically older and more experienced person who strives to help a younger and less experienced one grow and succeed at something. Both require time and effort to develop mutual trust and create a safe sharing environment. The two activities, however, differ fundamentally in purpose, scope, and approach.
Mentoring generally occurs when one person serves as a role model to another who would like to emulate their life, including their behavior and habits. It relates to a specific career field and its corresponding skills, particularly business acumen and leadership. Mentors serve as guides who share their knowledge and experience with the primary objective to help the mentees grow in that field. Mentoring is widely popular in business, law, medicine, and religion. In religion, it entails providing advice on coping with challenging situations or life in general.
Discipling, on the other hand, takes place in a strictly religious context. It involves training someone regarding their faith in Christ. The purpose of discipling is not to help a person improve on something they already do, but to find or alter their life’s purpose, and to live in a Christ-like manner. Its ultimate goal is multiplication, that is, one disciples to help others and make disciples of their own, who then create more disciples, and so on.
In terms of scope, mentoring is more one-dimensional, as it concentrates on only one aspect of a mentee’s life: improving the required skills to advance in a specific career field. Meanwhile, discipling is multidimensional, as it strives to encompass all aspects of a disciple’s life: personal, professional, and religious.
As for the approach, in mentoring, the mentee is the one who sets both the destination and the agenda. The conversations revolve around their questions, issues, and struggles. In that respect, the mentor plays a more passive role. They act as listeners and assistants.
Mentors hear out what their mentees need to share with them or are struggling with and may provide them with suggestions, but will rarely tell them exactly how to react or what to do. Mentors assist their mentees with insights into how to overcome specific problems. They may provide them with books or other resources, but the focus remains on assistance. Also, mentoring is more personal. Each mentee’s needs and challenges will vary, and so will each mentoring session. Thus, mentoring requires a more specific approach to address them.
With discipling, the disciples plays a more active role, which results from the activity’s nature and goals. The destination and agenda are clear and agreed upon by both sides. Disciples give people explicit instructions on how to live in a Christ-like manner and how to make disciples. They also equip them with the necessary tools to do so.
Disciples actively and purposefully observe the needs of their disciples and create a plan to help them grow. Often disciples may not be aware of their needs, so it is their disciple’s responsibility to direct them in developing a vision. Disciples may also sometimes take on a more passive role and only listen and assist, not allowing it to dominate the process, but discipling is generally broader. Once a disciples develops their discipling method, they can continuously reapply it.
