Our book has arrived!

Deep Mentoring: Guiding Others on Their Leadership Journey (InterVarsity Press, 2012) arrived in the mail last week. We wrote this book with the simple desire to help others come alongside others as a guide and friend, investing in their spiritual formation. For those familiar with the different VP3 processes many of the invitations in the book will be familiar, although expressed in new and different ways. For those unfamiliar with VP3, Deep Mentoring provides a great introduction to what we care about and how we go about responding to these challenges of following Jesus in today’s world. Eugene Peterson’s “Foreword” to the book has been a highlight for both Randy and me. Peterson concludes his foreword with these words,

The language of telling people what to think and what to do dominates most leadership paradigms in the church, with very little, if any, mentoring attention given to the actual details of being a Christian in the home and workplace. There are, however, serious efforts being made up and down the line to “re-dig the wells the Philistines have filled” and to recover a leadership of companionship and a spirituality of relationship. They are making a difference. Deep Mentoring ranks among the very best of what is being done–a skillful, imaginatively written and strategically placed blessing for all of us who care about the actual nuts-and-bolts living of the Christian life in these times.

“Recover a leadership of companionship and a spirituality of relationship.” It has been a gift to hear how Peterson and other endorsers of the book understand and appreciate the book.  Their words have been both clarifying and challenging to us. Let me conclude this entry with five guiding convictions of the work of Christian leadership formation. They introduce and conclude Deep Mentoring:

1. Shape the person and you stand a much greater chance of shaping everything else.
2. Discipleship and Christian leadership development are inextricably linked and together make for a slow and deep work.
3. Igniting a grassroots way toward renewal is possible.
4. A Christian approach to leadership formation requires a ministry of paying attention.
5. Conditions can be cultivated in order for local communities to become significant places of learning and growth. (pp. 25-26; 222)

You can purchase Deep Mentoring on our website now. Buy a copy for yourself and/or for a friend who cares deeply about cultivating communities where men and women are consistently invited and mentored into a life of apprenticeship with Jesus.

Tagged as Christian leadership, church change, discipleship, Spiritual Formation, vantagepoint3