The following guest article is written by my good friend and coworker, Pastor Zhao, who currently serves in East Asia. I continue to really appreciate his ability to understand the difference between Western and Eastern cultures and what we can learn from each other. Please enjoy!
A mentor and mentee are a distinct type of relationship. Good mentoring is a deeply personal and relational practice that occurs in a particular cultural context with the mindset of growth. Therefore, it is very natural and important for mentors to be attentive and sensitive to culture, relationships, and growth.
Eastern culture has a strong flavor of hierarchical relationships, it often emphasizes respect for elders, authority figures, and societal hierarchies. This respect manifests in various ways even in the Christian church and can be a significant shift for egalitarian Westerners.
Furthermore, the Western narrative of independence, creativity, and self-actualization often differs with Eastern values emphasizing interdependence, conformity, and community-actualization. This difference requires special attention in biblical mentorship.
Therefore, we can see, when Westerners talk about mentorship, they are based on equal relationships, but sometimes they emphasize psychology and self-fulfillment too much, and do not pay enough attention on the transfer of experience and the professional training and growth of mentee; Easterners tend to emphasize the importance of master-leads-apprentice relationship, which can have a command -submission suppression. However, in terms of vocational training, it often makes the transfer of experience very efficient.
Thus, there is an important question for mentorship of which the concept and theory actually originated in Western culture. The question is: A key to mentoring is helping the mentee take ownership of her issues and her solutions. When a mentor tells a mentee what to do, the mentee probably won’t own that solution because the solution did not come from her. How to react to this?
My thoughts are: if we take the spirit of mentor-mentee, but step outside the mentor- mentee framework, and look at it from a biblical perspective of discipleship: the mentor should not be short-sighted and just help the disciples with the problems of that moment, but in the long run, help them build a relationship with God, as well as guide them to understand the law/gospel to face their problems; in this way, the mentor should not always tell the mentee what to do , just as Jesus took three years to lead the disciples, and Paul gave letter after letter to Timothy; however, since the disciples also have sinful natures, they need to be taught, rebuked, and corrected, and sometimes they need you not just stand by and watch, but to tell them about their problems and what they need to do, just as sometimes Jesus was very direct with the 12 disciples and Paul was very direct with Timothy. As mentors, we need to give specific guidance with the law and the gospel, as well as experience with reflection to help the mentee grow, rather than just solving a problem. Pray for God’s wisdom in how to weigh these issues.
In conclusion, for successful mentoring, we do well to draw from the best of both cultural perspectives. In each case, the mentor and mentee find opportunity and danger. The comfort is that God’s Word is a lamp for our feet and a light on our path, and He is our Great Shepherd. May we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.