By virtue of my “advancing years” (ahem) and because I’m seen as a leader at our church (primarily because my husband is an elder there), I’ve sometimes been labelled a “mentor.”

As I slipped into my 40s, younger women began to ask me to mentor them. I readily agreed. I wanted to help and guide them.

Then reality struck. I had no idea how to be a mentor.

Didn’t mentoring involve saying “wise” things that the mentee would quote one day during her testimony at church? You know, the “I was walking through a difficult season when my mentor, Susan, said something that changed my life forever…*dramatic pause…” Yes, I wanted to be that kind of model mentor with remarkably impactful advice. But could someone give me those life-altering words on alphabetised cue cards, please?

Didn’t mentoring involve pulling out the appropriate verse at the right time so the mentee’s eyes would light up with new understanding? Perhaps. But perimenopausal brain fog didn’t always afford me the luxury of quoting verses accurately.

Didn’t mentoring require that I first have my life squared away before I could invest in someone else’s? Umm. Sounds perfectly doable—for someone else!

Essentially, I realised I was a regular, bumbling, work-in-progress Christian. If I had to dole out sage spiritual sound bytes at regular intervals or live without mistakes, I would have a giant F on my mentor report card.

But as I stepped into the role with doubts and fears, I began to unlearn a few things.

Being a mentor didn’t always involve quoting Scripture.

It didn’t require that I give perfectly packaged advice.

It didn’t mean that every loose end in my life had to be neatly tied with a bow.

And that’s when I came across the term, “Friendtor”—a friend who also mentors. In the Christian context, to me, that meant being a friend who pointed to Jesus.

Being a friendtor—that was something I could do. Not on my own, of course. But with the Spirit’s enabling, because being a friendtor was perhaps more involved than being a plain ol’ mentor.

Friendtorship requires a level of realness and vulnerability that mentorship does not mandate. When my friendtee and I chat over coffee, there is no hierarchy. She is a peer who may be walking through a difficult journey, just as I have in other seasons.

So, how is this different from any other friendship or from a purely mentoring relationship?

While the distinctions are not very pronounced, they are still present.

Here are five things I’ve observed along this friendtorship journey:

A friendtor listens more than speaks: Unlike a mentor who listens with the intent of giving advice, a friendtor simply listens because she is a friend first. Yet unlike a friend who listens while also sharing her heart, a friendtor listens primarily to create a safe space. Can she share her own stories? Yes—but only when it serves the friendtee well.

A friendtor speaks truth in love: While the friendtor primarily listens, she also speaks. Not merely to fill up silences. Not simply to provide blanket “You go, girl!” encouragement. Not because she has pearls of wisdom to bequeath. But because she knows that iron sharpens iron (Prov 27:17). A friendtor doesn’t cheer you on when you’re walking toward the edge of a cliff. Instead, she speaks the truth from Scripture, even when it is unpopular, unwelcome, or may put the friendship at risk.

A friendtor is willing to be corrected: This is a tough one. As the lines between friend and mentor are blurred, it requires a soft spirit that doesn’t always have to be right. Friendtorship demands humility.

A friendtor rejects the saviour syndrome: As a friendtor, my intention is never that the friendtee becomes dependent on me. Instead, my goal—and my prayer—is that she grows in her love for and dependence on the Lord. The friendtor must repeatedly acknowledge to herself: she doesn’t need me, she needs Jesus. She is not creating a mini-me. She is helping shape the life of a disciple of Christ.

A friendtor doesn’t pretend to have all the answers: What a relief! A friendtor is not meant to be larger-than-life. She is meant to love her friendtee enough to listen, to share her own stories with discernment, to speak truth even when it’s risky, and to be willing to be corrected. But her ultimate job description is to point to Jesus—not just with her words, but with her very life.

Jesus was the perfect example of a Friendtor. In John 15:15, Jesus calls his disciples “friends.” He laughed with the Twelve, ate with them, swapped stories with them, wept in their presence, and was deeply vulnerable before them. And yet, at the same time, in the context of His intimate friendship with the twelve, Jesus mentored them by showing them He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. May we point to Jesus as the Ultimate Mentor and Friend who has all the answers and is the Answer Himself.

 

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This post first appeared on Indiaanya — a website by Indian women authors to which I’ve contributed for more than a decade. The article was included in Tim Challies’ March 5th A La Carte.