Infuse the Kingdom
At Faithful Friends we want Christ to be at the center of the relationships created in our program. But when we say that, we need to explain more what we intend that to look like, because that can mean different things to different people.
When we say this, we are very clear with our mentors in our training and ongoing oversight that these relationships are not an appropriate place to be proselytizing. Many families we serve do not share a Christian faith background and we want to respect them in that. But that doesn’t mean that our faith doesn’t come into what we do.
Mentor and local pastor Scott Edinger is a great example of how we want to bring our faith into our relationships with our mentees. “Jesus says ‘You're going to be my witness. You're gonna be my presence in those places.’ Because he's in us, right?” Scott says.
“I want to try to infuse the Kingdom of God into his life…
As a follower of Jesus, I carry the presence of Jesus with me…”
“And so for me, I guess I just don't have a big push to try to preach the gospel to Lucas. But instead I want to try to infuse the kingdom of God into his life; bring him peace, joy, presence, belonging, justice. Get some of these things into his life, and they will preach a much better gospel to him. And so at that point, it's about just being with more than trying to accomplish something. I try to lead with relationship first. My focus is on this being a ministry of presence. As a follower of Jesus, I carry the presence of Jesus with me. And as I meet with Lucas, whether he knows or follows Jesus himself in the future, he's getting an opportunity to interact with Jesus as best as I can make that happen.”
Read previous “Mentor Spotlight” posts featuring Scott: “The Presence of Christ” and “Mentor Spotlight: Scott Edinger“
Learn more about our church partnerships here.
See what Scott’s mentee’s mom says about the impact his mentorship is making here.
