“MIRACLE GROW” FOR MENTORING…
A GRACE ENVIRONMENT
Pillar #8
To my daughter Susan, ambience is everything. Even as a child her favorite way to help was to create a
beautiful table, or to make welcome signs when friends were coming over. To her the atmosphere set
the mood for loving relationships, gave signals in our home that it was okay to be yourself, that you
would be accepted there. She wanted people to feel that they could be at home in our family, that they
belonged there. This desire of Susan’s for a loving environment flowed from of her gifts of mercy and
hospitality. This is still a vital part of Susan’s ministry to people to this day.
She was right! An environment of grace does release a positive reaction in people with powerful
outcomes. In it, people sense the freedom to be transparent and vulnerable. They feel safe to express
themselves, they trust each other and they learn to speak truth to one another. They forgive each other
and often walk out of their darkness into light, revealing and confessing their sins to each other.
Mutual acceptance and forgiveness are agreed upon, as is the freedom to allow for failure and
disagreement. Learning is made fun, and they celebrate each other’s lives with laughter and joy. A
grace atmosphere pours through them to others, fostering creativity and hope, and nurturing the
learning process and growth. It attracts others into the Kingdom. Just to be in such an atmosphere is to
be bathed in healing power and to experience the presence of God. Grace sets the pitch for the music of
the mentoring relationship.
Our past articles on mentoring have dealt with the significance of building biblical principles, and
cultivating healthy relationships to promote healthy mentoring. But along with those, it is essential that
we cultivate a healthy grace environment. All three of these ingredients are vitally important in seeing
mentoring flourish and grow, and are interdependent on each other. To focus only on truth leads to
coldness, business-like formality and lack of warmth in the relationship. To focus just on relationship
leads to sentimentalism, lack of mutual accountability, or not speaking the truth. Truth, love, and grace
are all essential in the mentoring process. But it has been my observation that a healthy environment of
grace is probably the most neglected ingredient in mentoring.
In this pillar of mentoring, we will focus on cultivating such an environment, primarily through the
ambience of our life character. We will be investigating the biblical basis of a grace environment, and
identifying some of the essential elements of this environment.
Biblical Basis for a Grace Environment
1. 2 Corinthians 3: 5-12, 17 - We are now ministers under a new covenant, ministering in a new
way in which grace rather than law prevails, where people can go directly to God for power
and revelation, where the indwelling Holy Spirit teaches us and brings freedom. We are to
partner with Him in what He is doing in people’s lives. We are to be pointing people to Christ,
helping them unpack God’s graces, promises, resources, gifts, and their inheritance in Christ.
Since the Cross and the coming of the Spirit, we are ministering in a new way, under a new
grace covenant, no longer law keepers spreading legalism, but His channels dispensing grace.
2. 2 Peter 3:18; 2 Timothy 2:1 - Grace can flow through us to others. The word “grace” is plural in
both of these verses. It refers to the various graces or divine resources that God has given us in
Christ. We are to be both strong in them and growing in them. Biblically, there is “saving grace”
(Romans 5: 1-6) in salvation and “sustaining graces” (Hebrews 4:14-16), available now to us
living in Christ. We can now go boldly to the Throne of Grace, His resource of help for our
needs. We are to learn how to continually grow in receiving or appropriating God’s divine
resources and our inheritance in Christ. Only then are we able to demonstrate and dispense
God’s grace freely to others.
3. Romans 15: 7, 13 - We are to unconditionally accept people as God does. Christ’s blood has
erased all sin and guilt. We now stand justified, totally accepted and approved by God, in
Christ’s righteousness, because of what He did on the Cross. We now stand as righteous as
Christ is before the Father. We therefore cannot hold a higher standard for people than God
does. If we focus on behavior - what to do and not do - we easily foster behavior that uses
performance to be accepted. This is lethal in a culture where many have been harmed by guilt
and shame already. We need to focus on grace, values, character, worldview and things of the
heart.
4. John 13: 1-17 – We are to minister to people as Christ did to His disciples, as a humble servant.
Jesus was graceful in serving The Twelve with unconditional love, even when He knew Judas
would soon betray Him. Jesus knew that it would take a relational grace environment
for truth to be worked out and become transformational.
Why a Grace Environment
1. Unless people feel safe in a nonjudgmental environment, they will not open their hearts to us,
revealing their real needs and challenges. Why do we often feel so fearful in disclosing and
opening our lives and being completely transparent with some people? Perhaps we have…
…Fear of being judged, criticized, or censored, rather than being affirmed and forgiven.
…Fear of being misunderstood and not being listened to so our heart is not understood.
…Fear of a quick answer to “fix me” without understanding me first.
…Fear of rejection – not being accepted and approved.
…Fear of people’s breaking confidentiality.
…Fear of being emotionally abused and hurt by others
2. The environment of grace allows people to give mutual permission to enter each other’s heart.
Unless there can be mutual transparency, and authenticity, we will hear people’s symptoms
and not get to the root causes. People will not step out of the darkness into the light without a
grace-filled, healing, forgiving community atmosphere. Sin grows in darkness by our hiding it
and not confessing it, and stays in the darkness if we do not confess it to God and to others. But
by bringing sin into the light in a safe, loving community and confessing it, we stop its growth
and find forgiveness and healing.
3. People have often been harmed by guilt or shame in past relationships or in their family of
origin. They need to be healed in an environment of grace, acceptance, and forgiveness.
4. A grace environment will reveal the presence of God in the mentoring experience as the
mentor is alert to God’s showing up, where God is working, and what God is saying. They are
alert and watching for God in the relationship together.
A grace environment produces deep connections to a person’s heart. “This includes an idea of what a
person could do, but it always centers on who that person could become, and on jumping up and down
with delight over the uniqueness that God has stamped into the person’s soul…”
(from Connecting, by Larry Crabb).
A grace environment enables us to discern by the Spirit what God is doing in a person’s life and
releases the energy of Christ in us to affirm and bless them. Where God is at work in them is the
mentality of an effective mentor. It means calling out the champion in a person’s life. When we enter
into another’s life, we enter as a companion, not as a heroic or expert rescuer. It is not the job of a
mentor to change people; only the Spirit can do that.
Our primary task in mentoring is not to fix problems, discover sinful issues, correct weak issues,
uncover past baggage, or deal with negative behavior. We deal with these as they come up in the
relationship, but that is not our continual mentality. We are not junior Holy Spirits for God, revealing
people’s sins and shortcomings. Wise spiritual mentors have a vision of God's flow of grace to us and
through us. They go with that flow. A wise mentor, therefore, will reflect a generosity of spirit, a love
for mercy, and forgiveness.
DNA of a Healthy Grace Environment
To better understand this concept, let’s look first at what an unhealthy, graceless environment looks
like. It is marked by approval, acceptance, and love being earned by performance. Motivation to grow
or change dealt with by guilt, dishonor or shame. Maintaining the external behaviors and rules is
highly valued, enforced and checked up on. This breeds mistrust, unhealthy conflicts, rigidity,
decreased joy in learning and fear of failure. The primary focus is what we must do, and not do (our
part in the Christian life), rather than God’s role, the resources He gives, what He has already done and
is now doing in our lives by His power. This environment leads people to believe that performance is
also the way they earn God’s acceptance, love and approval. It’s a lethal form of legalism that will
produce loss of hope, bondage, and a distorted view of reality, since one cannot meet the standards.
A healthy grace environment has a profoundly different basis for acceptance, approval and motivation.
It is based on God’s acceptance, and His divine resources (graces) He gives us for living. He now is
living in us to motivate us and to give us His power (Philippians 2:13). He accepts us, not because of
what we do, but because of what Christ has already done. God sees us now in Christ and our true
identity and unconditional acceptance is found in belonging to Him. As our relationships mirror these
truths, people feel safe and open with us. It allows people to fail, to “blow it” without judgment. It
gives freedom for people to be themselves and to sense God’s healing together. Mutual confidentiality
is respected and guarded outside the relationship. Sarcasm, gossip, and slander are replaced by
building one another up. Grace environments celebrate success, transitions, and milestones in people’s
lives. They motivate by grace and love not guilt and shame. Grace environments unleash freedom,
creativity, vulnerability, unconditional love, forgiveness, healing, and the feeling of being safe.
Our life, in relationship is the primary channel of God’s s grace to others. Our life sets the tone for grace
that frees people to sing their unique songs and to play the music of their lives. We are not only the
products of our environment; the environment we bring as mentors is a product of our lives. Our
character of life sets the ambience or atmosphere for learning and growing.
Some practical principles of cultivating a grace environment are:

Bring a transformational mentality…to know Christ and to be conformed to His image. The
focus is on revealing the Father to them, and helping them to know Christ intimately. In the
process of knowing and beholding Him, they are changed and transformed into the image of
Christ by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Utilize, rely on, and connect people to God’s resources and power. As the Spirit of God is now
in them, we empower them to connect to His divine resources, His motivation, His power to
live and minister to others.

Make mutual listening a paramount value in the relationship - to understand the heart not just
the words. To be understood is to feel loved, and to understand we must be listened to and
taken seriously. When ministering to people, why do we often jump into answers and talk
rather than listen and allow them to struggle and discover on their own.

Allow authenticity and humility to grow. “Jesus is our example. He possessed a remarkable
force of personality and character and was secure enough that he could be remarkably open.
He showed His emotions and concealed neither His tears nor His anger. He enjoyed people
and allowed them quickly to establish intimacy with Him. He was approachable even
though He was God and man” (from Transforming Leadership by Leighton Ford).
It is in ministering out of authenticity that connection and influence are the greatest. Authenticity involves two major components…open transparency and vulnerability. These two must act
in sync or we will easily come across as a hypocrite and lose our credibility. Transparency is the
heart to reveal my life openly with another the way it really is, with all the cracks. Vulnerability is
the willingness to let other people in our life and to let them help us. There needs to be a commitment to mutual humility in how we perceive final understanding of the Scripture, saying, “I
believe this is what the Bible says,” rather than “This is what the Bible says.” Realizing and
remembering that we are all in process not fully mature and perfect must be modeled by the
mentor. We are not finished products yet, and won’t be until Heaven! We are all limping to
maturity. People are not looking for mentors who are perfect but who are in process, moving
toward maturity in Christ (1Timothy 4:15).

Bring community, not exclusivity, into the mentoring process. Mentoring is much better
accomplished in a triad of people, while still giving personal time to each of person. Grace is
always demonstrated in a healthy community, not just through one person. So a person
flourishes through many mentors, while also experiencing grace through a community of
believers. Both are essential for their healthy learning and growth.

Encourage interactive learning and discovery - discovering things like what lies are binding us
and what God’s will is for our lives. Active learning focuses on worldview, character and
values rather than external behavior.

Focus positively on their gifts and strengths, identifying together and strengthening their
God-given design while spotting what they excel in and helping them develop it. We help
them assess opportunities, matching what He is calling them to do with the best ministry
context.
This is kind of “Miracle Grow” environment that best nourishes mentoring, empowering
people to function, flourish, stay fresh, be free and remain fruitful.
May our lives manifest His grace,
Jim