The #iMentor Initiative was started to honor the investment of mentors all over the world, and to encourage potential mentors to take the initiative in starting an intentional relationship with a college student today.

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I mentor because I was mentored.

I was young and just starting seminary. My first seminary professor in my first seminary class walked in slowly carrying a large stack of books and papers. He set them down on his desk, looked across the hundred or so students in the classroom and said, “Beloved, let’s begin.”

“Beloved?” I responded with a bit of sarcasm in my mind. He doesn’t even know me. Am I going to have to sit through King James lectures all semester?

But sit under his lectures I did, and I might have even learned some of the content as well. But the real lesson was always, “Beloved.”

Over the following weeks I learned that this man loved me by virtue of the fact that I was a student sitting in his classroom. That was all. He required nothing more of me than that. He loved me because I was his student. The relationship grew over time and I learned a lot of things. But the wisdom he imparted to me was never greater than the fact of his love for his student.

Now, having completed my first quarter of a century doing ministry with college students and moving into my second, I have the joy of seeing each of them as I was taught to see. They are “beloved” to me. They don’t have to do anything but show up and the Father warms my heart to them in ways that defy explanation. My mentor opened my heart to be loved simply as a student and to give love graciously to other students. My thanks go out to Dr. O. His lesson has served well.

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Mentors are ordinary people who avail themselves to being used by God — in the life of another — in extraordinary ways. Check out the #iMentor page and consider how God might want to intentionally use you in the life of another. I bet you’ve got a story to share! And if you’re looking for a resource to help you in this important work, consider my new book: Shaping Their Future: Mentoring Students Through Their Formative College Years.