Online mentoring happens when:
The anonymity of the Internet often allows people to feel comfortable saying what they may never share face-to-face. Though mentors won’t meet the person on the other side of the screen, online mentoring is incredibly personal — the level of honesty and openness often conveyed is amazing and humbling.
Online mentoring is a God-given opportunity to evangelize to and disciple people who may never enter a church, or who live in areas of the world closed to the gospel.
As an online mentor, you are able to invest in the lives and experiences of others through vulnerable sharing from your own experiences. It also allows you to minister at a spiritual depth much more quickly — possibly unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
Many mentors describe how their experience online increases their confidence in sharing Jesus’ love and forgiveness with people in their everyday lives.
As mentors intentionally seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit and search the Scriptures in how to reply to mentees, they are often deeply impacted themselves and grow even closer to Jesus.
We believe that each person has inside them a craving for purpose, for destiny, for meaning, for love. Our goal is to let all those who write to us know that only Jesus can completely fulfill those desires. Through empathetic, non-judgmental, compassionate, and prayerful listening and conversation, we show Christ’s love to people from all walks of life, in all situations. And when we sense they’re ready, we encourage them to take a step further on their spiritual journey. This could mean introducing them to Christian concepts and beliefs, explaining how to commit their life to Christ, describing how to live the Spirit-filled life, and encouraging them to share their own story of how Jesus has transformed them. For believers who want even more, we can share how they can train others to do the same.
If you sincerely desire to encourage others and guide them in taking the next steps in their spiritual walk, you can become a mentor. Mentoring is not counselling, nor is it intended to replace professional help. As a mentor, your role is to empathize, provide people with helpful resources, and guide them in their spiritual journey. If you’re a caring person who is in a committed and growing relationship with God, you can become a mentor!
Don’t worry if you’re not the most tech-savvy person in the world: if you can send and receive an email, you have the technical skills to be a mentor. We just ask that you check your messages regularly and that you reply to any mentees as soon as possible, but definitely within 3 days.
Before you get started, we ask all who are interested in becoming an online mentor to:
If you are interested in learning more about our ministry, or wish to subscribe to our Daily Devotionals, go to https://p2cdigital.com/subscribe.
Most mentors respond to one new mentee per week in addition to continuing ongoing conversations. A typical time commitment is about one hour per week. However, if you are interested in answering more mentees, we welcome your involvement! You can respond to as many new mentees as you want. We just ask that you check your messages regularly, and that you reply to any mentees as soon as possible but definitely within 3 days. If you are unavailable during a certain time, we have a tool in our system where you can adjust your availability.
Before answering any messages, all mentors are required to complete a series of online training modules in order to prepare them for their role as online mentors. These modules go through topics such as sharing Jesus, talking about relationships, and walking with a Christian. Once you have completed the training, you will be assigned to a mentor coach who will guide you as you begin mentoring. From time to time, we may ask you to complete additional training or review the existing training modules.
Your mentor coach will be available to answer any questions you may have or to guide you through any difficult conversations. Additionally, we have a Help Page (?) which offers answers to FAQs, Mentor Help as well as a great list of online Resources on a variety of subjects for you to read and pass along to your mentees who may be struggling with certain issues.
We receive messages from a broad spectrum of people, who are at different stages in their spiritual journeys. Many of them will not be Christians and may not even be aware that they have a spiritual need, but are searching for hope, or for answers to life issues they’re facing. Mentors have the opportunity to try to build rapport and, as the Holy Spirit opens doors, to share about Jesus. Our mentoring software allows for you to choose from a large number of topics that match your interests and to which you are comfortable responding with empathy. These range from relationship issues to pornography to self-esteem to finances. You can choose as many or as few interests as you wish.
Most mentoring relationships are short-term. Be assured that God will use you to plant seeds of love and truth in the mentee’s life and that God will continue to nourish those seeds to become fruitful.
Before you start mentoring, you choose the topics that match your interests and to which you are comfortable responding with empathy. If for some reason you still receive a message you’re uncomfortable responding to, you can send it back to the support staff who will reassign it to another mentor.
No! Though one-on-one typed conversations in our secure software are our primary form of mentoring, we also have mentors who respond to comments on articles on our various websites. We don’t use voice or video to connect with mentees.
Absolutely not. We have developed a safe and secure software to handle all correspondence between our mentors and mentees, where no personal information is disclosed to either party. Mentors must agree not to give out any personal information in their messages, and keep all correspondence within our system.
To see how we handle the private information you give us in your application form, please see our privacy policy.
Power to Change does have liability insurance. However, you can be held responsible if you give advice, just as you could on your own social media site or blog. For example, if you, as a crisis mentor, encouraged someone to commit suicide, you would be held liable if this person followed through. This is why we tell all of our mentors that we do not give advice. Instead of giving advice, we encourage you to describe your own background or what you’ve observed in others, and offer suggestions on various ways in which to deal with situations based on these experiences — but always with the qualification that it is your mentee’s decision as to whether he or she wants to try any of these suggestions.
If you would like to talk to a mentor, go to https://thelife.com/about/get-a-mentor.