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Now draw three concentric circles so it looks like an archery target (with the labels shown in the diagram). Ask your mentee to imagine that they are thrust into a very public leadership role and must suddenly demonstrate all nine of these characteristics. Have them place those nine words in the appropriate ring according to how they feel about the prospect of having to employ these characteristics. If they struggle to get the idea, give them an example of how each quality might occur, eg courage – you are the youth worker and a group of drunk students gatecrash one of your meetings, meaning that you are faced with a potentially dangerous task of getting rid of them before they trash the building or hurt your young people. Is the idea of being courageous in dealing with that scenario reasonably comfortable, quite a stretch, or something which fills you with abject panic and dread?
Continue through the mentee’s words for ‘character’ until you feel you have come across one that is particularly important for this young person and explore this in more depth. (Try to listen to the Holy Spirit and pray about it before the session)
Spend a few minutes talking over their goals and dreams for their next few years. Can they think of three ‘mission statements’: one that is comfortable, one that is a stretch, and one that is so exciting that it scares the life out of them.
USEFUL QUESTIONS
- Why do things you’d love to do scare you?
- Does feeling out of your comfort zone make you want to hide – or to try harder to overcome your fear and intimidation?
- In what ways do your mission statements require you to have ‘character’?
- In what ways do you feel or know that God is with you when you are out of your comfort zone?
- What would help you cope better with being out of your comfort zone?
- What will help you develop character?
- Which three people have character that you admire? What is it about them that you would like to emulate?
- Which Bible character, except Jesus, do you admire and for what?
