I say the church wanted to, but as is often the case, only half the church wanted to: the other half didn’t and the rest of the village who got wind of it also had their own opinions! Eventually the architect introduced us to a consultant before any ideas were put to paper, who could help us better understand where we were at as a church. His job was to perform a ‘spiritual audit’.
He investigated all manner of things from what our official mission and priorities were, to grievances and unspoken assumptions, and generally assessed where we really were as a church as opposed to how everyone thought things were going. He used many means such as forums, interviews, surveys, workshops and several other creative ways to communicate and explore the results with us. We came out with a greater understanding of the strengths, problems and opportunities before us internally and externally, and clear mission statements that everyone agreed on. All this then informed how and what we might need to consider changing about the building for the future.
Individually, we are all a bit like this church, with conflicting interests raging within us, sometimes with outdated principles or practices and often in dire need of a good ‘renovation’! Can you take any inspiration from this story for your own work and relationships? Have you ever tried a ‘spiritual audit’ – taking stock of where you are spiritually, like a spiritual spring-clean?
As a mentor, you are like that consultant for your young people. You can help them on an ongoing basis to do this but sometimes it is helpful to actually lead them through a spiritual self-appraisal. Youth workers are often asked to complete a yearly selfappraisal. Maybe you could adapt one you have done yourself to make it a helpful document that you can then talk through with your mentee. Explain the whole process to them first and give them plenty of time to go away and (prayerfully) answer the questions. Give them a deadline to email it back completed so you can (prayerfully) look at it before discussing it with them. Some questions you could include are here, but it is worth adapting these for your context.
Do this again in a year to compare and chart progress, changing attitudes and spiritual health. This can be very useful in a crisis or in encouraging them in how far they have come.
Have fun creating one for your mentee. Throw in some amusing questions to make it less intense. It doesn’t want to be so heavy and wordy that they resent doing it, but don’t make it too vague or they won’t know what is expected of them. The outcomes of this could actually focus your mentoring for the next few months.
Joel Toombs has spent more than ten years in youth work and has an MA in Christian mentoring. See here for his booklet, Mentoring and young people.
