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Here at Ishun Christian Church Anglican, we are firmly committed to our lives being transformed to become more like Christ. Join Reverend Daniel as he speaks on the importance of deep formational relationships and the power of mentoring.

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Good morning, church. This morning reading is taken from 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 1 to 2. 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 1 to 2. Do not rebuke an old man, but encourage him as you would be a father, younger man as brother, older woman as mother, younger sister in all purity. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you.

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Church, this morning we are on the sixth installment of our thematic series on discipleship. So we have come a long way from the beginning of the year to now. So today's uh topic is focused on life in investment. It's all about relationships, right? And uh Christianity is all about relationships. Uh we are not coming to Christ through a program per se, but we are coming to Christ because someone led us to a program and pointed us to Jesus. And those who uh do uh research on churches that grow and uh study how the lost come to church and it still comes down to the fundamentals, which is someone bringing someone to Christ, right? You cannot get more basic than that. Therefore, relationships are key in the whole process of even talking about reaching out to the lost, talking about our growth in Christ. So we need one another. We need one another in this journey of discipleship. So I in 2023, which is yeah the year before last year, I I introduced uh the discipleship transformation framework. Sounds a very big, big word, sentence, the discipleship transformation framework. I'm not sure how many of us remember it or even know what it is about, but it's actually in your bulletin every week. Right? So it is the means. I I felt that it's a means that God is able to use. He can use various means, but I find that this is uh a very real way in which God shapes our lives. It's not the only way, but it's one way, and often the way that God challenges us to grow. Uh the means in which God leads us to grow towards spiritual maturity. So, how do we go? How do we grow towards spiritual maturity is when we uh apply the means of transformation. So I like to ask this question at the start of my sharing. Can we recall what are the means God uses to transform us towards spiritual maturity? You know, do we recall what are the means, what are the three areas which God uses often in our lives to transform us? If you don't know, if you all are on our WhatsApp uh channel, chat uh is actually there, right? Uh so there, so it is when we apply God's truth. The truth of God applied to our life challenges and circumstances in our inevitable experience of personal brokenness, when God's truth is applied to our life circumstances, and a lot of times because of us in some way living in a world that is volatile, unpredictable, that sometimes we do experience personal brokenness one way or another. A family crisis, a job, uh loss, uh struggle with sin. So this is the personal brokenness that we go through in life. So when we apply God's truth as we experience personal brokenness in the support with the support of deep relationships or deep formational relationships with one another, that we grow in discipleship and spiritual maturity. So the means God uses to transform us are His are His Word, His truth. But His truth is not uh applied in a vacuum. But oftentimes, as we know, those of us who have were in the church can be heard it again, that God is able to use even our personal brokenness, our struggles to shape us. And often he does that in the context of deep formational relationships. That we need someone to walk with us through our personal brokenness as we attempt to apply God's truth to our lives. For example, knowing the truth that God desires us to trust him is most fully applied when we go through times of personal brokenness, as I mentioned earlier, a work challenge or family crisis. When we experience a loss, can we trust God that He can bring good out of the situation? This is where God's truth that we hear about is put to the test. Yet God's truth is not applied in a vacuum but in the context of a connected community. Through deep formational relationships, we can walk through the crisis that we go through stronger and grow in our faith and application of God's truth. God's word never comes more alive when James says when we face trials of various kinds. And God is able to use such circumstances to mow our perseverance and our faith. And often God's word comes most alive in those contexts. So for those of us who are going through a personal challenge, I invite you to hold on to God's truth and find someone within our community who is able to pray with you, to walk with you through your crisis. So for deep formational relationships to happen, some form of mentoring, some form of relating to one another needs to happen in our community. And I believe uh it's happening all the time, right? When we fellowship at IZone before service starts, you know, we are interacting, we are catching up on with one another, and and some kind of discipleship or formation is happening during those times. As I had shared previously in a Family Sunday sermon on the 2nd of February this year, uh, referring to Stanley and Clinton's book, Connecting, the mentoring relationships you need to succeed in life. Uh, mentoring often starts with someone with a need or an issue. This someone meets someone further along in experience who have something to contribute to that need or issue. A relationship is then established. The more experienced person shares what he or she has been through or learned, meeting the needs or addressing the issue of the person seeking help. With the acceptance of what was shared, the person who was in need or had an issue is empowered and strengthened. So there is a transference taking place, there is a lifting up, there's an empowerment taking place. And this is what uh Stanley and Clinton calls the heart of mentoring, when there's an empowering, empowering taking place, where we are mutually strengthened because of one another. There's a transference of strength within the community of God. And you will hear this uh very often and uh probably next year again, but I think we have to always repeat it so that it will it kind of get into our mind. So uh I like to look at mentoring as a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God's given resources. Could we have uh the next slide? Alright, thanks. Thanks, Ricky. So mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources. So I know a lot of us are intimidated by the word mentoring. We say, I can't mentor or no, I don't have anything to give. But uh all of us can be mentors because God has placed, as I said before, something in our hands, whether it's a life experience we have gone through, whether it's certain domain expertise in some areas, and it can take place even organically as we ask God to open our eyes to someone with a need in which you can come in to empower with God-given resources, which oftentimes is something God has already given you. You have gone through, some of us have um raised children, and we are in in the days where we are enjoying the fruit of having grandchildren. So there are there are quite a number of young couples in our midst with young children. Perhaps there's something along your journey of parenting that has been useful, and you can actually share that. Uh there's with a younger parent, you know, or you know, how do I handle uh night feeds? What are some ways to uh practical things that I can do? So when you share such knowledge, you're actually, according to Stanley and Clinton, mentoring someone. You're sharing some resources, you lift up the person, you empower the person, feels, yes, I'm being helped because what you share is helpful to me. Right? So, and yeah, so mentoring happens that way. So in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 1 to 2, Paul writes to Timothy, the passage that Hannah read for us, the two short verses, on how one should conduct himself or herself in God's household. Particularly how one should relate to someone older or younger and to the different gender. So it's very useful advice, right? Paul says, you know, in a family of God, in an intergenerational uh context where we have young, old, you know, very old, very young, you know, male, female, how do we relate to one another? So uh he said, he's uh Paul says in 1 Timothy 5, verse 1, do not rebuke an older man. Meaning don't scold him, give him some faith, respect him, right? Do not rebuke him in front of others and cause him to lose faith. Yeah. So especially in Asia where it's a very shame culture, we are very conscious of shame. Right? So it's not don't rebuke an older man. Sound advice. But encourage him as you would a father, right? So to encourage means to come alongside someone and to walk and advise the person. Younger men as brothers, right? So the older man should treat the younger men as brothers, older women, women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. So very sound practical advice, right? So if you are wondering how do you relate to someone older or younger than you, or someone with a different gender, yeah, just go back to 1 Timothy 5, verse 1 to 2. So, like how we need to relate to one another appropriately in the family of God with purity and propriety. Uh in mentoring, there's what we call a constellation, which the word constellation originally refers to a group of stars in the sky forming a recognizable recognizable pattern, what we call a constellation of stars. Right? But here the word constellation refers to a group of related areas needed for us to grow holistically. So Stanley and Clinton calls this the constellation model of mentoring relationships. So I'm just showing us a slightly modified version uh of this. So basically, a believer, all of us need all kinds of mentoring, a constellation of mentoring relationships, right? Upward, downward, and sideways. Peer or co-mentoring, right? So if mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources, we empower or receive empowerment in three primary, three primary ways. So whether it's upward, we receive from someone, we give to someone in downward, and we also uh receive and walk with someone side by side. So there's an empowering process. You empower someone, there's also a process of being empowered by someone through upward mentoring. And there, and you are flanked left and right uh through peers that journey and walk with you. Right? So this is the ideal, in the ideal state, this is a perfect model. And I believe all of us, even though we are not too explicit to write this down, but I believe at some point or other we can identify at least one area that we have received some kind of mentoring, uh, whether it's peer, upward, or downward. I just want to spend a bit of time just unpacking this in these three areas: upward mentoring, peer or co-mentoring, and downward mentoring. In upward mentoring, I I look I'm looking at it in a spatial sense. We're talking about spiritual and physical. In the spiritual realm, when we talk about receiving empowerment, I'm just widening this idea to uh not only include uh physical persons but our relationship with God. Because one way that we receive empowerment as a believer is through our daily communion with God. And this is so essential. Yesterday we had a worship ministry retreat, and the speaker reminded all of us is almost a rallying call for us to understand that to lead in worship, whether you are a worship leader or you are a musician, you have to be a worshiper. You have to worship God, you have to fear him, you have to have a reverence for God's holiness. Otherwise, it's a contradiction in terms. Don't you agree? You know, if we are picking up an instrument or we are singing, but we don't fear God, there's no reverence for him, there's no honoring of him, then who are we worshiping? Right? So similarly, when we talk about uh mentoring, uh, in terms of the upward mentoring, the receiving of empowerment, it has to come from God because God is the source of our life. So we need to daily relate to God as through his spirit, we need to daily come before him. I'd like to share testimony of a kind of uh change that happened in the recent church camp. Uh I sense a change uh of movement in terms of my spiritual life. So I used to, like a good Anglican, uh, spend a lot of time chunking scriptures, meaning that I tried uh, which is a good thing when God calls you to do that, uh obediently following the lectionary readings. So we have Old Testament reading, uh, New Testament reading. So I I for a season it's good. It's life giving, you read scripture, and that's that's what I've been doing. As I go for my morning walks, I just read the scripture before me, uh, and and and so on. So, but after that, I come to office and start work, and you know the engine starts to run, and I realized that after reading scripture, I had no time to assimilate that word in my life. It's like overdose of scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, large chunks and portions, which is good for those of us who perhaps are semi-retired or have more time, right? We can linger. So I felt the Lord saying, focus on a verse or focus on just one verse and spend time uh in my presence, in silence, in contemplation, in stillness and quiet prayer, and listen to my voice more. So I felt I needed, instead of to chunk scriptures, I need to slow down. And the verse that um was highly impactful to me, and I believe I shared it at the church camp, it's actually the memory verse that uh we are having for this month. Matthew 11, 29. Jesus said, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So the verb take and learn in the Greek they are imperatives, meaning that it's a command, take my yoke, learn from me. Right? So it's there's no two ways about it. You know, if we want to live God's way, we want to grow in the spiritual life, we need to learn from Jesus. We need to understand so-called the yoke of Rabbi Jesus, the lifestyle of Jesus. So it's one of the few parts in the gospels where Jesus calls a personal invitation to all come to me, all you who are uh weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because Jesus says, I am gentle and lowly in heart, nothing pretentious about me. This is who Jesus is, and you will find rest for your souls. So I've been doing this every day for the past uh since we came back from camp. I've been focusing on this verse. Every day I just meditate on this verse, ruminate, allow the scripture, and then still my heart. And sometimes I find God leading me to read further portions up in Matthew 11. Sometimes I find He's focusing me on certain words. So I I allow this scripture to dwell, and maybe one day he will point me to another scripture. But for now, I find it's life-giving because I I'm pausing more to hear God speak. I believe for all of us it's different. We have a different season in our life. For some of us who are new believers or you know, we have a desire to kind of really uh absorb, you can read books of books after books of the Bible. I think by all means this is a season in life. But it's a hazard for pastors and preachers because sometimes when we open the Bible, you know, it's preparing sermon or sharing. You know, and sometimes we have in one week, uh we got to prepare, sometimes I got I haven't ever tried up to three sharings, you know, sermon, devotion here, devotion there, you know. So one week you have so my mind is always working what to share, what to share, what to share. So this scripture, that's scripture, that scripture. So sometimes it is uh a hazard that it becomes work. So I've learned to pause for my season. I learned to drink deep in the fountain of God by focusing uh on Matthew 11 29. And perhaps God may drop a scripture in your heart this morning and Just ask the Lord to lead you. Perhaps that could be your quiet time. Lead you to still your hearts to pray. And the irony of it, I find, in the life, in our life in Singapore, is uh the phrase that got into my mind is we got to struggle to rest. Especially those of us who are out in the working world with a full force of commitments and demands. It's almost a struggling to rest. We need to struggle and contend so that we can reach the place of rest in God. Right? So, yeah, so this is uh my own journey, and and I believe for us, we need to be empowered by God daily. You cannot just live on Sunday, uh so-called sermons or wait for the cell group to meet to receive empowerment. But daily, we need to be empowered by God, and that is most important. So there's also uh in a special uh spatial sense, there's also the physical sense of receiving someone, someone whom you look up to, someone whom you can uh focus on to learn insights and perspective uh with his or her lived experience, right? And I think this is quite straightforward, you know. Uh the classical example of mentoring someone who is over you in some way to lead you and guide you. So I had many uh quite a number of uh people whom I look up to. Uh I shared in one of the sermons uh during my growing up days um um there was a certain identification with a pastor because of his relational strengths, and I look up to him and I caught the value of being relationally connected. So up to this day, this value has stayed with me. Even though we had no formal mentoring, I think I don't think anyone has taken me and said, I'm going to mentor you. Other than, as I try to recall, intentional, probably only uh Vincent Hoon, Pastor Vincent, if you remember, uh he has retired now. But I remember when I was in the army, he took me and said, Come, let's have Bible study every Saturday morning. So I remember I used to go to his office, we'll go through First Timothy, he'll read the scripture and we'll pray together. Right? So that was in the old office uh before the renovation. So that was a formal mentoring. Other than that, I don't have much experience. There were there were times where I journeyed with some youth pastors who were mentoring me, but regrettably it kind of didn't end very well because we all got too busy and suddenly just lost contact and didn't follow up with that. So, how about us? How about you? In the spiritual sense, do you receive God's empowerment daily? Do you daily commune with God? And I think this is so essential for our life. You know, we need God, we need Him in our lives. In the physical sense, do you currently have someone whom you look up to who is able to lead and guide you? Some have, some don't have, it's okay, it's not that. At least we have God, right? Amen. We have God, I think He's more than enough for us. But at some point in time, you know, we may have someone who is committed to walk with us. And it's a blessing. Okay, so secondly, in terms of peer or co-mentoring, so these are people along our side, our peers, those probably within our generation or maybe a generation younger, but people whom you relate to as peers. So most often this will happen organically. It happens organically at IZone because once we leave the century, we we poop, we go out, everyone will be sitting with people they are comfortable with. Right? Uh no need to say we assign this seat to this uh Connect group or that group. You know, we don't have to do assignment. Everyone knows where to go to, where to sit, who to talk to, who to naturally relate to. Right? So this is most natural, right? Uh our those uh flanking us, our peers, co-mentoring. So we may be in the same group, we our friends, because of a life stage, we all are retirees or semi-retired, so we all have time. So we we we start to relate more, or similar hobbies and interests gather together. Uh or you are serving together in the same ministry team or a same connect group. Right? So good friends can be a great source of mutual encouragement and a safe place to be vulnerable. How many of us have friends today? Can I have a show of hands? How many of us have friends, someone that we can talk to and confine? I think thank God for that, because no man is an island, no woman is an island, even though whether you are introvert or not, we still need friends around us. So I'd like to encourage us to consider. I heard that this is not a new idea. Uh spiritual friendship groups that can take root in YCCA. If I'm not wrong, this has taken place before, right? What we call the three-to-one mentoring. So this this idea of three-to-one mentoring is flagged by uh Su In in his small book 3 to 1, Following Jesus in Trees, uh, in 2013. He published a small book like this. Uh yeah, so it's uh very very easy reading, basically uh handles to help you to walk together. So three to one meaning three people meeting two hours once a month. Three people meeting two hours once a month. Over a meal could be over coffee or tea. To practice meaningful conversations, you know, um just talk for two hours and to pray for one another. Right? So the the three parts of it, having a meal, which is natural, start to talk. And again, most of most of the time, if there are friends that you can relate and identify with, naturally you will talk. You don't have to, oh, now it's time for talking. You don't have to say that, right? You will naturally talk to people, right? And and yeah, what is more unnatural would be the prayer part, right? Yeah, which I think sometimes we shy, uh pray in public, okay or not, will people look at us? But we can still pray with our eyes open, pray as the Lord leads us. It need not be, you need not just get out of your seat and bow down. You know, uh so it need not be so overtly uh uh spiritual in such a way that you know that we have to do certain actions, but we can just pray with our eyes open, pray for the person as the he or she shares, close the time with prayer. So three people meeting together for a meal, have conversations and to pray for one another, eating together, sharing life through conversations and praying together. So I believe this is an area which is probably the easiest, the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak, when we think about mentoring. It's always easier to connect with people we can relate to. So I want to encourage us that to just start to be more intentional. I know all of us have our own uh people, especially in our connect groups that we can relate to, or even outside connect groups, people you are used to relate to after service. Why don't we gather together? Uh it's helpful to be uh more gender-specific groups in this case because then you're able to share uh deeper issues gender related, but not always the case. Yeah. So um so I hope that we can go deeper in this peer mentoring, and next year we'll look at how we can kind of uh together as a church have have this rolled out as something that we can intentionally engage in more and more. We'll make resources available to you, uh, we'll make uh resources like this, uh small booklet by Su In available to you, and other conversational resources to you, so that we can consider how we can really journey together as peers. And the group has to commit to meet once a month, which is doable in even in the context of Singapore, but it's a commitment that we have to take. So I believe it helped is helpful. Friends walking with friends, journeying together. So we'll share more about that as we go along. And lastly, the area of downward mentoring. This is the question of who can we help? Who can we offer help to? Right? So it can range from a more spiritually focused, such as helping someone in first steps in discipleship, right? We have people who have just accepted Jesus and you have been a Christian for 40 years, and you say, uh, is God calling me to help that person grow in Christ? Can you uh handle some basic follow-up resources? Sure, I think you can, right? Over the years, you know, you have accumulated much knowledge. So must it always be the pastor doing it? Uh not necessary, right? Uh you've been walking with Jesus, you are a connect group leader, you're senior ministry leader. You can help someone grow in Christ through the first steps of discipleship. So that would be more downward because you are helping, you are imparting skills, knowledge, and so on. Or it could be something more practical, helping singles, young parents, or seniors to find a footing in the church, you know, befriending them, uh, helping them to uh adjust through the changes because it's it's all changes we go through the seasons of life as we age, uh singlehood, young parents, those are very crucial periods of our lives. Um, so we need someone to journey with us. So starting next year, we also will launch a more intentional discipleship uh process uh using uh discipleship essentials by Greg Odin. So uh it is an intensive program, a 25-week program, but it's not it's more than a program at the end of the day because the focus is for two groups of people. One, you have just become a Christian and and you want to grow, you have there's a hunger within you to know more, absorb more. So I invite you to join us. Uh or you have been Christian many years and you desire a fresh commitment to discipleship. So this is the second group of people. So you have to opt in to want to do this. So next year we will again roll out a process where we are able to engage in that. So the idea is to keep to a small group of maybe three to six people, so gender-specific. So the whole focus of it is uh to encourage truth interaction, um, transparent relationship sharing, and some form of accountability, right? That we want to be accountable to with one another in our growth together. Right? So it is not something perhaps for all of us, but for us to discern the season God is calling us. Some of us really need a refresh on discipleship. Some of us have a strong desire to grow in that area. So do consider that possibility. Lastly, I'd like to share with us to map out a process in terms of how do we actually get into the mentoring process. But some of us have a heart to mentor and we wonder how to do it. I'd like to suggest to us that the first step is discernment. The first step is discernment because it's all about, in some sense, chemistry. You know, whether we uh the person is comfortable with us, whether we can we are comfortable with the person, the person can relate to us, and so on. So look around, start talking to people and pray. I'm sure God will lead you to someone whom you can relate to. And the principle of this is in discernment is this we can only effectively mentor someone whose hearts God has given to you. And this is very important in the discernment process. Is there someone whom God has given his or her heart to you? How do we know that? Uh, because when we interact with the person, you sense a sense of commonness, uh interest. You can engage with the person, there's a sense of uh strengthening, you feel edified. Uh, you feel it's not just a one-way talking, uh one-way street where you are just asking uh questions and uh the person just answers in one-word answers. So this is like what happened in uh first Samuel. Uh just want to share a scripture with us. 1 Samuel chapter 18. 1 Samuel chapter 18, verse 1, talking about David and Jonathan, it says, as soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Right? Of course, this is talking about the friendship between Jonathan and David, but there's something about uh like-mindedness that God is able to draw hearts one to another, right? So is there someone? The key question to ask in this discernment process as we begin to say, is this for me, is to ask that, is there someone whom God has given his or her heart to you? And this often happens organically. You can't uh formally kind of enforce this, you know, that that's why a lot of times all the matching fails in church when we force fit people to be in certain groups, to be in certain mentoring context, because chemistry has to happen. God must give the person to us. There must be certain openness to share, right? And um, I think this is important. Then we go to the first check-in, and when through a process of discernment, praying through uh meeting up with the person over a few times perhaps, and you find that uh there is a connection you have with the person, uh, and the person uh often texts you beyond the meeting, uh shares with you the prayer request, you can see that the connection is growing. Then you ask them, the first check-in, will you give me the privilege of journeying with you? Right? So you have to ask the question, you cannot assume uh it will happen, right? So you pop the question, would you give me the privilege of journeying with you? Right? And following that, then we perhaps can identify the mentoring issue. You know, what is the what you what are you helping the person journey in? Or what are you receiving help in? So we need to be specific when we enter into this. What exactly do you need help in? Or what exactly are you helping someone in? If you are looking for someone to mentor you upward, what kind of mentor are you looking for? In what area? Is it for someone to help you grow in Christ? Or is it some skill or knowledge you wish to learn from the person? So we need to start to articulate that and be specific about what's the issue or what is the help that we need. If we are mentoring someone downward, then the question is what is the person's need in this current season? As you pray and discern and talk to the person, sometimes God, the Holy Spirit will surface needs. Sometimes the person will tell you, uh, I'm going through this uh crisis or I'm struggling to uh to maybe handle my finances, I'm struggling in my marital relationship. Uh can you help me? So the person articulates that, then you know this is the area, right? So it's very intentional. It has to be. It cannot be every day you gather just casually drink coffee, you know. There must be some intentionality if the mentoring relationship will take root. Then, of course, set up uh frequency, duration of meetings, be intentional about that. Then the next step will be the most natural part, the empowerment process. What is the area in which you are empowering someone or transferring strength to? That flows from the first check-in, right? So you there's a process of empowering, strengthening. And the second check-in would be a time of evaluation. And the recommendation is for a yearly evaluation. When can I set a date before the next year for a time of evaluation? Shall this continue next year? Because the person may not need help beyond that. Maybe it's a seasonal crisis the person goes through and says, Yeah, I need help in this season. Would you pray with me? Then set up a mentoring relationship. And after a year, then yeah, it's time to move on. Or perhaps uh it's not so intense. So this is uh I'm just mapping out a process that will help us to consider that we all can take steps, little steps, to move towards that. Through a process of discernment, check-ins, and a process of empowerment, we can help one another. So I'd like to ask uh in closing as we look at the once again at the constellation model of mentoring relationships. So all of us need empowerment, whether it's from God or and for someone else. Right? So that empowering has to come. We all need to receive empowering from someone upward, right? And we all can receive it from God and from someone else. But it does not stop that. To walk with us. And He also desires us to help others, downward mentoring. And this is a process that I pray that we will commit to start somewhere. Right? And I I pray that we will begin uh with uh discernment, you know, uh a discernment process where we start to ask God, you know, is there someone whom He's calling us to talk to and to relate to? It's crucial as we look at even for Jesus Himself in his high priestly prayer in John 17, 9, he says, I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the whole world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. So when Jesus prayed, he prayed with a focus. He didn't just pray for a pie in the sky or in a very general sense, but he prayed, Lord, those whom you have given me, they are yours. So we need to pray and ask the Lord is there someone whom is looking at us and waiting for us to make that connection? Um is there someone whom God has given his or her heart to you? How is he then leading you to take the next steps? We see that again in Jesus' pattern of ministry. He was intentional, he was focused, wasn't haphazard. In Luke 6, 12 to 16, it tells that it says that Jesus prayed the whole night before choosing the twelve disciples. So he needed to discern, even though whatever the outcome is, some all flat, you know, Judas betrayed him. That's besides the point. The fact that he needs to be very sure this is who God is calling me to, such that he prayed the whole night and God, and then the next day he called to him, shaft disciples who would be his inner circle, who walk with him through thick and thin and journey with them as their rabbi, as their teacher. So if Jesus needed to do so, so do we. So I pray that we'll take a first step today to pray that God will send us someone across the constellation model of mentoring disciples, mentoring relationships. He will send someone to us to help us, or he will lead us to help someone else, and that we will together as a church deepen our formational relationships with one another. And as we do that, I think we will grow stronger in the days ahead towards Christ-likeness in spiritual maturity.

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We pray that you've administered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishan Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.