By: John Kerr
I remember still, walking in Glasgow and coming across a man working in an open chamber in the sidewalk. I couldn’t help watching as he worked with a cable full of multicoloured wires. I was transfixed as I watched him sort through hundreds of different wires. He was working with a telephone cable long before fibre optics was probably even a thing in the mind of an engineer in a basement laboratory somewhere!
I asked the most obvious question: “How do you know which wire is which?” He was succinct in his reply: “You learn it!” Well, it wasn’t a long conversation but surprisingly my curiosity was satisfied fully a year or so later when I started work for what was called then the G.P.O., which would later morph into the British Telecom. As it turned out, it was simpler than you might have thought.
Learning the job was fairly straightforward in the safe and sterile environment of a training facility, but it was a different story outside with the wind howling, rain and sleet pelting down and the damp cold chilling to the bone, and that was just a summer day! So, at the beginning, I was teamed up with different men to learn the job. Men like Owen and Malcom and Arthur showed me all the ways to do the job (for better or worse) as they each, in their own way took me under their wing. My training took a wonderful turn, in the providence of God, when I was teamed with Robert. He was a Christian man who had a wonderful testimony among the men who worked in the G.P.O.
As a young Christian, I had a lot to learn. It was a new world for me. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but I did go to church twice a year because we were required to at school. Robert was passionate about Christ; Robert lived for and shared Jesus as much as he could. As I worked with him, he would talk about a number of things. He never got after me about smoking. He just said once “Son, should you be doing that?” That’s all it took! Later, as I got to know him, he invited me to his home. After dinner, he excused himself because he had to prepare for the communion service. He was praying for one of the elements. He taught me the significance of the Lord’s supper in my life. Another time he took me on our lunch to the famous Tron Church so that we could spend some time in prayer. And a Christian bookstore was a regular stop too. That was an incredible summer for me in so many ways; the last before I came to Canada.
Why do I tell you this? Because Robert was the closest to a mentor that I have had in my life. God blessed me richly. There was no curriculum. It was as natural as breathing to Robert. A clear reading of the Epistles reveals an underlying emphasis on personal mentorship. The most well-known example is Paul with Timothy, for whom he wrote at least two letters. But there were also several others if you read closely. I think that Paul spent a lot of time with Onesimus before he sent him back with what we now know as the letter to Philemon. In the letter to the Philippians, he speaks much of Epaphroditus. In Colossians he also speaks of Epaphras, two men that Paul knew well, and I would suggest that he invested a lot in their lives. There are several men throughout his epistles that he mentions fondly. Paul invested himself into the lives of men who would do the work of the ministry.
Men mentoring other men is an important but often neglected concept not only in church but in society in general. Much is made today of “toxic masculinity.” Perhaps there would be less if younger men were taught how to behave like men by mature Christian men. “Older men are to be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness…. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.” (Titus 2:6 ESV) A year or so after I encountered the worker in the street in Glasgow, wee Arthur and I worked twelve-hour shifts changing over the main cables that crossed what would become the M8 roadway through Glasgow. These were huge cables, and we had to change each pair of wires one pair at a time while down a manhole which never stayed dry and watching for rats which we could hear! I had some great times with Arthur but sadly Arthur died in a truck accident, and I never had the opportunity to share with him that I had become a Christian. But I will never forget the time I spent with Robert and how natural speaking his faith in Jesus was. “Be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you {1 Pet 3:15 NKJV). To me that was the fruit of his mentoring in my life.
