Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Connecting by Paul Stanley and J. Robert Clinton







Title:  Connecting:  The Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed in Life by Paul Stanley and J. Robert Clinton

Pages:  
252.

How it was obtained:  
Ordered from Amazon for my missions course.

Time spent on the "to read" shelf:  0.  I had to read it right away to write a report on it.

Days spent reading it:  1 day.  Blitzed through this one.


Why I read it:  I had to read this book for a missions course I am taking.  This book was assigned in regards to the need for people to connect with mentors at different periods in their life.


Brief review:  I have read this book before for another class before, but picked up more from it this time through.  There are two ideas I really liked in this book.


First, Stanley and Clinton talk about a Constellation Model of Mentoring relationships.  It looks something like this:
You have yourself  at the center.  In your life you should always have an Upward Mentor, someone who is further along in life or ministry who is teaching you and handing skills along.  You should have Peer Co-Mentors.  People who are walking beside you and learning with you.  You should have one who is external to your organization and one internal to your organization.  Finally you should have a Downward Mentoree, someone that you are teaching and training and encouraging who is not as far along in life or ministry as you are.  I liked this idea of different levels of mentoring, and thought it was a helpful model for most of us to follow.

Second, I appreciate how Stanley and Clinton propose multiple types of mentoring.  They have intensive mentors:  Discipler, Spiritual Guide, Coach.  They have occasional mentors:  Counselor, Teacher, Sponsor.  And they have passive mentors:  Model (by which they mean a contemporary or historical figure whom we can model our lives after).

This book was not thrilling, but it does have many insights on mentoring, so it accomplishes its task.  It is fairly easy to read and is well organized.  It is worth picking up if you are looking at developing mentor relationships in your life or in the team you work with.

A quote: Mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5.


Final Word:
 Informative.

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