How to Start Church Mentoring Programme

The church mentoring programme has to start with a willing believer who volunteers to become a mentor to either believers or pre-believers.  The mentor needs to have the spiritual gifts and talents which are desirable to the mentee.  The mentor need not be a perfect person but must be spiritually matured.  

Mentorship to believers can be formal as through sermons or Bible studies.  Mentoring can also be informal like during small group meetings, youth and senior fellowship meetings.

Mentees can learn and be transformed in their work cultures, attitudes and skills.  They can also gain knowledge on how to self improve. Bible knowledge can be imparted by the mentor or self learnt from books or web.  

All these teachings and transfer of knowledge can occur in the church, workplace, Alpha on line course, Kopitiams, restaurants or even while holidaying or travelling. 

The mentor-mentee programme for pre-believers should be regarded as an introduction of life skills and knowledge.  It allows for the building of trust and the establishment of long term relationships between mentor and mentee thus forming a base for future evangelism.  

Mentor Mentee Programme

Some notes on how to start a Mentor Mentee programme for youths in church.  

The Mentors must be seen to possess personal values which can be passed on to Mentees.  And the Mentees must have a desire to learn from their Mentors.  There must be a match in needs and also personal chemistry to develop a good learning experience. 

The Mentor must be willing to offer his services of teaching.  Perhaps it will be a good idea to provide a CV of the Mentor so that the Mentee will have an idea of the kind of learning experience he or she will gain from the programme.

Some of the other valuable assets of the Mentor are work experience, professional knowledge, corporate or public status, Christian Bible knowledge and leadership qualities.  The Mentor needs to be authentic and honest in his work.

Some points to consider when starting the programme include time and place of meetings, frequency of meetings and their duration.  Postings of 3 months with rotations amongst other Mentors serve best the interests of both Mentors and Mentees.  The engagement can also be in the form of an internship or a career placement. 

   

B Lines in Lung Ultrasound

Lung ultrasound has come in vogue during the COVID pandemic.  LUS is simple to perform and can be readily done at the bedside.  LUS performed well, together with a proper clinical history and physical examination, can help clinicians reach a diagnosis quickly before needing to perform more extensive investigations like HRCT scans of the lungs.

Indentification of B line artifacts in the lungs can mean pulmonary oedema (heart failure), interstitial syndrome (interstitial lung disease), infections (viruses or bacteria) and ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome).

LUS is a useful screening tool at the bedside in ward or emergency room.  The ultrasound machine can also be used to scan other organs of the body (heart, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, etc) at the same sitting providing more useful clinical information.