I am a big believer in mentoring. I believe that every church leader should be mentoring at least one person, but preferably more. Maybe the reason I believe in it so much is that when I was in my pre-teen years, a couple of church leaders took me under their wings and mentored me.
First, it was my youth pastor, who was also the drummer of the church. I was a part of a small Korean church at the time. I had moved to the United States just a few years back. I was still learning English and still felt out of place in the English-speaking youth group. My youth pastor started spending time with me one-on-one, teaching me how to play the drums. It was very exciting for me. Unfortunately, it didn't last long because he left the church, for reasons I did not know.
Then, there was our choir director. He started taking time with me after school, to teach me how to play the guitar. Not only that, he started teaching me worship songs. He helped me start to come out of my shell and start singing out loud, which I hated to do.
In high school, I picked up the bass guitar and ended up joining a worship band in my senior year. We got invited to many different churches and events to lead worship. I didn't tell many people at my church (a large, mainly Caucasian church) about my bass playing, but word got around and my youth pastor found out about it. One Sunday morning, he saw me and said, "Hey Wisdom, I just heard that you play the bass! Go in the youth center and play with the team this morning. They're rehearsing and we have a bass guitar waiting for you on stage!"
That was my first Sunday, of many Sundays, as a part of the youth worship team. From there, I became the first student worship leader for the youth service and eventually ended up being in charge of the whole team...(and later became the youth pastor). I also started leading worship for the adult services on a regular basis. I never imagined I would lead 1,000 adults in worship as a young student. It was the grace of God and my youth pastor believing that God can use teenagers.
In my adult life, I've been in different leadership roles. I've been a youth pastor as well as a worship pastor. In whatever role God entrusted me in, I always believed that one of my main jobs is to mentor others, young and old. Mentoring is not just about age; you don't have to just mentor those younger than you. I've mentored individuals on the worship team twice my age, but spiritually still young.
Worship leaders, if you're not regularly spending time training up and mentoring others, I encourage you to pray and ask God to bring individuals to mind that He wants you to mentor. Don't start mentoring someone just because you need someone to fill in when you're on vacation. Mentor someone because you want to help that person discover and grow in their gifts so they can better serve the Body of Christ. You never know...you could be mentoring the next Lincoln Brewster or Christine D'Clario!
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Wisdom Moon is the Song Marketing Manager at Integrity Music, and has been leading worship for over 16 years.