Abstract
Development and Evaluation of Integrated Mentoring in a Church-Based Seminary Course
by Ditmar Pauck
The purpose of this applied research project was to discover whether complementing a church-based seminary course with a network of mentors would be feasible and whether this would positively affect the learning experience. The literature related to both adult learning and mentoring served as the theoretical framework for the study. Program participants consisted of nine proteges who were exposed to a mentoring network (i.e., upward, downward, and peer mentoring) experiencing, in particular, three different types of mentors (i.e., teacher mentors, ministry mentors, and character mentors). Two coordinators (one of which was the researcher himself) were responsible for the design and operation of the mentoring program. Data from informal interviews, structured questionnaires, direct observations, exams, and focus groups supported the feasibility and effectiveness of mentoring, while corroborating the following findings:
First, a successful mentoring program in a church context will have certain characteristics, such as: (a) consideration of the church's current needs, culture, and mentality, as well as its natural resistance to change, (b) selection of courses that lend themselves for the mentoring approach (e.g., pastoral courses), (c) flexibility in program coordination, facilitating the adaptation of the program to the realities of the context, (d) simplicity of program procedure, including implementation sequence and pace, (e) a healthy equilibrium regarding the introduction of innovative factors so as not to overwhelm the system, (f) proportionality of program scope and timeframe to program purpose and individual developmental goals, and (g) continuity of effective programevaluation (e.g., follow up studies). Second, student development in a mentor-guided church-based seminary context requires: (a) growth inducing learning experiences targeting the three dimensions of knowledge, character, and ministry skill, (b) praxis-oriented in-class experience, integrating basic adult learning principles, (c) supervised in-ministry learning opportunities, translating theory into praxis, (d) relational empowerment processes (i.e., intentional, transformational mentoring relationships) that facilitate relevant transfer of learning, and (e) competence and experience gap between proteges and mentors, permitting significant learning.
