Mentoring in Christian community :issues of definition and evaluation

In recent decades there has been an increasing interest in the phenomenon of mentoring in diverse societal sectors with a resulting plethora of definitions. This thesis focuses on mentoring that is practiced in Christian community. The work postulates a theological classification of Christian community and explores the symbiotic relationship that exists between mentoring practice and context, with particular reference to theological reflection. In critical conversation with the theology of Christian community and through a synthesis of evidence gathered from a key text on discipleship - Mark's Gospel - and a corpus of contemporary writings on mentoring this study offers a definition of mentoring in Christian community that is holistic and integrative. This work also submits an analysis of the demands and complexities of evaluating holistic Christian mentoring programmes, particularly in the area of spiritual fonnation and subsequently proposes an evaluation framework, model and tools. Through the organisation and delivery of a pilot study (replicated on a smaller scale in two other settings), and through the use of rigorous methodology the viability of the model was investigated. The evaluation has revealed findings to infonn the practice of Christian mentoring and has given insights into its beneficial impact in the particular Christian community context of theological education. This work, thus, has produced a reliable template from which Christian communities can contextualise their mentoring programme evaluations. The study concludes with recommendations for further research, suggestions for implementation and conclusions regarding the influencing factors for successful mentoring programmes. It affinns the contention that a rediscovery of Christian mentoring could be the means by which the objectives of theological education may become more integrated and through which the church community may more adequately fulfil its commission to make lifelong disciples.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo