“I was just meeting with my mentee and she told me about this new Bible app she was doing. I’m trying it too.”
“I’ve been meeting with my mentor, and she gave us this prayer journal. I’ve never known how to write down more than just my prayer requests. She’s showing me how to pray for areas and people in my life. It’s changing the way I understood prayer.”
“There is absolutely no way your team could have known how perfect of a match my mentor and I are. It’s only through the Holy Spirit. It’s so encouraging to know that God put us together.”
These are just a few of the stories we’ve heard since launching a mentoring environment at our church. Women are growing in their faith, forming life-giving friendships, and walking in greater spiritual confidence.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Before we had a structure or even a name for it, there was simply a burden: a desire to see women of all ages and stages walk together in intentional, Christ-centered discipling relationships. We knew discipleship wasn’t just a class or a study—it was life-on-life investment. What we needed was a way to make that vision tangible and sustainable.
Let me take you behind the scenes—into how we found ourselves launching what we now call a mentoring environment.
I use the word environment on purpose. While we had seen past mentoring programs and organic relationships flourish at times, there was no formalized way to connect women in mentoring relationships when I stepped into the role of women’s minister just four years ago.
What was happening, however, was an increasing number of young adult women asking for someone to mentor them. I began reaching out to spiritually mature women, asking if they might be willing to mentor—but many of them felt overwhelmed by the idea. I had been mentored before, informally, in a relationship that naturally grew into mentorship. We never labeled it as such from the start—it was something the Lord brought together.
That mirrored many of the stories I heard as I asked others about their experiences. One woman, whom I’ve come to admire as someone who has mentored many over the years, gave me a gift I won’t forget—she sat down with me and showed me the notebook she uses to walk women through the Word and life. By the end of that conversation, I found myself wanting to be mentored by her. She reminded me of my own mother, who has faithfully mentored me through the years. That conversation stirred something deep in me. There’s something powerful about being around someone who has faithfully walked with Jesus for decades—you want to lean in and listen and hope it rubs off on your own life.
That’s when I realized: this could not just be a program. It had to be an environment—one the Lord would plant and grow in the hearts of our women.
Yes, I had researched plenty of mentoring models. People shared ideas and curriculum they’d used. But one thing was consistent: there were always more mentees than mentors. And that’s because mentors don’t flock to a program—they respond to a purpose—a calling.
Our women’s ministry team had already been praying. We specifically prayed for young adult women to be drawn to our church and our women’s ministry. And over the following months, they came. Sunday after Sunday, I’d meet women at our welcome center with the same story: “I just moved here. I’m checking out churches. I don’t know anyone my age. Do you have a group I could join?”
Soon, we had a table full of young adult women attending our MDWK women’s Bible study, led by two of our young adult women’s ministry team members. As those connections deepened, the desire for mentorship grew. So, we began praying again—this time for the mentors.
Around that time, we learned about a church using a mentoring curriculum that combined daily time in God’s Word, intentional goals, one-on-one mentoring, and monthly mentee and mentor community group meetups. Our team took a trip to visit, asked all our questions, and left inspired and encouraged.
We came home, prayed some more, and sensed the Lord leading us to move forward. We launched our next Women’s Gather event around the theme of Flourish Mentoring. We shared the vision and invited women to participate. A panel of young women and seasoned women shared their longing for mentoring. Then we prayed, launched a simple webpage, and opened the application process for a January launch.
Applications started coming in—and so did the questions. Some people pushed back: “Doesn’t mentoring work best when it’s organic?” I wrestled with this. And here’s what I came to understand: yes—when the Lord brings mentoring relationships together, they thrive. But our young adult women weren’t in the same spaces as those called to mentor. We needed to build the bridge. We needed an environment where the Lord could do what only He can do.
Whether a mentoring pair forms over coffee or through a 49-week guided journey, the heart is the same: connection with Christ through discipleship.
By God’s grace, we saw 154 women from two campuses prayerfully paired in mentoring relationships in our first year. And, praise The Lord, we had just enough mentors for the mentees who signed up.
So what made the difference? Prayer.
- A team praying consistently for the Lord to cultivate this work.
- A sister church that partnered with us—praying, mentoring, and sharing what they’d learned.
- Hours spent interviewing, vetting, and praying over every mentor and mentee to discern the best pairings.
- Ongoing support and prayer for each woman—before, during, and after the mentoring process.
We are certain that any fruit we’re seeing is the result of prayers faithfully prayed over time. A mentoring program can be planned—but a mentoring environment must be cultivated.
As Paul reminded the church in Corinth, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor. 3:6-7, NIV).
We may plant and water, but only the Lord can make mentoring—and the women in it—flourish.
So, I want to leave you some prayer seeds to start planting.
If you’re sensing the Lord leading you to create a space for mentoring in your church, begin not with structure—but with prayer. Here are some specific ways to start:
- Pray for God to stir hearts—for both mentees and mentors.
Ask the Lord to awaken a hunger for spiritual growth in the hearts of younger women and a desire to pour out wisdom in the hearts of older women. Pray that women will respond to the purpose, not just a program. - Pray for the mentoring matches to be His work.
Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your matching process and to orchestrate relationships in ways only He can. Pray over each name and story, trusting God to lead each woman to the right person at the right time. - Pray for protection and unity.
Mentoring touches on real life—hurts, habits, history. Pray for spiritual covering over every relationship, for healthy boundaries, and for the kind of unity that only Christ can bring between generations. - Pray for faithfulness, not flash.
Mentoring environments flourish through consistency and humility, not busyness or popularity. Pray for women who will commit, show up, listen well, and gently point one another back to Jesus again and again. - Pray for a culture of discipleship to take root.
More than a season or event, pray that mentoring becomes part of the DNA of your women’s ministry—that women will begin to naturally invite others into deeper life-on-life, Christ-centered relationships. - Pray with others. Pray intergenerationally.
Don’t carry the burden alone. Invite a few spiritually mature women to begin praying with you. And intentionally seek women of all ages as you pray.
Many thanks to the Passion City Flourish Team for their time with us. We are using their Flourish Curriculum in our mentoring environment. Feel free to check out our brentwood.church/flourish page to see how it is contextualized at our church.
ABOUT AMY-JO GIRARDIER
Amy-Jo Girardier loves how God uniquely makes people and generations for His glory. She is the women’s minister and has served as girls minister for nineteen years at Brentwood Baptist in Brentwood, Tennessee. She is an author of three Lifeway Bible studies and loves writing resources for teen girls and women.
Amy-Jo loves getting to serve with her husband Darrel on staff and being with their two boys: Scout and Skylar. You can find her on Instagram: @amyjogirardier.
