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Augustine as Mentor

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Book Review: Augustine as Mentor: A Model for Preparing Spiritual Leaders “Many pastors today...are struggling in isolation without a pastor to nurture their souls.” The need for all spiritual leaders to have others discipling them is crucial. Smither deeply desires for his readers to gain an understanding on what it truly means to be a disciple. Mentorship starts with a Jesus based plan, Augustine uses this plan in his forty year ministry and Smither captures Augustine’s life with diligence and precision. Smither’s study of Augustine is thoroughly and chronologically sound and filled with numerous early church spiritual leaders but he fails to apply how Augustine and his principles can be used in shepherding the Lord’s flock.
Short summary Smither’s text is focused on mentoring spiritual leaders. He does this first by describing mentoring in the first century. With a sincere focus on how Jesus mentored the Twelve and how Paul mentored his coworkers in the mission field. How Jesus mentored is summarized in the following eight mentoring strategies: the group context, mentoring as a disciple, the selecting process, the mentor-disciple relationship, sound teaching, modeling and involving in ministry, releasing to ministry, and resourcing leaders. Jesus’ example of mentorship showed the example in which many third and fourth century church leaders used to guide the spiritual leaders in that generation. Smither uses an extensive list of letters from presbyters, bishops, and finally focusing on Augustine to illustrate how this eight point structure was used in mentoring the spiritual leaders that would head the church for years to come. Having covered the example of how to mentor, and who used this structure in the third and fourth century, Smither finally asks the question, who mentored Augustine? Key players in Augustine’s life include: Augustine’s mother –

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