Life on life mentoring

I do feel like an ideal college education involves knowledge being imparted—so yes, intellectual growth. Those categories of knowledge need to be created if they’re not there, they need to be broadened if they’re already there. They need to be challenged and sharpened.

But it has to go beyond that. Life-on-life mentoring with professors and mentors is where that knowledge really—where the rubber meets the road and that knowledge can be applied as wisdom.

So I would say: transferring of knowledge, life-on-life application of that knowledge such that wisdom is modeled, and then opportunities to apply that knowledge in wise ways oneself.

So definitely hands-on ministry—getting messy in the local church. I feel like that is so important for college students to realize. As they’re learning these categories, they need to hit the harsh realities of everyday life. And they need to be sharpened and softened—or hardened—with the reality of messy ministry in the local church.

John David Trentham, “Adolescent Moral Developement in Christian Perspective,” Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry: Family-Based Youth Ministry 20 Years Later 4, no. 2 (2014): 37.