I was flipping through the September/October issue of Relevant Magazine last night, just kind of visually sampling the articles and looking at the pictures…okay, I was just looking at the pictures…

I was about three-quarters of the way through it and I flipped over to pages 66 and 67. I couldn’t believe what I saw! I think I let out a little “WHAT…THE…?” There, featured on a two-page spread was an image of none-other-than my high school mentor and youth group leader, Lou Engle, passionately addressing a 60,000-person crowd with mic in hand, his other hand emphatically jabbing the air as he talked. It was the lead spread for an article about The Call, a prayer movement that Lou fronts. The venue was Nashville’s LP stadium (where the Titan’s play), which was packed with youth and twentysomethings solemnly praying for the Lord to captivate the heart of our generation.

While I haven’t connected with Lou for years, he popped up in my awareness in 2000 when he led The Call in Washington DC. That gathering was news-worthy because a confirmed crowd of 400,000 young adults showed up to pray together on the Mall, in front of the US Capitol. News like that is even big enough to show up in little Ashland, and I heard about it and was amazed, but not surprised, that Lou was the leader.

Keep in mind that I didn’t grow up in California or Seattle or Chicago where influential Christian leaders seem to look for ministry opportunities. I went to a small Methodist Church in Ashland (Emmanuel United Methodist Church) and was part of a youth group of about 10 people. Lou was a seminary student at ATS and found a part-time job at our church as our youth leader. He remains, not counting my parents and wife, the single most important influence in my life. He was one of the first people I knew that acted as if God REALLY existed. I saw passion, joy, authenticity, enthusiasm, meekness and power in him that seemed to be a nature shared with Jesus. Yet he was so approachable and natural and encouraging. In my eyes, he was what I imagined Jesus to be like…not because he tried to act like Jesus, but because Jesus seemed to be naturally living through him. Lou Engle opened my eyes to the fact that living the life of Christ is not an impossible dream only talked-about by preachers and authors. Hopefully, this doesn’t sound creepy, but Jesus came alive to me through Lou, which made me aware that Jesus could come alive in me as well. Lou became a living, breathing, soul-filled, human path to what I could and should become in Christ. And I have to admit that most of my life, his example has shaped my expression of the life of Jesus in me.

My own experience with Lou has really shown me the value of mentorship. Not some structured, programmed, robotic mentorship devised in academia, where the mentor is the big shot and the mentoree is treated like a green-twig fraternity-pledge. I’m talking about relational mentorship where a more mature Christian can befriend and respect a less mature Christian and give them a shoulder-to-shoulder glimpse of Christianity in the real world. When it comes to living out of the reality of Jesus in our lives, there is no substitute for seeing it in action, from someone who believes what they are living.

So, this is probably where you think I’m going to suggest you hook up with a mentor. As the sage, Dwight Schrute, so profoundly says, “FALSE!” What I’m actually suggesting is that it’s time that you prepare to become a mentor. If you’re twentysomething or older, it’s time for you to get in the mindset that your life now belongs to Jesus and to those around you, especially those who are following you onto the path of Christ. C.S. Lewis said “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.” Not only are others in need of your vibrant example of Christianity, you are desperately in need of the transformation that occurs when you prepare to venture into something as serious as representing Jesus to other people that will see all the facets of your life. There’s this crazy thing that happens when you start to care about a person whose future sort of depends on you. It’s a cleansing, refining, re-orienting process that reduces the crappy parts of you so that the pure, Christlike parts can shine out. There’s something about making someone else better that will make you better.

So, this is probably where you think I’m going to suggest that you sign up for some mentoring gig, or some church program. Nope. I just think it’s an important thing, worth encouraging. You have people around you who are looking to grow into real pictures of Jesus. Show them what He looks like as Lou did for me!