On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a full-scale war that Europe has not seen since 1946. For the past two years, the Ukrainian people have been living in a different reality, fighting to protect their country and the hundreds of thousands of residents losing their homes. Let’s continue to pray for Ukraine and Russia, that peace will be restored. I am also a Ukrainian who escaped the war. I have a family there, and the reality is worse than we can imagine.

For teachers and parents, it is easier to tell children what to do than to guide them in making a choice. However, this approach creates teens and young adults who fail to make good choices, because they have always depended on others to make decisions for them.

One of Jesus’ methods of discipleship was through the personal Intentional Mentoring and Equipping of a chosen group of individuals. Jesus’ approaches helped Christianity grow and transform society. Our core principles in the new Nazarene Discipleship International (NDI) Bylaws call our attention to mentoring as a loving way to introduce non-believers to the full knowledge of Christ and to teach accountability to growing Christians. For this, we need deliberate, planned, intended, and calculated mentoring and equipping.