What do you think?
Rate this book
Cultivate: Forming the Emerging Generation through Life-on-Life Mentoring
In our postmodern world of broken homes and technology-mediated relationships, the emerging generation needs positive life-on-life influence from adults now more than ever if they are to truly thrive. Based on four years of research and work with more than 1,500 Christian schools and churches around the world, Cultivate renews the ancient art of mentoring to help today’s busy Christian educators spark spiritual growth, personal motivation, academic engagement, and positive social interaction in young adults.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
12 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Myers
36 books40 followersOver the last 20 years Dr. Jeff Myers has become one of America’s most respected authorities on youth leadership development and has equipped thousands of people to champion the Christian worldview.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 29, 2019
This is a great resource book for anyone involved in or seeking to be involved in mentoring people. There are so great insights into the process of mentoring and some great ideas about how to go about it. It also will help to encourage those who have thought about getting involved in mentoring (Biblical phrase-making disciples) to actually begin to do it.
October 14, 2019
Upon an second reading, I’m bumping my rating to a 5. For what this book is trying accomplish, it is very practical and a good go-to manual for developing mentoring relationships with young people. This is not as much about Biblical counseling (which is for a different context and much more intensive), but was perfect for a situation like mine, developing good mentoring relationship with my students. The book still urges a serious and Biblical focus, but while counseling looks backward for healing, mentorship looks forward for growth and maturity, using the mentorees’ goals and other aspects of life to eventually point back to the heart.
My favorite chapter was about coaching because it is a format that is hard for me to do well; I tend to want to teach and advise over guiding students in decision making in general and supporting them even when I’d approach a situation differently. This book gives practical ways to follow the old adage- if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a life time.
Another aspect of this book I greatly appreciate is that it follows up all of its advice and directions for would-be mentors with good questions they can ask to help promote breakthrough conversation with young people.
I appreciate what Jeff Myer and Summit desire to provide for those who want to make a difference in the next generation.
My favorite chapter was about coaching because it is a format that is hard for me to do well; I tend to want to teach and advise over guiding students in decision making in general and supporting them even when I’d approach a situation differently. This book gives practical ways to follow the old adage- if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a life time.
Another aspect of this book I greatly appreciate is that it follows up all of its advice and directions for would-be mentors with good questions they can ask to help promote breakthrough conversation with young people.
I appreciate what Jeff Myer and Summit desire to provide for those who want to make a difference in the next generation.
February 26, 2015
As introduction for anyone who may read this review: I am a Christian school educator who was a youth ministry major in college, and my deepest passion is discipleship and seeing students grow through incarnational mentoring. So I, of course, loved this book.
As someone who has lots of informal and formal mentoring relationships, this book was a refreshing reminder to keep on fighting the good fight of ministry. It has a large number of practical tips, conversation starters, and good questions that I really appreciated and hopefully will implement more.
But let's talk about you, fellow youth worker/educator/adult who is trying to decide if you should read this book. Do you feel like you are a good mentor and want to just get better? Read it. Are you simply in a leadership position with teenagers by the nature of your job and don't feel confident in your own ability to mentor? Read it. Have some teenagers you're just friends/friendly with but want to transition into a mentoring relationship? Read it. Aren't sure if you're mature enough or ready enough to mentor? Read it. Had some missteps with a previous mentoring relationship and need practical advice? Read it.
My only hesitation with this book is that the authors are a little too self-promoting of their other resources. In the appendix, they offer suggestions of resources to go through with students, some of which I have used in other contexts (How to be Your Own Selfish Pig: And Other Ways You've Been Brainwashed for example). I really don't recommend any of their books, mainly because they rely on a very modernist perception of reality that my students, quite frankly, don't have. I recommend If God Then What: Wondering Aloud About Truth, Origins & Redemption for big worldview questions (if you're in the US, you'll have to get it from overseas. It's worth it) and anything by Tim Chester for practical, theological stuff. The book also, despite the great chapter on helping students see their roles in God's plan, comes across as a little too "American", by that I mean focused on individual success and overly focused on creating a PLAN to develop specific leadership skills.
Life is messy. Students are messy. Leadership is messy. Sanctification is messy. And God often is working to develop things in my mentorees that I would miss if I was so focused on my "plan".
But other than those few critiques, I overwhelmingly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be better at mentoring young people. Pick it up. Write in it. You won't regret it.
As someone who has lots of informal and formal mentoring relationships, this book was a refreshing reminder to keep on fighting the good fight of ministry. It has a large number of practical tips, conversation starters, and good questions that I really appreciated and hopefully will implement more.
But let's talk about you, fellow youth worker/educator/adult who is trying to decide if you should read this book. Do you feel like you are a good mentor and want to just get better? Read it. Are you simply in a leadership position with teenagers by the nature of your job and don't feel confident in your own ability to mentor? Read it. Have some teenagers you're just friends/friendly with but want to transition into a mentoring relationship? Read it. Aren't sure if you're mature enough or ready enough to mentor? Read it. Had some missteps with a previous mentoring relationship and need practical advice? Read it.
My only hesitation with this book is that the authors are a little too self-promoting of their other resources. In the appendix, they offer suggestions of resources to go through with students, some of which I have used in other contexts (How to be Your Own Selfish Pig: And Other Ways You've Been Brainwashed for example). I really don't recommend any of their books, mainly because they rely on a very modernist perception of reality that my students, quite frankly, don't have. I recommend If God Then What: Wondering Aloud About Truth, Origins & Redemption for big worldview questions (if you're in the US, you'll have to get it from overseas. It's worth it) and anything by Tim Chester for practical, theological stuff. The book also, despite the great chapter on helping students see their roles in God's plan, comes across as a little too "American", by that I mean focused on individual success and overly focused on creating a PLAN to develop specific leadership skills.
Life is messy. Students are messy. Leadership is messy. Sanctification is messy. And God often is working to develop things in my mentorees that I would miss if I was so focused on my "plan".
But other than those few critiques, I overwhelmingly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be better at mentoring young people. Pick it up. Write in it. You won't regret it.
December 1, 2021
Read this for a professional development course for my work. Overall, there are some sound principles that this book gives, especially for first-time mentors. There are good questions to ask your mentoree, guidance on the types of mentoring that you can pursue, and solid ways to ensure the protection of both the mentor and the mentoree.
However, some of the information is a bit outdated, given many current mentors will be catering to the Gen Z crowd not millennials and there are some overbearing and condescending passages throughout the book that could lead to some unhelpful conversations (i.e., there one suggested comment that tells a mentor to tell their mentoree "So much depends on what I'm about to share with you. Please give me your full attention" - overestimating your own importance, much?)
Plus, there is an emphasis on overt leadership mentoring relationships - i.e. helping kids who are on student councils or who are leading other groups - and the value is put on those types of mentoring abilities, whereas I think there could be more insight given to other ways that students can lead or grow - they don't all have to be pushed into places of power. Quiet leadership and influence is valuable too. But overall, it's a useful guide.
However, some of the information is a bit outdated, given many current mentors will be catering to the Gen Z crowd not millennials and there are some overbearing and condescending passages throughout the book that could lead to some unhelpful conversations (i.e., there one suggested comment that tells a mentor to tell their mentoree "So much depends on what I'm about to share with you. Please give me your full attention" - overestimating your own importance, much?)
Plus, there is an emphasis on overt leadership mentoring relationships - i.e. helping kids who are on student councils or who are leading other groups - and the value is put on those types of mentoring abilities, whereas I think there could be more insight given to other ways that students can lead or grow - they don't all have to be pushed into places of power. Quiet leadership and influence is valuable too. But overall, it's a useful guide.
October 26, 2018
Thought provoking, and a true help in my profession with students. This book really helped me understand our future culture of students, although I am in my mid 40's I often forget we are teaching and mentoring a group of students that no one in the world has ever had the experience to...not because they are young, but because of what life is really like....media, social injustice issues heightened, social media, etc. Excellent read!
February 7, 2017
I almost LOVED this book. I wanted to love it and still want to. And I will probably read it again (which is very rare for me). But there's just one thing...
This book is chalk full of immediately practical recommendations, advice and tools from a multiverse of experience of "experts" in the areas of youth and family ministry, education, youth mentoring and mentoring in general, and business and professional leadership. The after-matter alone might just be worth the price of the book itself!
Here's the "but..."
For a book by Christians, for Christians, about equipping the next generation of Christians for robust Christian life and ministry and leadership, I found much of their talk about mentoring to be rather, well, un-Christian. I don't mean that it was simply down-to-earth, rubber-meats-the-road, hands-on, nitty-gritty-details, practical. (That is true of the book, and it's great for that reason!) It's just that whenever they talked about mentoring - which is all the time! - it seemed to come across so mechanical, so systemetized, so sterile - even when they were acknowledging that it wasn't - so pragmatic, so lacking in wonder and worship, and certainly lacking in an appreciation for God's necessary involvement leading to a dependence upon Him in prayer and a reliance upon the use of His Word. I don't recall ever hearing the word "disciple" (as a verb or noun) used as a synonym for "mentor." I mean, they don't even interact with "discipleship" as a biblical concept at all (that I remember). Do they see them as so different they didn't feel inclined to? Seems like an oversight, at best, to me. The lack of any Christian discipleship content was the missing thing that bothered me the most, to the point of distraction.
As evidenced by the plethora of sources and experts and studies cited in this book, mentoring is a "thing" beyond Christian circles right now. One might come away from this book thinking, or at least thinking that the authors think that the rest of the world has something that we Christians might want to figure out and give a serious try. Instead, isn't the whole mentoring fad something that the rest of the world borrowed from God's design for humanity in the way He made us, and even fallen humanity in the was He has instructed us to "go and make disciples...?" That's why it works. That's why it's so powerful.
I really thought this would be a book squarely and completely "in my camp" as one might say. I so wanted it to be. But it's just a bit removed. We're still on the same side, I'm glad to say, but not quite in the same unit. It's possible I'm just overly sensitive to others' differing methods, and too freshly and surprisingly disappointed to be writing a review, but I think these are not insignificant points.
I'm looking forward to giving it some space and coming back to it, maybe later this year, and seeing how I feel the second time around. Either way, I will heartily say that it should prove greatly helpful to those who would pick it up, even if they have to "translate" it a bit for their context or circle.
This book is chalk full of immediately practical recommendations, advice and tools from a multiverse of experience of "experts" in the areas of youth and family ministry, education, youth mentoring and mentoring in general, and business and professional leadership. The after-matter alone might just be worth the price of the book itself!
Here's the "but..."
For a book by Christians, for Christians, about equipping the next generation of Christians for robust Christian life and ministry and leadership, I found much of their talk about mentoring to be rather, well, un-Christian. I don't mean that it was simply down-to-earth, rubber-meats-the-road, hands-on, nitty-gritty-details, practical. (That is true of the book, and it's great for that reason!) It's just that whenever they talked about mentoring - which is all the time! - it seemed to come across so mechanical, so systemetized, so sterile - even when they were acknowledging that it wasn't - so pragmatic, so lacking in wonder and worship, and certainly lacking in an appreciation for God's necessary involvement leading to a dependence upon Him in prayer and a reliance upon the use of His Word. I don't recall ever hearing the word "disciple" (as a verb or noun) used as a synonym for "mentor." I mean, they don't even interact with "discipleship" as a biblical concept at all (that I remember). Do they see them as so different they didn't feel inclined to? Seems like an oversight, at best, to me. The lack of any Christian discipleship content was the missing thing that bothered me the most, to the point of distraction.
As evidenced by the plethora of sources and experts and studies cited in this book, mentoring is a "thing" beyond Christian circles right now. One might come away from this book thinking, or at least thinking that the authors think that the rest of the world has something that we Christians might want to figure out and give a serious try. Instead, isn't the whole mentoring fad something that the rest of the world borrowed from God's design for humanity in the way He made us, and even fallen humanity in the was He has instructed us to "go and make disciples...?" That's why it works. That's why it's so powerful.
I really thought this would be a book squarely and completely "in my camp" as one might say. I so wanted it to be. But it's just a bit removed. We're still on the same side, I'm glad to say, but not quite in the same unit. It's possible I'm just overly sensitive to others' differing methods, and too freshly and surprisingly disappointed to be writing a review, but I think these are not insignificant points.
I'm looking forward to giving it some space and coming back to it, maybe later this year, and seeing how I feel the second time around. Either way, I will heartily say that it should prove greatly helpful to those who would pick it up, even if they have to "translate" it a bit for their context or circle.
March 30, 2021
Reading this book as a teacher inspired me anew and gave me great pause to think. This generation- this culture - is so vastly different from my own. It has helped me understand our young people more and to look at them differently. Having teenagers of my own, this book has been invaluable to me in learning to understand and to grasp what it means to try to reach deep into their hearts. Our next generation needs its adults to see them, to understand them, to reach them.
I think this book should be on the shelves of every school teacher, every youth leader, and every worker and/ or volunteer of teen and young adult mentor.
I think this book should be on the shelves of every school teacher, every youth leader, and every worker and/ or volunteer of teen and young adult mentor.
July 20, 2013
In teaching and mentoring, I found this book invaluable. Mentoring can seem so vague, but this provides specific ways to encourage the younger generation. Parents of teens can also benefit from this book.
January 4, 2014
Wonderful book. Absolutely worth the read, and also worth applying.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews