By Steven Norris

I wasn’t always a pastor. Many people forget that when their only experience of me has been in that role. Despite the fact that there are three generations of pastors in my lineage, it was not a foregone conclusion that I would follow their lead. I had other plans in store before God intervened through a twenty-one-year-old college senior at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM).

I graduated from Watkins Overton High School, a magnet school in Memphis, TN for the creative and performing arts. I was a musician, having achieved numerous awards and honors during my high school tenure. My intent was to make a career out of performing in a symphony somewhere.

I arrived on the campus of USM with full intentions of making the most of the college experience. I was away from home. I was away from rules and responsibilities. My plan was to find the best parties, meet the most interesting people, and to “sow my wild oats.” God, however, intervened in my life within one week of arriving on campus.

Peter was a trombonist like me. He was arguably the best trombonist on campus and a guy that everyone admired. When I met him, he had just returned from serving as a summer missionary in Egypt with USM’s Baptist Student Union (BSU). We found ourselves drawn to one another like opposing magnets.

By the second weekend, I was attending a weekend retreat with Peter at the BSU for new students. By the third weekend, he had invited me to attend church with him at Temple Baptist. As a life-long Methodist, I was leery. About the same time, Peter suggested that we get together weekly just to hang out and encourage one another.

Looking back, I can see that he was mentoring me, though I would not have called it that at the time. We were just friends, intentionally scheduling an hour a week to be together. After all, there was no formal curriculum or format to our meetings. Once a week, we reserved a room in the library. He told me what was going on in his life, what he was reading in the Bible, and what questions had come up as a result. I did the same (on the weeks that I had actually read).

He asked me how he could pray for me and would pull out a 3×5 notecard to write down what I told him. On one side was the scripture he was memorizing that week. On the other, he wrote prayer requests people shared with him. I probably grew more in those 10 months than I had at any point in my life.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told his disciples to “go and make disciples.” In other words, he told them to go and mentor others in the Way that Jesus had started. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Mentorship can be as simple as (1) intentional time, with (2) an intentional focus, (3) at regular intervals. Peter’s invitation for me to be a part of his life completely changed mine and put me on the path I am still walking.

Here at the beginning of a new year, are there divine appointments that God has in store for you to invest in eternity?