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MW Editor’s note: Mentoring Warriors in connection with Emmanuel International Canada is invited to Malawi, Africa for a mentoring intensive. This includes teaching at Chisomos Theological School. The following two posts are excerpts from a specific teaching out of Hebrews 10 on its connection to mentoring.
South of the Equator in Africa lies a small but mighty country called Malawi. Their native language is Chichewa. Tiyeni (pronounced Tea-a-knee) means “We are” or “Let us”. It’s this idea of doing life together.
Tiyeni is not an American way of thinking. We celebrate and encourage independence, whereas in Malawi, interdependence is highly valued.
In America, we who claim to follow Jesus are often what I call siloed in our faith. Sure, we want to have a deep, ongoing walk with Jesus, but we see minimal connection between the health of my spiritual life and yours. We live, we find Jesus, we walk with Jesus. We die and that’s it in terms of this earthly life.
Our independence disconnects us from others. Sure, we have our friends at church and small group. We do social things with them and connect on a somewhat emotional level, but we rarely bring those friendships into our lives in a holistic way.
Whereas, in Africa, what is yours is mine and what is mine is yours. Increasing your network of friends is part of your means to live and get ahead, or in some cases survive.
Interdependence, for example, might look like this:
You have a bike. I see you are not currently using it, so I will come over and borrow your bike. When you need it back, you can come to my house to get it.
A friend and I were contrasting the two ways of relating; independent and interdependent. He used the analogy of tools. Say for example you need a certain wrench to fix a machine in your garage. You don’t have that tool, but your neighbor does. However, instead of asking him if you can borrow it, you drive to the local hardware shop and buy your own.
Africans don’t think that way.
So, what does this all have to do with TIYENI and being a Jesus follower?
In the book of Hebrews in the Bible there are multiple references to TIYENI. “Let us” as it is translated in English.
Here are three uses of TIYENI (Let us) in Hebrews 10:
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
In our American independent way of thinking about Jesus, we read “let us” as a biblical shout-out to a lot of followers of Jesus, each called to do our part. And, that is one way to look at it. Not wrong, but not fully what is being said.
We are missing the interdependent way of reading those same verses.
Read them again. This time place the emphasis on a collective call.
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
Repeatedly the Bible talks about the body of Christ. We, the church, are the body of Christ, where the Holy Spirit lives. Christ living his life in you as an individual simultaneously living in us who follow Jesus.
That means how you are doing spiritually impacts me and vice versa. We need each other.
If we apply that to the three verses in Hebrews 10, it goes something like this:
Let us (TIYENI) draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. How does that look collectively?
Picture a hiking trip. Each summer Mentoring Warriors takes men to Colorado for a mountain man adventure retreat. We hike alot. The goal is to summit a mountain that is over 14,000 feet tall. When you hike, you ALWAYS take someone with you. Call it the buddy system, mate, or chum. You hike together. When one needs a break to rest, you stop and you rest with him, even if you have the strength to carry on.
If one of you gets discouraged, the other of you encourages. When one is hungry, the other serves. TIYENI means you do life together. This is what brothers in Christ look like.
It’s also what mentoring looks like. Mentoring is the intentional investment in a young man for Christ.
On the Mentoring Warriors website, we say it like this:
A mentor is there to come alongside you. To call you out when life’s getting off course. To affirm you in those things you are doing well and to challenge you to become an even greater man than you are right now. A mentor isn’t perfect, but if he’s doing his part, he uses his own failures to spur you on to greatness. The Bible says “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Having a mentor is a commitment by you, the warrior, to be authentic, transparent, and vulnerable about life. There’s no place for faking it when you have a mentor. Risky? You bet! Rewarding? Absolutely!
Warrior On!
Check out the next post on part two of TIYENI.
David Riffel is the Founder and Executive Director of www.Mentoring-Warriors.com. Having gone through his warrior years (18-30) essentially without a mentor, God has placed in him a heart for warriors, to come alongside them in various ways as they figure out life. David’s newly released book, Mentoring Warriors: Coming Alongside Young Men 18-30, outlines principles for mentoring and gives advice for warriors in six key areas of life: self-management, life skills, education/career, relationships, faith, and identity.
