Introduction
"And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also." II Timothy 2:2
The investing of oneself in the life of another is perhaps one of lifeIs greatest opportunities. Passing along the insights that God gives you each day and the lessons taught by life is not only exhilarating, it is critical. The future depends on this investment. We call this process mentoring, or discipleship. It was modeled to the world over 2000 years ago by Christ and reaffirmed by the writings of the apostle Paul. Since then, mentoring has been implemented in various forms over hundreds of years. The results have shaped the leaders of our world and the very fabric of daily life.
Upon observing the example of Christ with the lasting impact through His disciples to the church, and desiring to obey the teachings of scripture, we have decided to move ahead and implement a structured model of mentoring. We call it The Elijah Project.
I Kings 19 describes the process of Elijah being instructed by God to pass his mantle of leadership on to his successor. Elijah had been serving as the prophet of God for the nation of Israel. He had provided them spiritual leadership. He had witnessed the power of God in many instances. It was now time for him to seek out a man named Elisha, as a replacement for himself. Elijah was a normal man who had chosen to submit to God's calling in his life to be a spiritual leader. He was nothing special outside of God's power. He struggled, sinned, and fell, just as we do. In I Kings 19 Elijah shows his next step of submission to God by pursuing his successor, Elisha, and engaging in the process of passing on his mantle of leadership.
In II Timothy 2:2, God's Word instructs us as His modern-day church leaders, to pass along the mantle of leadership just as Elijah passed his on. Paul writes, "And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also."
The Elijah Project helps us do just that. It is our desire to identify men who desire to serve God by investing their lives in His kingdom. The goal of this project is reproduce authentic, spiritual leaders in our church family and begin the steps of passing on the mantle of leadership. We hope that this process will result in great depth and volume of our men who give their lives to reproducing themselves in others for the future. This project will use the tool of mentoring to facilitate leadership development.
Each participant is matched with an outstanding, mature mentor. These mentors will come from inside and outside the church family. These will be men who have been used by God over the years to invest in His kingdom. Over the course of a year, each mentor and candidate will commit to meet on a weekly basis and follow a guided course for personal spiritual growth, leadership development, and future ministry planning.
This material is being reproduced in order to make it available to anyone desiring to invest their lives in someone else through mentoring. 
The pages that follow lay out, in notebook form, the steps we have taken to begin this investment. The information is intended to be extracted and copied to provide direction. Each chapter will simply lay out the steps we have taken to implement this in our church. It is our desire that you will be able to repeat the same steps in order to do the same in your church or community. Our hope is to enable and empower you to take the framework of The Elijah Project and implement it into your culture and relationships.
Before you take this information and try to implement it, you must get your current leaders excited about mentoring. They will be the ones who make or break the success of this process. Without their commitment and support, this will be a frustrating process. However, with their buy-in, the lives of your young men will be challenged, encouraged, and transformed.
The future of our culture and church depend on this mentoring. God's Word expects it! Paul did not give Timothy an option. Mentoring was presented as a directive and a key ingredient to leading the church.
The same is true for us today. Our young men need the older men and current leaders. Without this investment in the lives of our young men, they are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past and to be ill equipped for leading the church in the future. What a great opportunity and privilege!
Prayer
As you consider this project, the element of prayer cannot be underestimated. This is God's project, not yours. It is God who has chosen you to be a leader, and that same God has put other leaders around you. It will be God who chooses and motivates your candidates and mentors. He will be the one who injects them with His passion to learn, grow, serve, reproduce, and mature into what He wants for their future.If you try to manufacture the motivation, passion, and vision for this project, you will experience frustration. The intangibles that allow our lives to realize the power of the Almighty come only from God. Place every step of this project at His feet, seek only to glorify Him, learn to hear the sound of His voice, and then expect Him to show His glory in the lives of The Elijah Project men.
Definition of Terms
The following terms will be used throughout this material.Candidate: A younger man who is being mentored.
Nominated Candidate: A younger man who has been nominated by church leadership to be mentored. This person has been invited to participate but has not applied or been accepted into the program yet.
Mentor: An older man who will be mentoring a candidate.
Nominated Mentor: An older man who has been nominated to mentor a younger man but who has not yet applied or been accepted into the program.
SBC: An abbreviation of Silverdale Baptist Church.
