35. Why Every Christian Physician Needs a Mentor (and How to Find One)

Feeling alone in your faith at work?

Your Christian walk was never meant to be a solo mission. If you feel alone in the hospital or clinic, spiritual mentoring may be the missing piece. After all God designed us for community, sharpening, and growth (Hebrews 10:24–25; Proverbs 27:17).

In this episode, I share why every Christian physician needs a mentor and exactly how to find one who will challenge, sharpen, and encourage your faith. I’ll take you behind the scenes of my own journey, from learning to pray for healing to navigating prophetic encounters, and how God used mentors to ground me and help me grow.

We’ll unpack:

• The biblical case for mentorship (think: Jesus and the disciples, Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha)
• How mentorship protects you from isolation, drift, and discouragement
• Five practical places to find a mentor (you want to take notes 🙂)
• What it looks like to be a coachable, accountable mentee who actually grows

If you’ve ever felt spiritually alone in medicine, this conversation will give you clarity, courage, and next steps to find the right person for your season.

👉 Learn more about the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program: https://www.ingahofmann.com/heal-the-healers-mentorship-program

 📩 Questions or 1:1 mentoring: inga@ingahofmann.com

Are you a Christian physician longing for a deeper walk with God and a supportive community that truly gets it?

The Heal the Healers Mentorship is a Spirit-led program equipping Christian physicians to walk in wholeness, power, and purpose. You’ll grow in intimacy with God, walk boldly in your identity, and learn to integrate faith and medicine—without burnout or compromise.

👉 Enroll here to join the mentorship program.

💌 Want to stay encouraged in the meantime? Sign up for my Weekly Dose—a weekly email filled with encouragement, prayer, and prophetic words for physicians, by a physician.
👉 Join the Weekly Dose here — you’ll get both weekly encouragement and new podcast episode releases straight to your inbox.

Follow me on Facebook
Check out my YouTube Channel

Join our growing Facebook Community

https://www.ingahofmann.com/prayersupport – Visit my website where you can learn more about me, get free resources, request prayer, or schedule a prayer appo...

Transcript

0:00

Your Christian walk isn't meant to be a solo journey. God designed us for community, for sharpening and for growth. Today I'm gonna share why every Christian physician needs a mentor and exactly where you can find one that will challenge and encourage your faith. Hey there, friend. Welcome to another episode of Heal the Healers. I am Inga Hoffman, a Christian physician, and I just love mentoring people in medicine and faith in the intersection to help us integrate faith in medicine so that we can deepen our walk with God, hear the voice of God more clearly, and live out our calling. Without neglecting our spiritual health in this world. So in this podcast, I typically focus on three pillars, Bible-based healing ministries, spiritual growth, and kingdom leadership. And occasionally I throw a prophetic word in there. I say that more likely than it should be. Occasionally I feel that I am getting some prophetic insight or maybe a word for the season in medicine and in healthcare that I share, as I get revelation from the Lord that he puts on my heart. I'm trying to be on the cutting edge of. What is God saying to us in medicine? Specifically, what is God saying to physicians in the Christian healthcare space? So if you're ready to be equipped and encouraged, then you are in the right place. So let's get started. Well, today's episode, why every Christian physician needs a mentor and how you can find one falls under spiritual growth and discipleship for sure. But there's also a leadership aspect to this because walking closely with God often means walking closely with. The people he has placed in our path, and especially mentors who can help us grow, who can challenge us, who guide us and encourage us. And I'm super excited about this episode actually, because we talk a lot about mentorship in the medical space. We all had mentors probably. In our professional careers as physicians, whether it's students, residents, fellows, or even attendings, I had various mentors throughout my career. At different stages of my life in the medical space for sure. And they all had a very vital role to play. There were different people for different purposes and things that I needed help with, whether it was maybe more professional or scientific kind of mentoring. Or whether it was leadership or something else. So we are very familiar with this concept of mentorship. It's basically somebody who has walked the path, who has been there, who has walked ahead of you, and who you can glean and learn from. To inform your path in life. And that is very, very important for our professional development. But I would also say it is critical for our personal development. So had leadership mentors over the course of my career, I have had the joy and honor and pleasure to be mentored under the mentorship group of John Maxwell. One of the premier leadership authorities I think of this day and have gleaned great wisdom and guidance from what John Maxwell teaches as well as the community around that, just as an example. But I also believe. And I think this is something we easily neglect, is that we need mentors in our faith, in our spiritual growth to deepen our faith and relationship with the Lord and have accountability. And this is not something that I naturally had really thought after until a few years ago. And I wanna highlight this as a personal story because I think it will really help you. Understand that there are crossroads in our life where we are like, oh, I need some help, but I'm not quite sure where to turn to. And obviously with all things faith. I always want to underline the importance of the local church. I'm a big believer in the local church. I believe you should be in a local church. Zoom church is not sufficient and COVID is long gone. So please that's another episode for another time. I don't wanna go in there. Ran in attention. But I would say find a local church if you're not in a local church. And come on by the guidance of a biblical church and the mentorship and spiritual oversight of a pastor which is also called a shepherd that shepherds a local congregation and get involved. That will be. Of tremendous value to you because you will find faith, community. But sometimes there are incidences, and I would say actually we all have those in our life where we sense that we need to grow deeper in an area of our faith. And maybe we have specific questions around something and a pastor is not able to, typically in most congregation, meet with every congregation or member on a regular basis, one-on-one to really mentor you one-on-one. I would say that's pretty rare for most congregations and churches that I know. While many of them are very open to meet with our congregational members one-on-one. It's often not a commitment by the sheer size of the congregation that they could make on a consistent basis, on a weekly basis or something like that. So let me share a little bit of a story how I found myself in a season where I. Very intentionally thought of mentorship because of what I was experiencing in my faith. I have many examples where I could share, where mentorship really became helpful. A few years back when I started to experience those miraculous incidents where I was interceding and praying for one of my patients, for example, I really. Was hungry to dive deep into prayer and learn more about prayer and intercession and praying for people specifically for healing, spiritual, physical, mental deliverance, et cetera. And I wanna dive deep into this because of this encounter and experience I had in my own personal life with one of my patients. So in that instance, I had a good friend. And I would say that's season for that season. That person was also a good mentor, a person where I could ask questions and said, you know, where did you learn to pray for people like this? And I learned that he trained at something called a Christian Healing Ministries, a ministry. I highly encourage you to check out. That has trained for four decades people in prayer ministry, and actually the founder of that ministry, Judith Mcna War our keynote speaker at the Heal the Healers Retreat that I hosted last November. So I'm very familiar with that ministry and they have become friends and mentors and guides to me in so many ways. So at the time I. Was seeking mentorship in the area of prayer. Now you might say, well, why not just go to your local church? Yes, people pray there, but I wanted to go to another level and sometimes you need mentors that take you to that next level. And I found just by taking their courses and their trainings that I was surrounded by, people could mentor me for this in that season. And that was amazing. And then fast forward, probably a couple years later. I went to a conference that was highly transformational for me in my spiritual growth and even just in the awareness of just having real encounters in Revelation by the Lord. I would say that before that I wasn't really keenly aware of. Prophetic words, prophetic ministry, not really being in contact with any prophets. That's not something that was prevalent in any of the churches or congregations I'd ever been a part of. That conference was focused on where prophecy and miracles intersect and what we can learn from biblical stories. It was amazing conference. During that conference, I had a number of radical encounters with the Lord that I've never had before. And there were things that God showed me and when my eyes were open to. The spiritual word that I had not seen in this way before. And without sharing too much detail of what I saw, I was quite how should I say? I was quite shaken up and quite surprised. I certainly prayed over it. I have to say this was a very solid environment. If I tell you the speakers that were at that conference, these are, respected people, theologians, so not just some random person people that teach at theological universities, et cetera. So it was a very scriptural, biblical conference. And with a long track record as well. And I was in this environment and I think that activated something in me. So now I have these encounters with the Lord. I had basically had visions and revelation that was completely new to me. Some of it quite intense, I should say. And I was intrigued. Awe stuck a little bit, maybe uncertain. And I wasn't sure what to do with it. Now, the first thing I did, which is what we should be doing, is, I prayed and I went to the Lord and I actually didn't really talk to anybody about it. And after some reflection and the Lord guided me in the word and in scripture, I eventually reached out to some of our local pastoral staff. So that was a good step, right? Talk to your local church. Go reflect with a pastor. And I met with two of our pastors and it was an amazing conversation. And they prayed with me. They really asked me good questions to dive deep of what I've experienced and what I'm sharing with them. So they really poked sort of the scriptural probe a little bit and made sure you know, ing English's not going off track. So that was very, very helpful. But nevertheless, they confirmed. Okay, I think you're really hearing from the Lord. Maybe there are some gifting that's coming to you. And I was, I'm incredibly grateful for they are heart and sensitivity and wonderful. Scriptural pastoral care that provided for me in that instance in this season. But I felt I was sort of left with. How do I now take this? What's the Lord showing me and how do I mature in this gifting and guide guidance and mentorship? I really was looking for a guide, essentially, and I was able. To find a training program as well as an individual mentor who I'm still working with now for probably about a year. It took me a while to kind of confirm, get the confirmation from the Lord. Who should I ask? Who should I seek to be mentored in this particular area? And I'm now working with this individual who has walked in prophetic ministry and has been gifted by the Lord with that particular gifting, but also incredible Bible knowledge and mentorship. And I was able to work with somebody one-on-one. Now for. Over a year and continue to do so. And I also got plugged in with another prophetic training program again to come under the leadership of people who have a specific anointing in this area, who the Lord is using. So that I'm not. Being a lone ranger out here in basically making my own stuff. Now of course I go to the Bible, of course, I pray. But sometimes you have very practical questions that you feel like you want somebody who holds your hand. That's what a mentor does. They hold your hand. So this was a long introduction to say this was a critical aspect for me. So two examples. One was prayer, life and intercession. Praying for really being equipped in healing prayer ministry essentially. And the second part was how do I handle. Revelation, visions, prophetic words of knowledge, those kind of things, and finding a mentor here. So these are two distinct examples where I felt I needed specialized mentorship, and your example might be different. Maybe it's something more general. Maybe it's like, I feel like I need a mentor in navigating this medical journey. Well, hello there. That's exactly what I do. With this podcast as well as in my Heal the Healers Mentorship Group, that's exactly what, i'm serving and to mentor Christian physicians just like you in being equipped in navigating the waters of medicine and healthcare as a Christian physician and bring the kingdom of God into that sphere. So if that's of interest for you definitely reach out. I put the link in the show notes how to join the mentorship with more information. You can also always email me at Inga. At Inger hoffman.com. So, but let me talk a little bit about basically why do you need a mentor? I gave you my personal example, but let me give you some scripture. And then basically what can they help you with and how do you find them? So the first part. Why do you actually need mentorship? And what is God's plan for mentorship? If you look at the Bible, the Bible is full of people who were mentored by others, right? The disciples mentored people. Jesus mentored the disciples. That's probably the best example. We see this in the Old Testament, right? Moses at some point must have overseen and mentored and developed Joshua to step into his shoes. Elijah, Elijah, we see that mentorship relationship. So it is something very biblical. In Hebrews 10 24 and 25, we read that mentorship is really communities all about encouraging one another and it reads this and let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love. And good deeds not giving up, meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. Now, of course, we use this scripture to say, Hey, you should go to church and yes, you totally should go to church. You should belong perhaps to some community. Big believer in small groups, in house communities, those type of things to have closer relationships with a small group of people that really got your back, that you encourage each other. But this is also one that you can apply to mentorship. You basically want to have somebody who can encourage you along the way, and often we encourage each other. Even the mentor might be a little bit more senior, but you know, I have coached and mentor people for. Many, many, many years, and sometimes I say after a coaching call with one of my physician clients whether it's a coaching call in the spiritual mentorship lane or for academic physicians. And I sometimes walk away, and I'm not even sure who was blessed more the, the person that I just pour into or myself as. I just saw the transformation and unfolding of a life in front of my eyes. And I am so very grateful that I get to that work. So that is a blessing. Proves 27 17 says something so important. As I sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. What this says is we need each other and we need to sharpen and challenge each other. A Christian in isolation. It's not a good thing because you will never be challenged if you all by yourself in your belief system, in your doctrines and what you believe about the Bible to be true. Now, don't get this the wrong way. I believe in scripture all the way, the only way I believe in the word of God. But we all bring our interpretations. As our journey evolves as Christians whether it's church upbringing, denominations who came from, and let's be real, there's a lot of stuff we sometimes hold onto that we learned and picked up somewhere from men, but that God actually doesn't teach in his word I had a lot of redos to do over my Christian life, and I'm sure there will be more where I think I got something correct. Actually, I might have picked that up from somebody else. It might have been an idea of, man, it might have been a misrepresentation of scripture and I need to yield to the word of God to be corrected. But if you don't have other people around. You, you might never have to be in this sharpening environment to be corrected. So having people challenge your beliefs is a good thing. It makes you sharper and stronger because this thing comes to mind. John Maxwell used to say. If you are the sharpest person, the smartest person in the room, find another room. That's exactly that same principle. We apply that to business. You can apply that to medicine if you are the sharpest one in the room. Probably it's time for you to move on and go somewhere else so that you continue to grow. And that is true in everything related to faith and spiritual growth as well. You have to surround yourself with people who are eager to grow. Who are probably few steps ahead of you, that doesn't mean they're necessarily older but they bring an aspect that challenge you. And that could be even sometimes a young believer because they ask a lot of questions just like your medical student ask you a lot of questions. To make you wonder actually, why do we do it this way? It's the same principle. So I hope I hammered this home enough. You must have mentors and you must have people around in your life that challenge you, so you continue to grow. And this is so critically important in this season. Now, what can mentor, help you with? Number one, you can learn from each other. A mentor also helps you to stay accountable in your spiritual growth. Now, if you meet with a person regularly and you talk about faith and what God is doing in your life and what you're learning in the Bible it's hard to stay stale. It will help you to be accountable to actually read the word of God, for example. And maybe there are some specific actions you wanted to take in your faith journey that a mentor can help you stay accountable to. Whether it's praying for somebody or your own prayer life. Or reading scriptures on a regular basis, whatever, or going to church even, right? It's wonderful for that. It will help you to be sharpened and stretched, as I already alluded to. You want to have people in speaking in your life to say whether it's a scriptural understanding. So we're talking more like doctrine and, and bible knowledge. Or whether it's how you actually handle yourself in your life. They might challenge you and say, you know, Inga, you probably didn't get that right. Or you might wanna look at this situation in a different way. They might challenge you. When it comes to communication or relationship issues or issues with church hurt, I could go on and on. You want to have somebody that speaks into your life with wisdom, love, and knowledge that is rooted in the board of God. It's so important. If you don't have that person you can easily drift away. We need each other. We never went to do this journey alone. And because of all of that, it will help you to grow in maturity. The early church, they all met together. They did their thing together. We still need to do that, do things together, be mentored by one another or by another person to mature in our faith because please, we don't want to just drink milk and never mature in our faith to actually have a mature belief. Mature knowledge in their word of God and actually be able to chew on some bone and some, some deep theology or some difficult kind of topic where we say, what is the word of God here, who I'm getting really excited about this. And then a mentor can also help you when you have. A difficult time. There have been many times when I was in a challenging season perhaps personally, perhaps spiritually, where I was struggling with something because none of us have it all figured out and all together all the time. Because guess what? We are not Christ. We are not Jesus. We are his disciples. And that is sometimes not an easy work. So it is good to have somebody that walks alongside you to can give you support and guidance in those difficult times so that you don't give up and that you don't get isolated. That is actually key thing the enemy wants. Get you isolated, get you doubting, get you off track. A mentor will hold you accountable and help you to stay out of isolation. Thank you. Spirit of the Lord. I didn't even know where that come from. That is totally not in my notes, but I think this must be for somebody. So lots of benefits that I talked about. Now the next question is couple pointers, how you can find a good mentor. Number one, I would always say start with your local church. If you're not in a church. Get into a good strong Bible believing church where they preach the whole Bible and not just some watered down version. Get connected and be present and bring your supply to that local church and find people in that congregation. It might be your pastor who can give you some pointers. Maybe it will be in a small group. Maybe it's in a. Section of the ministry within the church, find a mentor in your local church, number one. I would say we can all do that and we should all do that. And I have mentors in my local church, a number of them. There are people in my local church. Some are pastoral staff, associate pastors, et cetera. Others are other people that are strong in their faith. They walk in quality, giftings, maturity that I want to stretch and further, and I seek those people out. Number two look outside the church. One fantastic way I have found that really enriched me and I continue to do it. Go to conferences, retreats, Christian events, et cetera. Now you wanna be selective. You wanna make sure you know where you are going and really pray about it. I would say that the conferences I have been led to, it was really led by the Lord and I knew in an instant I must be in the room. And these types of events have been absolutely life transforming. Now, I would say here that you might not always walk away with a one-on-one mentorship relationship in these situations. But as I mentioned in the beginning, one of those events. That I went and there were essentially two people, two of the speakers that I know have a mentoring relationship with one, pretty close one-on-one. One I'm in their training program. And that is it's amazing. It has been life changing for sure. But at least even if you don't find a one-on-one mentor, I would say this about conferences and retreats. And this might be national. You go somewhere or this might be down the street at another local church it functions this role of get in a different environment that you're comfortable with and get stretched a little bit. I could do a whole nother podcast about that one is actually a good point. I make a note conferences and different environments, how they can enrich your. Growth and your ability to see the beauty of the body of Christ. I don't wanna go on attention, so outside your church conferences, retreats, et cetera. The third one is referral from friends. You might have a friend that just might know, Hey, this might be a good person for you to speak to. I certainly have that happen in, in my local church, and that's wonderful when that happens. And then the next one number four, look for maturity in a specific area. So what do I mean there might be someone who's gifting or character you want to grow in. So the examples I gave actually in the beginning are perfect. It was prayer and, walking in prophetic gifting and revelation. And I needed, and wanted and desire to grow in this area, but had nobody, for example, in my local church, where I felt like that gave me enough growth. To reach out to my local church. I did start there and I actually felt like I need something more, and that's how I ended up with mentors in this area. So there might be specific areas of gifting that the Lord is steering up in your life. This might be either a spirit of gift, it might be a new revelation or anointing of some sort. It might be even just an idea you have, like talking more like business. Strategy, medical, healthcare, enterprise, something in that area. And you might want to find a mentor. Now, I'm not talking mentor in the medical field per se, but somebody in the spiritual area that can help you walk through, strategy, vision for something that the Lord steered you up with. That might be a specific assignment he has for you. And then the last one is number five. It's just Books Podcast online programs can provide a level of mentorship. Now understand that is an excellent supplement. It is not the full replacement of an actual relatable relational accountability like with a one-on-one mentor. But that can be definitely helpful in your spiritual growth. So, to wrap it up, last thing. I want you to take action and really ask the Lord. Number one, pray and ask the Lord to highlight potential mentors to you in your local church. At a conference, God clearly highlighted these people to me, and one of these people that I've been now working with for over a year that didn't come to me immediately was totally not on my radar to that person. God pointed that out to me probably six months later, and it's amazing how that goes. But then it kept on popping in my head, I should reach out to this person. I should reach out. And then I dug a little bit and found, found him and his website, et cetera. So asked the Lord, he will highlight who. Is the person for you in the season to walk alongside with and to come under mentorship. The next one, step out in faith. Really send that message to whoever got darcia out. To attend that event, start the conversation. I, for those mentorship relationships, had to step out in faith. The prayer was pretty easy. It was just, okay, I'm gonna register for the next online course, but eventually I went there in person and eventually that led me having that person, the founder of that ministry. Speak at my event. Only God can do that and orchestra those. For those other mentorship relationships, yes, it was an application process was reaching out and I didn't know what would come of it, but I took that first step to reach out and I encourage you to do that. And then remember that in some ways while you are seeking a mentor to receive, there's also a part you give and like just with professional mentorship in the medical environment. You want to be a good mentee, that means you do the work, you show up, you be on time. You actually really lean in and be teachable and coachable and take what they're giving you and mull over it. Really important. But there might be times where, you might be actually. Just even by showing up, pouring into this person and giving back even by the encouragement that they are using their gifting. I hope this makes sense. So it is a two-way street. It's a beautiful thing and I believe the Lord has it set up so that the whole body of Christ can mature and grow to maturity. And it is so needed in this hour. And I would say as a Christian physician, I know we are very busy and this might seem daunting and you might not have the right connections even at your church. I'm now finding that they are more questioned physicians and actually I am reaching out to those people and offering my help, but, for most of my Christian medical career, I felt pretty lonely. So ask the Lord, pray he will send you the right person. And of course, if you feel like, Hey, Inga, I'm really resonating with what you're saying. I feel you would be a good person. I would be happy to be that mentor for you, and we can talk about how that looks like. And of course there is also the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program where I meant a whole group of people. It's a small group of people, but if you feel like I want to find my tribe, I want to find my Christian physician community. This is a wonderful place that I feel the Lord really is carving out and providing for Christian physicians to get together, to be sharpened, to be challenged, to walk alongside each other in faith. And so if that's something that you feel stirred up about, you can join the Heal the Healers Mentorship Program. And I will put the link in the show notes. But it's basically Inga. wolfman.com, one F two Ns slash Heal the Healers Mentorship Program. It has a dash between each of those words, so I'm gonna put the links in the show notes you can also email me with questions at Inga. At Ingle hoffman.com. So with that said, I hope this blessed you. I will talk to you next week, and we are actually gonna talk a little bit more about this idea of mentorship and why sometimes. Mentorship is an investment you should make not just with your time, but also with your finances, et cetera. And I will teach you a little bit about that, what I learned along my personal journey about that. So you have a blessed day. And let me just close and pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for all the Christian physicians out there. I thank you for everybody listening in and I pray over them that you mature them to the maturity that you have intended for them and the maturity of Christ and the knowledge of God and the Board of God and in their full. Spiritual maturity, not just in their intellect and learning about the word of God, but also in the gifts of the spirit so that they may be your hands and feet in the medical environment, wherever you place them, send them godly mentors that challenge and help them grow so that they one day will also be able to mentor others in their journey as we build this vast network of Christian physicians. For the glory of God as well as the love for the people that we are serving, our patients as well as our colleagues. Thank you Lord Jesus for that. In your precious name we pray, amen. So I'll talk to you next week and see you soon.