Sarah J spoke with authors Hazel and Heather

Heather: I think really it has to start with the word of God and what God says, because that is where the truth is discovered. I think so often that the lies we believe because we grow up in an environment that misrepresents things, we don't even realise that they're lies. We need to know what God's word says about us and what the truth is about us, in order to build those new foundations. We need to learn to almost discern the voice of the enemy and the voice of the Holy Spirit. I think for me it's been such a journey. I think as I've moved on in my understanding of the way that God works and the way that God moves, I've learnt to let go of those things that aren't true. The problem is of course in your mind it is truth and again, often it takes other people to actually point out those areas in our thinking. I think it's a combination really of knowing the truth of God's word and being sensitive to the Spirit and believing what he says about us rather than what the enemy would have us believe; so being open to allow other people to speak into your life and bring to your mind those thoughts and those areas where you're in error.

Sarah J: Heather you describe in one of your chapters about how you spend quite a lot of time investing into different women's lives; but you came to the realisation that sometimes there's a bit of a danger that you can treat people as projects and that you kind of ticked them off the list once you've been and seen them and things like that. There are loads of people out there listening that may invest into lots of people's lives and sometimes make the mistake of seeing people as projects. I know that I've done that in the past as well. What's the right perspective to have when you're mentoring and helping others?

Heather: The reality is there are so many people as you've said yourself that are looking for help and looking for people to mentor them, that actually we can't be there for everybody; it's just impossible. The way we have structured things within our church really is to equip the leaders and they are now mentoring the people around them. We've got it structured in such a way, that everybody is being mentored and the leaders - the mentors, are only mentoring about three or four people at the most; so when you're walking closely with three or four people, it's far more of a relationship where you can see the growth in people's life, rather than as I mentioned in the book, a little project. You're not just trying to get a to do list of what's got to be done, but you're really investing time and really seeing and growing and developing as a person. You can do that with three or four people and we take it really seriously. We realise that we're dealing with people's lives and we're not there to try and put them right. We're not there to tell people what they need to be doing. We're just there to walk beside them, and to support them and encourage them; so it's very much a relationship. As you spend time with the different people, a sense of trust develops where we can both be really open, be honest and be real with one another. It's very strong on relationship.

Sarah J: One of the messages I really received from the writing that you did Heather, was around this idea of protecting your time and having the balance between having a productive busyness about things that you do for God's kingdom; but also making sure that you've got that space aside to invest in your family and also to invest in yourselves and also to invest in other people's lives.

Heather: Yeah absolutely. That's a balance that I have to sort of reassess on a daily basis because it's so easy to be pulled in so many directions. I think for both Hazel and I, as we're journeying, we're learning to be wise; we're learning to say no to things; we're learning what are priorities, what are urgent. I think if we don't get that balance right, we can really run ourselves into the ground. The whole time management has been essential for us. Our families are very important to us and obviously our husbands and our children. We just so realise that if we're not investing into them properly, they're going to feel the effects of that; so they've got to be our priorities and then come the people that we're walking with.

Sarah J: I love the fact in your book Live Life Big or Stay in Bed, that there's a real honesty and openness from both of you about the journey that you've been on and some of the lessons that you've learnt in order for other people to take on board some of those messages and understand how that might apply to their lives. You've also put some really practical things in the book in terms of resources that churches can use to be able to set up their own mentoring schemes haven't you?

Heather: Yes. You know the more we've spoken about mentoring and what God's been doing amongst us in our church, people have been encouraged, they've been inspired, because we've managed to find a really practical way of looking after a lot of people in a very deep and meaningful way. So the resources we felt were essential; in fact the book was originally just going to be about the resources because there was such a need for that. Over time the books evolved into more of our journey, and became more personal. The original thinking was literally to provide the resources.

Sarah J: In terms of offering some practical tips; if someone was reading and they're thinking, oh this sounds really interesting; it's about doing life with others; allowing people to be able to speak into your life and help you to think about where areas of your thinking need changing; areas of your behaviour needs changing and how you spend your time and challenging you about that; what are some very simple practical tips that someone could take on board in order to set up some mentoring to make that happen for them?

Hazel: I think one of the first things we would say is definitely don't do it alone. It's definitely something that needs to be set up with at least two people, just so that you've got that balance and you've got that accountability and you're walking out something personally that you're planning on implementing on a wider scale. I think one of the biggest lessons that Heather and I learnt was to start small. Our first year of setting the mentoring up, we actually had two groups and there were twelve ladies in each group and we were each walking with about five ladies each. You know in hind sight it was just too many ladies to get to each month on a one to one basis and spend that quality time with. I think the other really important thing to remember is that we are just walking alongside ladies. I think a real danger with anything like this is, when we begin to think that we are the answer and we are what people need; of course it's pointing people to Jesus all the time is so critical. The other thing we do as part of the mentoring is we put the ladies into prayer partner relationships and we encourage them to meet together on a weekly based system and pray. Again that has just been so wonderful as a platform to build relationships between the ladies and to see how in praying together and supporting one another, real meaningful friendships have been forged. People have really had that opportunity to go deeper and to be honest and transparent with one another in that safe place.

Sarah J: Who do you think will benefit most from reading the book?

Hazel: In one sense I would say any woman who is hungry for the things of God and wanting to move forward in their relationship with God and their relationship with one another. It isn't designed just for women in leadership; it's just designed for the average lady who wants to live life to the full and life in abundance and recognises that there are things at the moment that hinder her from doing so.

You can buy Live Life Big Or Stay In Bed from Cross Rhythms Direct for £8.54.