Mentoring Men: One-to-One is a discipleship workbook by Earl Bristow. It exists for a plain reason, which Bristow gives himself: his church’s men’s group wanted a simple self-teaching guide they could use to raise up more mentors, could not find one that fit, so he wrote it.
That origin tells you most of what you need to know. This is a working tool made by a local church for its own use, not a book with a publisher behind it.
What it is built to do
The format is a mentor and one other man working through it together. The workbook walks the pair through basic Christian belief, section by section, with prompts designed to open the conversation rather than test knowledge. The aim is not to make the mentee an expert. It is to get two men talking honestly and, eventually, to make the mentee capable of doing this with someone else.
That reproducing goal is the strongest thing about it. A lot of mentoring material assumes an expert and a learner, and quietly makes the learner permanently dependent. Bristow is building toward the mentee becoming a mentor, which is the point of 2 Timothy 2:2 and is rarer in practice than it should be.
What we removed from this page
The previous review quoted a line as Bristow’s and two pieces of reader praise. We could not verify any of the three, so they are gone.
The meta description also described the book as “Iron Sharpens Iron,” which is not its title. That appears to have come from the Proverbs 27:17 theme; there is a separate and well-known men’s ministry resource by that name, and conflating them would send readers to the wrong book.
Be clear about what you are buying
This is independently published. There is no editorial house behind it, no wide review, and very little about the author findable outside the listing itself. That is not a criticism of its content, which we have no reason to doubt. It is information you should have before spending money.
It is also a workbook, not a book. Reading it alone in an armchair will feel thin, because most of the value is in the blanks and the conversation they are supposed to produce. If you are not going to actually pair up with someone, do not buy it.
The honest limitation
Because it covers basic Christian belief at an introductory level, a pair of mature believers will move through it quickly and may find it too elementary. It is aimed at the newer man, or the long-time churchgoer who has never been asked what he actually believes and why.
We also could not confirm the page count or the number of sessions, so plan your pace after you have the copy in hand rather than before.
Who it is for
A church men’s ministry that wants something cheap and unfussy to hand to pairs, and does not need it to be polished. Used that way, it does a real job.
Mentoring Men: One-to-One on Amazon