Generational discipleship should be every believer’s goal: The role of biblical mentoring in Jonathan Coleman’s life and ministry

Editor’s note: this article appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Southwestern News.

From the Friday night lights of high school football to the flaring flames atop oil rigs of the Permian Basin, a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary grad is looking to increase the light of Christ and spiritual fire through mentoring men at his church in Odessa, Texas.

“I’m a redneck from the south, and God’s placed me with roughnecks in Midland-Odessa,” says Mississippi native Jonathan Coleman (’12), pastor at MissionDorado Baptist Church, who is taking seriously Christ’s call for discipling the often transitory, mostly oil field workers of west Texas.

At 6 a.m. on Tuesdays, Coleman meets with men, ranging in age from their early 20s to mid-30s. Transformative discipleship in a transitory community like Odessa is difficult, Coleman says, but he is undaunted.

“One church here said they see a 15 to 20 percent turnover every year,” Coleman states. “Ours is not that much, but we get young guys in their twenties. We have them for a short time but while we have them, we pour into them.”

Coleman uses the terms mentorship and pouring into people because people understand it more than the word discipleship.

“I will say, ‘I want to mentor you. I want to show you how to love Jesus more tomorrow than you did today,’” he explains. Doing biblical mentorship is not just a goal Coleman has for training disciples and future ministers. It is a vital part of Coleman’s own testimony of experiencing generational discipleship in his journey to becoming a pastor.

The son and grandson of ministers, Coleman was mentored throughout his life, as a minister, as a student at Southwestern, and at his current church before becoming the senior pastor. Now he is pouring into the lives of young men the lessons he has learned.

“When I preached in view of a call, I said, ‘Church, this is what it is supposed to look like. Pastors need to be raised up in the church because they are being produced by the church. If the church is obedient, we should never need another search committee,’” Coleman recalls.

“One of our visions is we are a church producing the next generation to glorify God. I needed generational discipleship, and everyone needs to be mentored and to mentor someone else,” reflects Coleman, who came to the church in 2018 to be mentored to become a senior pastor, somewhere. He said he never dreamed his senior pastor position would be at Mission Dorado.

Coleman has learned not to be surprised by God’s surprises. In tenth grade, he told his father that he would never go into ministry. His church experiences as a pastor’s kid were “not the best of experiences.”

Though he had felt called to ministry, Coleman told God “no” until after his senior year of high school, when he submitted to the Lord’s leading following youth camp.

Gifted in music, he earned a music degree from Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. However, a church counseling situation revealed to Coleman that he had no biblical advice to give. “I thought to myself, I need to get more education in ministry and counseling,” Coleman says and enrolled at Southwestern.

Coleman wanted an education taught by people who had church experience, like Gordon Borror, a former Southwestern professor of music (2001-2010) who previously served as a pastor, something that impressed Coleman.

Music had always been important to Coleman, having been saved as a seven-year-old who was practicing for a Christmas musical. Not understanding the importance of Jesus’s birth, “I asked ‘why don’t we have musicals about my birthday,’” Coleman says. “My mom shared the Gospel with me, and we kneeled beside my bed to ask Christ into my heart.”

While in seminary, Coleman served at Oak Crest Baptist Church in Midlothian, Texas, as minister of music and college students. “Right when I went in the door, I met a deacon named Del Traffanstedt,” Coleman says about the man who would mentor him for more than 15 years to come.

Traffanstedt (’19) provided pre-marital counseling to Coleman and his fiancée, Natalie, and officiated their wedding. Traffanstedt would later become the pastor of the Odessa church where Coleman now serves.

Traffanstedt recalls, “I met him when he was 21, and I was in my mid-30s, teaching the college class. He needed to be discipled. We had nothing in common, at all, but started spending time together. Soon, I became his mentor.”

As it turned out, mentoring is one thing they have in common. Traffanstedt had himself been mentored by his pastor in Houston and as an online student at Southwestern Seminary. He took notes from his classes on discipleship and relationships and kept pouring himself into Coleman.

Coleman said the two would spend time together, both individually and with the family. They hiked together, worked in ministering to others, and spent time in Bible study. “He would ask me hard questions about my life directly, then redirect my life according to God’s Word,” Coleman recalls.

At the Midlothian church, some men told Coleman that he handled the Word well, saying, “You may not always be called to do just music ministry.” Coleman, who was 24 years old at the time, says he responded, “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

Nevertheless, early on at Southwestern, Coleman decided to change his degree program from music to Christian education “to be more rounded.” After five years at Southwestern, he graduated with a Master of Arts in Christian Education.

“Our time at Southwestern was amazing,” Coleman says, learning lessons not just in class and while being mentored, but also in seeing God provide for him and his family. Looking back, Natalie says God provided with finances, jobs, and the ability to work hard. Coleman worked as many as three jobs at a time, went to school, and learned how to be a new husband and dad. Now Coleman mentors his men not only in church work but also in marriage and in fatherhood using the same lessons the Lord imparted to him.

After five years at Oak Crest, Coleman served from 2012 to 2018 at First Baptist Church in Howe, Texas, during which time, Coleman recalled a burden to pastor intensified. “I didn’t know what to do with that, and so I called several men who had mentored me.” No longer at the same church, Traffanstedt continued to mentor Coleman, even after Traffanstedt became the pastor at Mission Dorado. In August of 2018, Traffanstedt asked Coleman to preach for him on worship. In October, he again called Coleman, this time saying that if he came as children’s and music pastor, Traffanstedt would give him opportunities to preach.

“I told him I would ask Natalie and ‘I’ll let her say “no” to you,’” Coleman remembers. But after prayer, once again God surprised Coleman when Natalie said, “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

Prior to his trip to Odessa, Coleman had never been more than an hour west of Fort Worth and Natalie had never lived outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. However, Coleman recognizes that “obedience requires risks – risks from our comfort, risks from what’s familiar, risks from preferences. But when God calls, our risks for obedience are always opportunities for us to grow in our trust and our becoming more like Jesus.”

Coleman came to Mission Dorado in December of 2018 as minister of music and children. The church, with about 130 in attendance, saw 20 baptisms his first year, most of whom he said were young men from the oil fields. Coleman grew in his love for the church and they for him, allowing him to use office hours to take 20 hours towards his Master of Divinity degree at Southwestern. He took language and preaching classes, which he says would prepare him for pastoral ministry.

In 2021, God again surprised Coleman when Traffanstedt resigned to plant an urban church in Houston. “We had never planned to be in west Texas longer than two years,” Coleman says, “but after prayer, we felt God had called us here.” In May 2021, Coleman began preaching weekly and in October, the church extended the call as pastor and voted unanimously for him to serve in that capacity.

Traffanstedt says he simply put into Coleman what he had received from his former pastor, his experiences, and “what I learned from Chris Shirley’s class at Southwestern.”

Shirley (’94, ’02), dean of the Jack D. Terry School of Educational Ministries, professor of educational ministries, and Jack D. and Barbara Terry Chair of Religious Education, said that mentorship through relationships is something he aims for in all of his classes, which filtered through Traffanstedt and ultimately to Coleman.

“I try to be open and engaging with all of my students, regardless if online or on campus. I am a mentor to every student,” Shirley says, adding that his philosophy on teaching is built on relationships, encouraging the student to visit with him in class, outside of class or even beyond the student’s time at seminary, when “the learning really starts.”

“I say, ‘When you are on the field, then you need an advocate, and please know that I’m a teacher not just for these weeks we are together, but I’m your teacher from now on,’” Shirley says, adding, “A phrase I use regularly is ‘I want to add value to your ministry. I give you permission to bother me.’”

Using examples like Elijah and Elisha or Paul and Timothy, Shirley says, “In my Strategies for Disciple-Making course, we talk about the importance of personal relationships in discipleship. That leads us to a discussion on one-on-one, which is mentoring; I give them the break down on how to do mentoring effectively.”

Over the years, God used several men who poured into Coleman: his father; his grandfather, who was also a pastor and Southwestern graduate; Blain Craig (’01, ’11), his senior pastor at Oak Crest Baptist Church; and seminary professors, like David Mills (’91), a former Southwestern evangelism professor who taught him how to do door-to-door evangelism, make hospital visits, and spent a weekend walking alongside him in ministry.

“God has always put in my path the blessing of men who have been there before in ministry,” Coleman says. “That’s what I loved about Southwestern. I always tried to take courses with professors who were retired pastors or had been in ministry for a long time.”

While at Southwestern, Coleman saw the relationships that 53 professors built with students outside of the classroom, such as Richard Ross (’74, ’80), senior professor of student ministry. “I witnessed Dr. Ross eating lunch with and grabbing coffee with students, with the next generation, and discipling them,” Coleman recalls. “I’ve heard it said that some of the best lessons are caught and watching Dr. Ross interact with students and encourage them to pour into the next generation is one of the best displays of generational discipleship I witnessed.”

Louis Alvarado came to faith since Coleman has been at Mission Dorado and has been called to the ministry. “Mentorship to me is being able to understand God’s Word and study alongside fellow believers who understand me,” Alvarado says, adding that it’s not just Tuesday mornings but having Coleman share with him opportunities in ministry. “It’s sharing my struggle in everyday life and to be able to sit in a room with Jonathan and expand our knowledge of God’s character and grace,” Alvarado explains.

He admits mentorship is time-consuming, messy, and often difficult, but he draws upon his years in music as an illustration. In music, Coleman says, “excellence is always at the forefront, but nothing is going to be as excellent as you want. Dr. Borror told us, ‘It’s not about the performance, it’s about the journey in getting there.’”

Coleman says being perfect is not who he is, but he can love others well. “Every Sunday before I preach, I pray, ‘God, I have nothing worth saying, but Your Word has everything worth hearing.’ God doesn’t need you to do great things. He just needs you to be faithful in small things.”

Timothy McKeown (’91) is a writer for Southwestern News.