Just because you're someone's sponsor or sponsee and you're spending a lot of time on the phone does not mean that sponsorship is happening.
Sponsorship is helping someone else become free of self so they can help others become free of self.
Things which look like sponsorship but are not:
- 'Masterpiece Theatre'
- Repeatedly playing Mother Hen in someone else's theatrical emotional sprees
- How to spot this: when you're helping someone work through a complex drama, only to be faced with another one within 24 hours
- What's going on: the drama is the payoff; it's not the problem, it's the solution
- 'Mummy, I Can't Reach!'
- Working someone else's programme for them, thinking through situations for them, or making decisions for them
- How to spot this: when someone asks questions that they have asked before or has the resources to figure out themselves
- What's going on: this is a way of getting attention, avoiding growing up, and staying safe
- 'I Need A New Experience!'
- Treating the spiritual journey as an end in itself rather than as a means to serve God
- How to spot this: regularly switching sponsors, fellowships, methodologies, repeatedly working the steps but remaining firmly focused on self
- What's going on: the self remains intact, just cloaked in spirituality
There are others, too.
I have to watch out for these patterns both as sponsee and as sponsor.