La, La, La

So, I’m working with the youth worship team at church now. The youth pastor has a big vision, which I love, and can’t be everywhere at once. The worship team needs some help, and this is something I can do. It’s great timing. My daughter is the lead vocalist and she is coming into her senior year of high school next year. We love working together. There are two more almost-seniors on the team and everyone else is much younger-almost all freshman. Ah, a new generation of worship leaders! I love it.

I usually had two or three exceptional teenagers on my adult worship team each year the whole time I was leading. (Our current church worship leader was on my team the year before he went to college.) I’m excited to see this new group grow.

The Big Difference

One of the things I am fully convinced of and that I will share with the team at our next worship practice is this:  The difference between good and great is teachability.

It is all about being teachable. We may have natural talent and even if we are able to be “self-taught” and just “pick things up,” we will be much better if we are “other-taught.” We can be good on our own, but if we want to be great, it will take listening, learning and practicing. At first, we will be wrong more than right. We will have to learn technique. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it, because once a structure is learned, it can support the creativity we want to express.

This goes for any endeavor in life. We always need to be teachable. We always need to be learning more, improving our skills, honing our craft.

A Teachable Spirit

This applies to our spiritual life as well. If we think we’ve “arrived,” we’re in trouble. If we think we’ve “pretty much got it covered,” we have just become the obnoxious musician who thinks he knows everything and you can’t tell him anything—even when it’s obvious to the rest of the team that he’s simply out of tune.

Even if we were saved when we were young, have been in church our whole lives, have been to Bible college and studied the Scriptures, there is always more to learn. And not only on an intellectual level. That is important, but even more important is the heart-level, the character-level, the spiritual-growth-level, the obedience-to-and-love-for-Jesus-level.

More to Explore

This is a relationship. There is always something new to discover about Jesus and there is always some way in which He wants to set us free and make us more like Him. There is always more joy, peace and freedom to be had. There are always more glorious riches in Christ Jesus to experience.

We need to come before the Lord and say, “Teach me, Lord. Make me like You. Use others to speak into my life. Help me avoid foolish pride. I always want to learn at Your feet.”

I know I want to be teachable, ever learning.

What is God trying to teach you right now?