A seed coming to fruition
Tonight Ann and I directed the spring concert for OHCS Middle School choir. We've been directing the choir for...6 years now?? Wow.
One cool part of the concert this year was that we asked Jordan, a high school junior, who was in our choir for 3 years at OHCS, to come and be a student director for a couple of songs.
I had talked with his father earlier in the year (he happens to be our accountant), and he told me of Jordan's love for choir, and how he had an incredible experience at All-Northwest Choir, and won a solo/ensemble competition. ( I see a lot of myself in Jordan by the way...) But then he said to me that it was Jordan's experience in our little middle school choir that really ignited in him his passion for music which is being fanned into flame at the High School level.
Ann and I have always said that whether it was leading youth choir at a church or leading the middle school choir at OHCS, our biggest goal was to develop in our students a life-long love for music and for worshipping in song.
It was gratifying tonight to see that for at least one student, it is paying off.
This all reminds me that sometimes the most important thing you can do as a Christian leader is to lift a younger disciple's eyes up higher than their own experience and point out the higher ground. Show them what could be possible, and they are more likely to strive for it and discover more meaning in their faith. Just like the middle school choir, there will be plenty of people who just mess around and miss the opportunities they have to grow. But there will also be those who will have the spark of their faith fanned into flames through my example, my life, my words.
So again, I've got to stay in the race and make every day count. For this spiritual journey I'm on is definitely an endurance race.
One cool part of the concert this year was that we asked Jordan, a high school junior, who was in our choir for 3 years at OHCS, to come and be a student director for a couple of songs.
I had talked with his father earlier in the year (he happens to be our accountant), and he told me of Jordan's love for choir, and how he had an incredible experience at All-Northwest Choir, and won a solo/ensemble competition. ( I see a lot of myself in Jordan by the way...) But then he said to me that it was Jordan's experience in our little middle school choir that really ignited in him his passion for music which is being fanned into flame at the High School level.
Ann and I have always said that whether it was leading youth choir at a church or leading the middle school choir at OHCS, our biggest goal was to develop in our students a life-long love for music and for worshipping in song.
It was gratifying tonight to see that for at least one student, it is paying off.
This all reminds me that sometimes the most important thing you can do as a Christian leader is to lift a younger disciple's eyes up higher than their own experience and point out the higher ground. Show them what could be possible, and they are more likely to strive for it and discover more meaning in their faith. Just like the middle school choir, there will be plenty of people who just mess around and miss the opportunities they have to grow. But there will also be those who will have the spark of their faith fanned into flames through my example, my life, my words.
So again, I've got to stay in the race and make every day count. For this spiritual journey I'm on is definitely an endurance race.
Comments