I took piano lessons as a child and I played flute and oboe in the band in high school. I haven’t played piano in years, but I do occasionally play around on a piano. I mostly play by ear these days. Honestly, I’ve mostly played by ear my entire life. I can still read treble clef notes, but I am slow. I’m faster when just playing by ear.
A few weeks ago, I printed out some sheet music and took all the children down to Pirtle chapel for Sunday School. I didn’t rehearse, play through, or even read over the music ahead of time. I decided that I could stumble my way through the songs in the moment (even though it’s been 30 years since I had to read a piece of music...it’s not like I ever read it anyway). The songs were: “This is the Day”, “Jesus Loves Me”, “Doxology”, “Gloria Patri”, and “This Little Light of Mine”. We had been learning about all the components of worship for several weeks, and the intent of our lesson this week was to put it all together and lead our own worship service.
The children did an incredible job leading their own worship service. We took the actual bulletin for the worship service that morning and they led all the parts of worship and explained what the purpose was for each part. We replaced the hymns in the bulletin with songs we knew (the ones listed above) and I attempted to play the piano for those songs. A few of the children were super impressed that I even knew how to play a piano and a few of the children groaned every time a made a mistake and played a wrong note (and I certainly did that a few times). By the end of our worship time, a few of the children decided they could have played the piano better than I had played it (even though some of them have never taken piano lessons). So, the children hatched a plan for them to host a worship service for their parents in the coming weeks. Instead of me playing the piano (or doing anything), THEY would do it all. It was very organic and quite awesome. I handed out all the sheet music to all the songs. Some of the children will lead one of the songs using their voice, some will use shaker eggs, some will use piano...everyone will do something.
I purposely didn’t rehearse those songs ahead of time because I wanted them to see how challenging and rewarding leading worship can be and I wanted them to see all the elements that go into it. I kept saying that worship didn’t have to be perfect, it just needed to praise God...in whatever way we know how. I love that my mistakes gave the children the confidence to say that not only can they lead an entire worship service, but they can lead the music part too! I can’t wait to see how this goes in a few weeks!
So, whatever your discipleship journey entails, don’t get hung up on perfection because that’s not what it’s about. Learn from these wise children and as you engage in worship or Sunday School or prayer or in serving others, aim for progress over perfection, peace over perfection, presence over perfection, authenticity over perfection, grace over perfection, intention over perfection, faith over perfection, praise over perfection, pretty much ANYTHING other than perfection.
I don’t believe God is interested in our perfection. I believe God wants to see our progress, peace, presence, authenticity, grace, intention, faith, and praise.
What do you believe?
