4,000 Hours

Today St. Louis Christian College will hold its graduation ceremony. I’m especially excited because this year we have five Worship & Music students who are graduating. I have seen these guys (and gal) go from being freshmen who didn’t know much about worship leading (and sometimes aren’t aware of it) to men and women ready for the challenges life has in store for them. I’m so happy for them, but I’m also surprised at how melancholy I feel about it since I have been especially close to this group of students.

There’s really no way to measure or quantify the influence you have on someone’s life, but just for kicks, I wanted to estimate the number of hours I’ve spent with these guys since their freshmen year. This is not only face-to-face time in class, but also time spent doing homework for my classes, in several semesters of guitar lessons (which most of them have taken), worship teams, serving in Chapel in one form or another, advising appointments, conversations, and whatever else may have come up where they have either spent time with me, or have done something I’ve asked them to do. The best estimate I can come up with is somewhere around 4,000 hours, including all five students.

4,000 hours. That’s an awful lot of time. That represents 167 straight days, or around 2 years of 8-hour workdays. It’s incredibly humbling to think these students have opened their lives to my teaching and influence for that amount of time.

SLCC is a small school; there are other school with graduation ceremonies this month that would dwarf ours. But when you look at the numbers, even at a small school like ours, one single teacher, over time, has enormous potential to influence someone’s life. This fact drives me to my knees, seeking God’s wisdom in how I can become a better teacher and lead our program more effectively.

But guess what? You don’t have to be a teacher or have a title to influence someone. The fact is, you’re probably already doing it and don’t even know it. We all influence others, every day. The issue is what we do with that influence. And for those of us who lead, teach or spend intensive amounts of time with people helping them become better Christian leaders, 4,000 hours is a big deal. Perhaps this is why James 3.1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

So, congrats guys (and gal), you made it through! I’ve done my best to point you in the right direction. Now go change the world!

Questions: Who has God put in your path to influence, teach or lead? (This could be formal or informal; the best teaching doesn’t usually happen in a classroom.) What is one concrete step you can take right now to improve yourself so that you can better influence others?