Of Innocence and Ignorance

The cacophony ended and the four young men sighed in ignorant bliss.  I said “Well, let’s pray and then start again.”  I had taped the mock 'performance'; I knew.

The leader stood up and prayed, “Oh Lord, thank you for this group and for the opportunities you are giving us to reach the world for you.  Thank you for this awesome sound and for the parts each of us brings to the mic.”  I felt the pain that would follow.  I was embarrassed for the coming minutes, but I knew, as the arrogant excited prayer went on, what had to happen.  When the young men resounded with confident “Amen”s at the end of that ridiculous prayer I keyed up the tape.

The four of them sat in stunned amazement at the discord and foolish showmanship without skill.  At the end of the recording they sat with averted stares and heads down.  Finally one young man stood up, looked at the ceiling and without making eye contact, said “We have a lot of work to do.”

I had been assigned the task of bringing some music to a youth meeting and so I had pulled together this inexperienced quartet of teenage guys who had little training, but good potential.  I chose a popular contemporary Christian song that would be hard to mess up and we practiced well before presenting it to the group.  They were nervous and humble; they did a very good job and received a good amount of praise which they were, at first, convinced was undeserved.  Then they got the call.

The invite to do a half hour program at a slightly larger gathering was eagerly accepted by the ‘leader’ without any consultation or advice.  By the time he came to me, they already had the program worked out, including several little speeches and several rock star showmanship moments, and several challenging vocal pieces.  They were ready to take their place in the sun.  They were already playing with a stage name for their ‘group’ and marketing techniques.  I had a job ahead of me.

For a week, I worked with the individuals on parts and voice quality.  They really didn’t take it very seriously.  They were each more concerned with how they would strut on stage and how they would ‘handle’ their mic.  And to top it off, the lead time was not really what I could have desired.  And so we met early that Saturday to go over the program.  While their antics were humorous, I knew the humor would not extend into any performance, so I suggested we do a serious run through of the program start to finish and tape it so we could see how it flowed.  It didn't.

The result was sobering and the next week consisted of some pretty intense practice.  In the end, they discarded the marketing strategies and the stage antics and ended up doing a pretty good job.  They did parts of it for our church and were duly appreciated.  But the inflated egos from the first performance were excluded in their loss of innocence.  Life happened and the ‘group’ broke apart in various cycles of teenage drama, though they did remain friends.

There is a precious, humorous innocence that covers the beginning of about any new venture.  Unsure we work and worry and trust and extend.  We pray because we understand how badly we need it.  Our insecurities drive our humility and faith.  All the hard work pays us dividends of praise and encouragement and we begin to think ourselves to possess a certain invulnerability.  I’ve seen it play out many times.  We become rock stars.  We get market fever.   Pride goes before a fall.  After the fall, we summon our courage, examine our direction and pick ourselves back up having lost the pure innocence of our beginning, but becoming more fitted for true service.