Yesterday I used a speech by the Dean of the College of Music at the University of Colorado as an illustration of an organization that was committed to making a difference outside itself. Not a “self-licking ice cream cone.” Please review if you missed that.

Yesterday I emphasized his point that they were providing services, i.e., music, to the campus, the local community, underserved areas of the state, and worldwide through their trained graduates.

Today I want to focus on that training.

We are dedicated to individualized and small group instruction. – Dr. Daniel Sher, Dean of the College of Music, University of Colorado, 2006.

To actually make music, to produce students who are “excellent”, there must be individualized and small group instruction. Having the students attend recitals put on by the faculty wouldn’t do anything. Faculty are committed not to exercising their gifts of music but to helping the students develop theirs.

And not just music majors. I talked with one student, a young man who had participated in the African Dance number. He was an anthropology major. Yet he was an equal contributor.

In the church, often the closest person to that ideal is the choir director who might have a fantastic singing voice but who is rarely heard singing himself. He gives his life not to exercising his gift to produce music but helping other people exercise their gifts to produce music. At the other end of that spectrum are the average adult Sunday School teachers. They are so busy exercising their gift of teaching that no development occurs in anyone else.

But Paul taught Timothy, recorded in 2 Timothy 2.2, that there are no permanent students. The students are to be taught in such a way that they “will also be qualified to teach others.”

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

I think the College of Music is an example of how that can be done. To paraphrase a metaphor I wrote about earlier about General Contractors versus Trade Schools, if our mission was making music, would the church be a concert hall or a music school? I believe music school is the right answer. But too many churches are, as David Platt wrote: “A performance at a place with programs put on by professionals.”

Jesus was about training and sending:

Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19, NKJV)

Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach… (Mark 3.14, NKJV)