Instruments of Worship

Teaching That Looks Different Than the World | Ep. 25

• Casey Rinkenberger • Season 2 • Episode 25

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Today’s episode is going to piggy back off of last week’s episode called, “'Sneaky Jesus' in the Classroom with Dr. Kelly Hollingsworth."  If you haven’t listened to that one, I would highly encourage you to listen to it!  Briefly in my discussion with Dr. Hollingsworth, we talked about how as music teachers who are Christians, our teaching will be and should be different from the world.  Today we take a deeper looking into that topic.  What does that mean?  What is Truth that can inform how we interface and invest in our students? How do you speak truth to them as their teacher, but in a loving way?  We will discuss these questions and so much more in today's episode.  If you do ANY sort of private teaching, you will leave encouraged and more equipped after listening to this episode! 


Discussion Questions - Try discussing with a friend or in our Facebook Discussion Group

  • How can our teaching look different from the world?
  • What does “Let your love be sincere” mean to you in your teaching?  How can you show love to your students?
  • How do we see the love of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7?  How can this impact how you love your students?
  • What are some ways that you have found that help to build relationships with students?
  • Are there ways that you like to make your lessons fun for your students?
  • Do you think you have to sacrifice high expectations for your students for the sake of relationships or vice versa?  How might we value and implement both?
  • What does a student learn in music lessons outside of how to play their instrument?
  • What Truth helps fill your cup so you are ready to pour into your students?
  • What do you want your legacy as a teacher to be?
  • Do you think your students know that you’re a Christian?



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SPEAKER_00:

Hi friends, my name is Casey Rinkenberger and I am so excited to welcome you to the Instruments of Worship podcast. This is a podcast dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to lift high the name of Jesus with their instruments, but also their lives. If you think you know someone who might be encouraged by this podcast, please send it to them and make sure to download, follow, and subscribe wherever you are listening. And we are just going to go ahead and jump right in into today's episode. Well, hi, everybody. I hope you are having a great Monday or whatever day you are listening to this episode. Today is going to be a little bit of a piggyback off of last week's episode called Sneaky Jesus in the Classroom with Dr. Kelly Hollingsworth. If you haven't listened to that episode, I would highly encourage you to listen to it because Dr. Hollingsworth has just a lot of experience and therefore has a lot of wisdom when it comes to teaching. But she is also someone who is just so sold out for the Lord and and using her teaching as a ministry. Anyways, briefly in last week's episode, we talked about how as music teachers who are Christians, naturally our teaching will be and should be different from the world. And I just thought it would be helpful to maybe dive deeper into that topic today. What does that practically look like and how might the Bible inform our thinking on this topic? Now, since we're talking about the topic of teaching, We're gonna already have some presuppositions going into this episode. We're gonna assume that there is already just a high level of knowledge about your instrument that is being passed down to the student in your teaching, that there is excellent technical, musical instruction going on, and just a level of expertise and wisdom about X, Y, Z. I'm not gonna really be talking about technically how to teach your instrument because, quite frankly, we all teach different instruments and we're all gonna teach slightly different ways. and that's just not the point of the episode. Instead, we're gonna be diving into more of how we can just interface with our students, how we treat them, how we interact with them, how that is what will look different between teaching from someone whose Lord is Jesus and someone who is worshiping something or someone else. We may teach same techniques and how we introduce an instrument or how we teach spiccato or something might be similar to someone who wouldn't claim Jesus as Lord but how we might interact with them, our heart behind our teaching, will likely be vastly different. So starting in Romans 12, 1, this verse is one of our kind of theme verses, I would say, for the podcast, but I'm going to read verse 1 and verse 2 this time. It says, Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but So as classical musicians, we all know that no matter how good someone may be or whether they really love teaching or not, it is very likely that teaching is going to be a part of your musical career, whether that's at a full-time capacity or a part-time capacity. It's something that we really can't get around. It's kind of unavoidable as a musician in this day and age. Not everybody is going to make a living through performance. So teaching is a really good source of income. So when it talks about offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God, it's saying that in whatever you do, and today we're going to be talking about teaching. That's what we do. So whatever you do and being a teacher, if teaching is what you do, it can be a sacrifice to God and it can be worship to him. It directly tells us that in whatever it is that you doing, which is teaching for us, that it shouldn't be conformed to the pattern of this world, that it shouldn't look like the world. It will look different. So instead, as we grow closer to the Lord, our teaching is going to be growing and changing. It will be transforming to look more like God wants it to look like, not necessarily what the world does or what we want. So it's just bringing us back to our teaching is going to look different. But how necessarily? So here are some example, some Bible verses that might help us as our teaching evolves from what we want into what God wants. Later on in chapter 12 that we just read, we've just read verses 1 and 2, but now it gives us examples of what that looks practically after that. So in verses 9 and 10 of Romans 12, it says, love must be sincere, hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourselves. So one way our teaching can look different from the world is by loving our students and i don't mean just a pretend love for 30 or 45 minutes in the lesson but what i love so much about this verse is that it says love that is sincere so i looked up a definition of sincere just on the web and it says free from pretense which would be false claims or deceit proceeding from genuine feelings So this is not just thinking of your students or your lessons as a way to make money. It's not just thinking 30 or 45 minutes of their day that you could have been doing something else, but thinking of your students as a real person that you get to show Jesus's love to. Now, Jesus is obviously the best example of sincere love. And of course, even specifically for children and children of all ages, we're probably going to teach children that could be fostering Could be even smaller than that, depending on how comfortable you feel teaching littles. But it could go through high school. Maybe eventually you'll be a college teacher. I don't know. But that all would kind of be under the umbrella of still not quite into the adult phase or just beginning the adult phase. So thinking of children, Mark 10, 13 through 14 says people were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. But the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was. So it's no secret that Jesus loves children. He loves everyone, but I think he has a soft spot in his heart for children. And you have to know the love of Jesus yourself before you can love others like Jesus did or with the love of Jesus. So may we look to him to be our example in what sincere love of our Next in that verse, it says, We want to point towards what is right, what is correct, and away from sin. We don't want to encourage that in our studio or in our lessons. And then it just says, be devoted to one another in love. I feel like this is talking about not a fair weather love. When it says devoted, it means when students are hard to love, maybe they have a bad attitude coming to a lesson or maybe they have a rough season of lessons where it's hard to get through. But we are charged to stick with it, to push through even when they're hard to love. We still do it anyways. We're going to be devoted to that. I think this is a really cool picture of the gospel, the good news that God didn't leave us in our sin. He sent Jesus and he saved us. God doesn't only love us when we're easy to love. He loves us at all times. His love is perfect. So I'm so thankful for that. And I want the love that I give to my students to emulate that. The next verses I want to share with you describe God's perfect love for us and the type of love that we can hope to have with our students. And that's 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7. A lot of times this is brought up at weddings and things like that. But I also think that it describes God's perfect love and how we can emulate that in really any of our relationships. So it says, love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. So first, when it says love is patient, clearly there are days in teaching when students may test our patience, but we have to stick in there with patience because love is shown through patience. Also says love is kind. We can ask ourselves, are we kind in how we speak to our students? Are we kind to want to get to know them, ask them about themselves and their lives? It says love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others, and it is not self-seeking. I think this could be potentially a big one for classical musician teachers. Sometimes we can take pride in how well our students do. Are they first chair in orchestra? Do they get into XYZ school? Is it a really good school, very rigorous school? Or do they get to play that solo? And so it's just asking ourselves, do you take pride in these things too? That because they're your students and you're their teacher, you help them get there and accomplish this. Do you take pride in it? Do you boast in your head that they accomplished so much because of you? Or do you compare your students with other people's students or other more ones of your students this can just be a whole trap that I think we could fall into that would be very much of the world of comparing and wanting to be better than it's all self-seeking and it's definitely not loving the next part says love is love is not easily angered and this is another big one when it comes to the teaching realm are you easily angered when your student maybe doesn't catch on quickly are you easily angered when they maybe don't Don't live up to their potential. You want so much good for them, but they're maybe just not there. Does that anger you? Are you easily angered when they come to their lesson less than prepared? Are you easily angered when they have a bad attitude? These can all be traps that we might fall in. And I just want to share a story. I've had a student before who made her anger abundantly clear when she came to her first lesson. She did not want to be there, but her dad wanted her in lessons, and so here we were. For several week she came in all just in a fury because she didn't want to be there and at first my reaction was a little bit of anger at her disrespect towards me and quite frankly just like her rudeness about the situation but every time she came I just tried my best to love her even still and eventually her heart did soften and we had a great relationship and even got up to two very pleasant lessons a week and so I just that is one that I can always look back on and say even though your student might be angry or might be treating you in a way that you don't appreciate this is how you can be set apart as a Christian of how do you respond to those sorts of situations is it with love is it seeing it as a ministry opportunity or will you just do what your flesh wants to do and just rival back evil for evil and that sort of thing the last part says love keeps no record of wrongs so no matter what you might face from a student. No matter what they might throw at you or how they may legitimately wrong you, you can still choose how you will respond. Will you keep no record of wrong? Will you recognize the higher calling of ministry that is going on even before teaching them a musical instrument? Will you forgive them? I think I could tell you how most teachers would answer those questions but how about you? How about us as Christian classical musician teachers? The last verse I want to share is Ephesians 4, 32. It says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. So we have the ability to forgive our students because we have been forgiven so great a debt and that is our sin. So no matter the quantity or the types of grievances from our students that we are faced with to forgive in a day, we have a never ending flow of forgiveness covering us. And so we can share this And in a little bit of a way, I hope that they know that forgiveness is available to them for all of their sins through the blood of Jesus. So practically, this is hard to boil down and I tried my best and I would love to know what you guys think. But practically, how can we love our students? How can we build relationships with them to point them towards Jesus? So the first thing I thought of and is probably pretty natural to a lot of us, but is take advantage of the beginning of your lessons when they're unpacking or maybe packing up at the end of the lesson. Just take that time to really hear from them. Ask them questions about their week, their life. their families things they enjoy or other interests they have about outside of music other things that they might be involved in and then just really listen when they have something to say because then if you do you've really absorbed it and then you can remember and follow up then the next week or in a couple weeks so things like hey how was that vacation you went on or that trip over the weekend or didn't you go with your friend here how was that or how was this Spanish test that you were nervous about how is color guard all that sort of stuff. Another thing I would encourage is maybe find common ground with them, even if it's outside of the music world and maybe especially if it's outside of the music world to have other topics talked about besides just only music. I feel it can be a really good way to build bridges with students. Yes, I'm their music teacher and I love music and I want them to love the violin, but realizing that everybody may not be the same, wired the same way I am. And so accepting them the way that they are and the God's given them. So find common ground with them, things that maybe you enjoy that they enjoy, or even if you don't think it's the coolest thing in the world, maybe try to understand where they're coming from. Try to get to know it a little better. I know that I always feel loved when people take a vested interest in the things that I'm involved in or the things that I enjoy, even if they don't really particularly have like an interest in that themselves, or maybe they grow one over time. That always is just like so meaningful to me. Another way is just like make it fun. You can do random practice challenges. I know that I did that last November and there were prizes or I have my brag cards that also have prizes, you know, if they earn so many and maybe even doing games and lessons, especially with the younger ones. Those are great ways to make relationships with your students in the midst of being their teacher and helping them grow. I've learned from teachers in my past that I've had that I just want to be a teacher that students want to please and want to make proud, not a teacher that they're maybe scared of. When you have relationships with your students, they will be able to trust you and feel safe around you and even have the freedom to make mistakes. I remember growing up, I used to think that a good or a great lesson was one where I really didn't make any mistakes or very few mistakes. That's what I was considering a great lesson or not was not whether I grew or like have a better musical understanding, but I was just like, okay, can I play it without mistakes? If so, perfect. That's a good lesson. That's a great lesson. I'm doing good. That's how I gauged my growth. And I just think a lot of us would disagree with that, that so much of the life and joy of music is just suffocated when the fear of failure or the fear of mistakes is looming inside. And we as teachers have such an incredible amount of impact for good or for harm when it comes to this topic. Teachers can really make you feel stressed about making mistakes, and that's That's all you worry about. Or I know my teacher at Baylor really helped me to think on this. She didn't bat an eye at a one-off mistake in my lesson. And I probably felt worse about it than she did if I made just like a random silly mistake. She made sure that I always knew that a perfect performance doesn't mean it's a successful performance. And actually, most successful performances aren't perfect. And all of this and talking about it together and living it out in real time in our lessons gave me the confidence to just play freely in my lessons but then also in my performances just in general my playing style became so much more musical and mistakes that are patterns are a whole other topic of course as teachers we have the responsibility to step in and help with those but not in a demeaning way but just in a helpful way right so there's a big difference between mistakes that are patterns that keep happening but if it's a one-off mistake sometimes if we get really dug in and frustrated with those it's just not beneficial and it kind of hurts your relationship and also just the musical process I would say I just know from my experience with my teachers I want to be a teacher who when my students leave my lessons they are encouraged not with false flattery but just with a renewed sense that I can do this I've just learned a lot I'm going to implement this week and it's going to be it's going to be good I never want a student to dread coming to lessons and part of that again is just if you have a relationship a pre-existing relationship with them then i think they will look forward to it and will look forward to spending time with you going over this music getting better and hopefully having a lot of fun making great music all of this to say i don't want somebody listening to get the wrong idea that oh you know you're a christian teacher are your lessons just a free-for-all you know no by by no means. That's not what I'm advocating for at all. Being a Christian and being a teacher still means the same, like amazing quality instruction, lots of hard work going on, all the boundaries set in place that are good and healthy, but just with a loving and a Christ-like heart behind it. So when it comes to practice, of course, that's still an expectation. If a student doesn't practice and they're not doing what you ask of them, you're not a miracle worker. And 30 to 45 minutes with you once a week is not going to make them better. You can do what you can to encourage them towards diligence, but at the end of the day, there's only so much you can do and that's not on you. I've had students before where their parents just think that because they're in lessons, they're already going the extra mile and practice just really isn't even on their radar and maybe we've all been there. These situations can certainly be frustrating and maybe there will be a day when it's not worth your time or the parents' money, but Thank you. while they're under your musical care, you're their teacher, we still choose how we respond to these situations and seek to love them while they're with us, while they're our student. And of course, we have boundaries that students need to stay within. And I think we all know that kids feel safe within boundaries, that if we are left to ourselves, that if we are left to our flesh, if we leave our students to their flesh, that's not necessarily good and right, that we want to set up boundaries for their betterment. Sometimes I'll have to remind students to look me in the eye so that I know that they're listening to me. Sometimes I'll just gently take their bows away if I'm talking because it's become a distraction and they can't stop playing while I'm trying to talk to them. I've even had to set the boundary of no cussing in my home things or no negatively talking about parents for, you know, some of the older ones. There are still, of course, good and right boundaries and you as the teacher get to set those. And then lastly, of course, I expectations with my students are still very very high they're not gonna pass a piece until i think that they're ready or they have a product that they can really be proud of none of what i've said today is to imply that you need to lower your expectations as a teacher at all we all have a responsibility to instruct challenge and speak truth to our students it would just be for a christian as ephesians 4 15 says speak the truth in love so of course it's not love to not share the truth and that's your job as a teacher but you speak the truth in love out of love so like what kind of tone do you use when you're instructing them how do you ask or suggest for them to try something different is it in a demanding way a prideful way or is it an encouraging way are your instruction and your encouragement intermixed or is instruction the only thing that's really there and very little encouragement or maybe the opposite maybe it's all encouragement and no instruction. And that's not really truth-filled either. So just some things to think about that. Of course, speak the truth in love. Don't lie to your students. There's still progress to be made and we are responsible to instruct, grow, challenge, stretch them in their music because we're their music teacher. But it's all still out of a heart of love and cultivating those relationships that music isn't the one thing that we're striving for. I see it as a ministry opportunity and an opportunity to make great music together. So a few reminders of things that I've just learned that I've talked with a lot of people older than me who just would maybe say similar things. First being that not every student wants to be the next Mozart or Yo-Yo Ma, whoever you want to think of. And I think just as classical musicians, again, we want them to love it like we love it. And that's good. But sometimes we need to be humble and accept that every student may not have the goal of going to college for music. And in sometimes there's just a little bit of a settling that has to happen in me to say I can make it what they want it to be and keep their music lessons in a bigger picture of their lives of the world all those sorts of things legitimately lots of music students have a lot of other things going on and vying for their time and whether you believe that's beneficial or not that's the reality and you have to be able to live with that but also speaking of big picture bigger picture they are learning so much more than just music music. Even if music doesn't come very naturally to them, you have to move very slowly through things. The time still invested in their lives is still so valuable. They learn so much, and I'm going to try to describe it all, but there's still so much more. They learn perseverance, grit, determination when they have to work through difficult techniques or practice on days where they really, really don't feel like it. They learn to do hard things, even scary things as they get used to performing. They hopefully learn to listen and apply instruction be respectful to their teachers good listeners and then when they get into maybe an orchestra or chamber group setting they learn to work together with other students and then they get maybe a really good conductor in and they have to learn to submit to other people's musical interpretations when when they play under a new conductor but they also get to learn to be creative and have fun and realize that working hard is really fun in the end that you get to reap the rewards of working hard So even if they never do anything with playing music in their futures, you may have just opened their eyes to appreciating and loving music, though, in a way that they never would have before, which will build up a whole new generation of music lovers who will then go take their kids to the symphony or have them in lessons themselves. So I think all of those things are still really important for the music world's longevity and health as a whole. So whether you're teaching kids to play music, who will go on into music careers, great. But if not, you're still helping open people's eyes to the wonders of music, the gift of music, the gift from God of music. And so I hope that's just an encouragement to you that you can take a deep breath and accept students the way they are, even if they don't wanna do music for their career. And even if they're really busy and they don't practice a ton and it can be frustrating, there's still so much value in their lessons and having you as their teacher. Last reminder I want to share with you just kind of on top of this is that God is sovereign over who he brings into your studio. And it's not an accident. You know, parents will just text you out of the blue or get your name from somebody else and it feels like very random, but it really is not. It's all with purpose. And so take advantage of the time that you steward over your role of instructing them in their instrument and showing them Jesus in the meantime. Students will come and go and it's still all part of the Lord's perfect plan. plan so just be faithful with the time that he's given you with the students you have now he's going to use you in their lives if we let him if we give our lives as a living sacrifice in our teaching and that is just worship to him too so something I love that Dr. Hollingsworth said last week in the episode is just she described how teaching would be so draining if she was pouring into her students from an empty cup and it would honestly just be so impossible to do that as teachers we pour in to our students so so much that's literally our job and that's just why it's so important to be pouring from a full cup an eternal source of that love that we've been talking about of joy and hope that we want to share with our students and that all comes from Jesus so a couple thoughts on how we can pour into our students from a full cup and so of course first thing is going to be remain close to the source draw near to the Lord through his word through being involved in a local church where you're going to There are tons of verses that just in the Bible that talk about how we can depend on the Lord and how dependable he is, how he never leaves us, how we don't have to fear. Just so much truth that can pour into our lives that will then impact how we pour out into others in our spheres and then also of course just pray no prayer is too small for the Lord he promises he listens and that he cares so ask for strength if it's before a really long day of teaching and you're just like you have to be on all the time and you need strength and joy ask him for it at the beginning of the day but maybe also even between the quick changeovers of between lessons ask him for help loving these students especially Especially if they're ones that are difficult to love. Ask him for patience and new ideas how to inspire them. Breakthroughs in them. Understanding techniques for happy hearts for your students. Whatever you want, God wants to hear your heart and he wants you to depend on him through it. And prayer is just a great way for you to bring those things before him. Kind of as we wrap up today, one thought I want to bring up is just what do you want your legacy as a teacher to be? Do you want it to be one of Christ-like love and excellent instruction? one of relationship, encouragement, and hard work? Or do you want people to remember you as a harsh teacher, a very rigid teacher, one where there might have been some pride involved or it was always about perfectionism? What do you want your legacy to be? Because you are leaving one. My teacher, Patricia Shee, that I talk about all the time, talks so positively about her teacher, Joseph Gingold. She talked about him all the time. And I talk about her all the time because teachers have a big impact especially private teachers, as we are with them once a week for potentially many years, hopefully. And so it's just a question, would you be a teacher your students would share with their students positively about? Will your students remember your impact for a lifetime? With the help of the Holy Spirit, they just might. But what kind of legacy do you want to leave? And I think another question that comes up with that is, do your students even know that you're a Christian? And I know that this is sometimes a fine line to walk, especially if you're a teacher in a public school but I want to encourage all the teachers out there whether you're private or public especially if you're in a private setting because I think you have so much more freedom there that it is totally fine to tell your students that you'll be praying for their performance or for a hard thing they're going through or that's coming up like I don't know how somebody could be offended by that like how nice for an adult who really has no moral obligation like your parents do or what are your grandparents an adult outside of their family who wants to encourage them and support them and love them anyways who would go out of their way outside of their lesson time to even think of them much less like pray for them and it's totally fine as a teacher when you have students walking through performance anxiety or struggling with how do you get up and perform before these people that's a huge thing that they need guidance on and it's totally fine to tell them hey when I get nervous before concerts I pray and that really helps me feel calm or I remember that Jesus is always with me and that I'm not alone or that my worth is in Jesus not in how I perform whatever it is for you whatever truly encourages you and helps you with those things you can share that with your students that's totally fine I pray that as a community of Christian classical musicians we can take advantage of these opportunities to be vocal about our faith and again not let it be a secret identity to be bold and take a stand with jesus and not be ashamed of that even if it's not popular within our sphere according to my study bible by the time paul was writing romans he had already been imprisoned in philippi chased out of thessalonica smuggled out of berea laughed at in athens regarded as a fool in corinth and stoned in galatia and yet in romans 1 16 he writes for i am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of god that brings salvation to everyone who believes first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles. So it's because of the gospel that all those things that happened to Paul because he was preaching it. And yet he is still not ashamed of the gospel because it is how people receive salvation. And so may we be like Paul, unashamed to stand up for Jesus, even when we don't know how it will be received necessarily. If your students' parents don't like that you say those things, then they can always find another teacher. But you're in your home and you can say what you want But even so, even if parents aren't a huge fan of it, I think a lot of times if they know their son or daughter is getting just super stellar, awesome musical instruction, then they may kind of disregard it anyways. It may not be seem that big of a deal to them anymore. And so I would just encourage everyone again to take advantage of the opportunity. Remember, you are investing in these people's lives and you have the opportunity to show them Jesus through their lessons. Being a private teacher, like I said, you get to meet with these kids once a week, potentially for years of their life. Even if you're a public school teacher and you see your kids once a day, it still is not the same amount as a private teacher who will literally see them through potentially five years to like ready to go to college. And I saw that through my mom. Through her private teaching, she started kids when they might have been, you know, around five or so, and then would take them really all the way through high school sometimes. Maybe not everybody would last that long, but some of them would. And in that case, then you're walking with them weekly for 12 years of their life potentially. And let's break it down. There are 52 weeks in a year. And let's say you teach them like 45 of those weeks of the year with various breaks or absences or whatever. 45 lessons a year for 12 years will be 540 one-on-one lessons where you get to pour into that child. There's no other distractions. You're only thinking about their instrument and how you can build relationship with them. And from when they're itty bitty until they're ready to head off to college, you get to have a relationship with them week in and week out. I think that is so exciting. And when I left Baylor, you know, there was a lot of musical opportunity that I left. But something that really excited me too about coming back was that I could have the opportunity like I saw my mom have with students to pour into their lives for years at a time. Like for years that I would have the opportunity to walk alongside them whether they know Jesus or not you get to be as their teacher a steady presence in their lives and a person who always shows up ready to love them from when they're so little to potentially when they're adults and so I just think there's there's not that many people who could say the same legitimately it is such a special opportunity and I'm so thankful for that and I hope that we take advantage it makes me more conscious of now of thinking that through every single lesson can every single lesson be one that is lived on mission for the glory of God so that they would know the love of God and see that in our lives really to not waste any opportunity that we have with those kids to just invest in them the individual lessons might seem long sometimes I know it can be draining to be on to love to pour pour pour out but I think the years will feel so short in hindsight and it will be so rewarding to watch these kids grow up and know that you invested in their lives and showed them Christ's love. Alright, well that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me today. Please check out the description for discussion questions that you can reflect on by yourself or with a group. We actually have a Facebook page that you can join where we talk about these discussion questions. We answer them and we can encourage and equip one another as we walk this road of being a Christian in the classical music world. Please feel free to leave us a five-star review if you liked this episode and I will see you next Monday.