Practice makes perfect. At least that's the rule of success I always heard growing up. if you practice hard enough, you can do practically anything. Of course, as we grow older, we realize that this rule of thumb is only partially true. Practice makes perfect, but perfect also relies heavily on a person's inherent talent and ability. Those who truly rise through the ranks of excellence, those who excel in their fields, they are the most gifted, the brightest, the strongest, the fastest, the most skilled . . . Or are they?
Why 10,000 hours? Who knows. But the point Gladwell makes is that when we examine the steps that a person takes to be world-class at anything, innate talent is far less important than the number of hours one logged in practice time to get to that place. Take Bill Gates for example. Here's the story of the super-nerd, Harvard drop-out, who was so brilliant he launched his own software company and became the richest man on the face of the earth. But most people don't hear the part of Gates' story that explains how he became so adept at his craft. When Bill Gates was an 8th grader in 1968, you would often find him tucked away in the computer lab of his Seattle private school, programming software on his school's mainframe computer. No surprise there. But do you know how many American High Schools had a computer in 1968? One. Bill Gates' school. And Gates took full advantage. He spent close to 8 hours a day, 7 days a week in that computer lab.
By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, he was an expert in his field. He'd spent seven years logging way, way more than 10,000 hours of computer programming time, and there was virtually no one on the planet to compete with his level of excellence. Compare Bill Gates' story to the Hockey playeres from our last post, or even the Beatles (they had a very serendipitous run in the early sixties where they had the opportunity to play an astonishing 1200 performances at a Hamburg, Germany nightclub), many of our most highly touted experts have had extraordinary opportunities to spend an extraordinary amount of time becoming experts in their craft.
So let me turn the corner on this chapter and talk about the 10,000 hour rule and how it relates to ministry. One thing I love to talk about in churches are Spiritual Gifts . . . those divinely distributed abilities that God has given believers for the purpose of building his church. I think it can be very helpful for people to become aware of God's gifts for them and how he has made them unique.
However, I sometimes feel we underemphasize the fact that spiritual gifts while given to us, also develop and grow with experience and practice. I have a gift of teaching and creative communication. If one were to go back and listen to the first sermon I ever preached, one might say I was a wishful thinker, but certainly not a teacher. If somebody forced me to pin down a spiritual gift for the rest of my life, I might have avoided "teaching" like the plague. Luckily, after my first sermon I had plenty of people who encouraged me, helped me, and continued to give me opportunities to grow as a preacher. In fact as a seminary student, I had the extraordinary opportunity at a small Baptist church to preach 4-6 times a year in front of the church. I spent 4 years at that church as a college pastor, so by the time the senior pastor there moved on to another calling, I had become a seasoned enough preacher that the leadership of that church asked me to fill in the pulpit until they found a replacement. So then, I had the opportunity to preach every Sunday for over a year! I don't think I've reached 10,000 hours, but I have certainly gained a level of ability in teaching that I would never have seen had it not been for the unique opportunities I had at First Baptist, Golden.
What may not seem like a gift at one time may turn out to be a person's greatest strength with practice. Of course, part of determining spiritual giftedness is a person's desire. But I fear when we determine our Spiritual Gifts too quickly and lock ourselves in too narrow of a path, we may never have the opportunities to develop areas of giftedness that are alittle more hidden.
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