I was 12 years old, and it was my first time to serve as hymn pianist live in services. Our Worldwide Church of God (wcg) congregation had about 500 people, and my day was up. The song leader handed me the list of songs he intended to do. You should have seen his face when I handed him my list of hymns I actually knew—all 10 of them!
I had understood this might be uncomfortable and offered my protest: “Mom! I only know 10 hymns!” But she was adamant. The time to start was now—not 10 years down the road.
Strictly speaking, it would never become necessary for me to play hymns. For one thing, I attended services with my mom, who played all of the hymns herself. In my mind, we were swapping a competent pianist for an incompetent one.
But she was right, and the principle I was learning is found throughout the Bible: Everything starts small. Humanity began with one man. The Work of God had the smallest of beginnings. Jesus Christ compares the Kingdom itself to a mustard seed, “Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:32).
It’s easy to think that we will be more valuable later, that our skill set just doesn’t warrant our participation right now—to hang back and let older, more experienced people handle all the real work, even when you as a young person really could and should be serving now—especially in your homes.
Right now, you have the opportunity to get up next to your parents and watch how they do things, to see how your dad fixes the fence or how your mom bakes a cake. Then, having seen their expertise—having seen how mom and dad do things—put it into action! In my case, I scooted up next to my mom on the bench as she showed me how to write chord symbols into a hymn when I was 8 years old—a hymnal I still carry with those notes I made all those years ago.
These are vital training and preparation years that will affect what you do for the rest of your life. As any Herbert W. Armstrong College student can tell you, college can be busy. This was certainly true in my college as well, and I remember my surprise when my college piano teacher told me that I should determine what piano music I learned carefully because these were primarily the pieces I would be playing for the rest of my life.
At the time, I envisioned life being less hectic later—but he was absolutely right. There was far more time to learn new pieces of music in high school and college than after work, marriage and children took their rightful place in my life. The things I do today are based on the training that I received and implemented then. The things you will do for the rest of your life largely depend on what you do today.
Though we might have the thought that we will pick up some valuable skill later, the great athletes, the great musicians, the great writers—the people at the top of most professions—developed and honed those skills while they were still young—and so must you!
Don’t be discouraged by the reality that everything starts small. Zechariah 4:10 asks, “For who has despised the day of small things?” The Work of God started small too.
Mr. Armstrong wrote in a 1944 co-worker letter: “Unless a work, such as ours, started small, it is not of God. But the work which God uses us to start began as small as any work could possibly begin. There was no money—none! It started, with nothing but willing obedience to follow where God led, with abiding faith, and with hard work, in a little one-room country schoolhouse. … A few months later the radio phase of the work started on one of the smallest stations in the United States—only 100 watts—in one small community. But God blessed it from the start, and for nearly 11 years it has grown steadily, though through much opposition, with much persecution, encountering constant trial and test and difficulty which has been hurdled only by answered prayer by our God—it has grown to national scope. Hundreds have been converted—even atheists. Uncounted thousands have heard the truth and have been helped.”
And how much larger it became: The gospel went to every nation! Then, when the Philadelphia Church of God came on the scene, we again saw the smallest of beginnings with just 12 people—and some mocked the newly formed organization because it was small, calling it a “little fly-by-night peanut shell floating on a big ocean going nowhere, doing nothing.” No one is saying that about our global work now. But everything starts somewhere. The important thing is that you start and put in real, driving effort!
My first hymn service went just fine, as have hundreds of them since. I eventually recorded the piano parts for those hymn recordings you probably use in your local congregation. And I’m glad my mom made me start while I was young.
For more on the mustard seed beginnings of God’s Work, watch “The Mustard Seed” on the Trumpet Daily.