Teachable

Andy introduced me a few years back to a guy named David Taylor, who was the Arts Pastor at Hope Chapel here in Austin. We have stayed abreast of what’s going on in David’s life mostly through a mutual friend and had heard that this summer was marking some major changes in his life—he is ending his season of service to Hope Chapel and, after taking 3 months off for sabbatical, he and his wife are moving to Europe for some more schooling. Anyway, today I stumbled across his blog and read the notes he posted from his “final” sermon at Hope (from June 1, 2008), the subject of which was “A Disciple of Jesus Is Mature and Fully Assured” (from Colossians 4:12).

The three disciplines he suggests mark a mature disciple are (if he had to narrow it down to just three):
1) A mature disciple is teachable—his whole life.
2) A mature disciple talks to Jesus—about everything, all the time, on all occasions, no matter how silly, embarrassing, difficult, or small it may be.
3) A mature disciple chooses a few people to be his kindred traveling companions.

As he expanded on each of those three disciplines, some of his thoughts on teachability stood out to me and I thought I’d share them here. (the following excerpt is from David’s website http://artspastor.blogspot.com/ )

“If I had to choose between the word ‘humility’ and ‘teachability’, I would choose teachable. It’s a vibrant, muscular word. To be teachable is not to have your act together all the time, but it is to have the grace to acknowledge simply, freely, graciously when you don’t. To be teachable is to be humble enough to say, whether at 15 or 65 years old, ‘You know what? I think I need some more counsel in my life.’ To be teachable is to be confident in who I am, but to recognize that I am still learning and am open to be surprised by God if He wants to do something new in me. To be teachable is to recognize that I can learn from any of the people God puts around me—even from the people that I don’t expect or want to learn from. To be teachable is to abandon your self-defense mechanisms in favor of an open, vulnerable posture from which you can really be loved and love the people around you.”

At the close of his sermon, he challenged the congregation with these questions, which I also thought useful to share:

1) Would you say you are teachable? Would the people around you say that about you?
2) Are you talking to Jesus about everything? Is there anything you’re afraid to talk to or ask Him about?
3) Who are your kindred traveling companions? Do they know they are your traveling companions? Do they feel invited as such?