I have a theory about old sayings. My theory is this, “old sayings that still hold true, do so because human nature hasn’t changed much for thousands of years”.
Because of the consistency of human nature, the old saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is still applicable today.
kind of
It has a grain of truth.
As we humans age, we accumulate experiences. Some experiences are from success, others are from mistakes, others are benign. To those people whose experience is dominated by successes, there is a danger in thinking “I was a success then, I will be a success now” while not making any fundamental changes or at least entertaining the thought of them. Sometimes this works, other times not so much.
I think the combination of experience based on success and pride is at the heart of “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”.
Why all this talk about experience, learning and tricks? I’ve heard from several worship leaders recently that is more important to them that someone on their team is teachable and a team player than someone skillful and hard to work with.
Being teachable means being humble enough to take positive criticism objectively rather than subjectively.
So while I agree there is a grain of truth to the old saying about old dogs, I would modify it as follows:
“you can’t teach a dog who doesn’t want to learn new tricks”
So let’s all (myself included) strive to be teachable on our Worship Teams.
