Excellence

Posted by Scott McClellan on March 30th, 2009 at 8:36 am

I’m beginning to wonder if excellence is positioned to become (or has already become) an idol for the 21st-century American church. What begins as a noble pursuit can quickly take the form of the siren’s song, seducing us, beckoning us to steer the ship into the rocks.

Remember a few things:

  • You can impress people with artistically and technically excellent services (at least, in the short term) but you can’t impress God.
  • You can dazzle people into following you and giving you their money, but you can’t dazzle people into the kingdom of God. And even if you could, Jesus didn’t try.
  • The apostle Paul made it clear that any of the excellent things a person might do (speak in the tongues of angels, for instance) were just noise without love.

Maybe the problem is the way we define excellence in terms of production. Excellence doesn’t equal more. Sometimes the most excellent thing you can do in your service is to do less. Strip down the band, leave the screens blank, and save the laser-light show for another time. How excellent would it be if you did that and God showed up? In other words, excellence and taking it up a notch should not be considered synonymous.

If excellence is the ladder you’re climbing, enjoy the journey. Don’t be surprised, however, if you get to the top and find that your ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. Obviously I’m not advocating that we do things poorly or half-heartedly, but I am advocating that we have a different goal in mind.

The kingdom, love, worship, redemption–these things are worth pursuing, and they’re often messy. On top of that, they usually have more to do with the activity of God than our best efforts.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 8:36 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

6 Responses to “Excellence”

I was thinking some of the same things just last week, specifically that if excellence becomes the goal, when is it excellent enough to remove the obstacles to seeing Jesus, and when is excellence actually producing obstacles (both in the experience of it, and in the fact that it’s draining resources from other activities.) It’s a great line of thinking …

posted at 9:27 am on March 30th, 2009 by Nick Charalambous

I agree but wrestle with this thought… IF you are the person/people creating the media, it is very possible that your goal is to worship the Lord with all that you have. While many may see it as a show, others view it as an enormous amount of work that goes into glorifying a God that is worth the effort. Only the Lord knows the heart of the team creating the experience. Obviously there is a problem when they are surfing the net stressed about what other churches are doing and how they can keep up. But what about the team that is naturally gifted and compelled to worship with those talents? It would be a shame if they were not doing what they were gifted to do. Regardless, switching it up and stripping the production down on occasion is highly recommended for the sake of variety.

posted at 10:13 am on March 30th, 2009 by Barton Damer

I’ve been thinking along these lines, too. Sometimes I have to snap myself out of it and remember what I’m doing and why (and for WHO).

Hey, might make a good mag theme!

posted at 11:32 am on March 30th, 2009 by Danielle Hartland

Scott,
Right on. One of the main problems I see occuring in the local church, in regards to excellence, is a result of high turnover. When you spend a lot of time at a trade, or a lifestyle, or a position… you get to learn many things that mold you into “mature”. Mature people know when to push and pull and how to “dance” with all the tools they have. Excellence is as much the “dance” as anything. Most churches have “newer” people at “artistic positions” (I’m quoting in order to hold certain terms loosely) and those people usually go to conferences to learn the newest most “excellent” way to do things. Can you imagine if other trades operated like this? It would be annoying and chaos. We wouldn’t trust anyone to do a “professional job”. Churches and Christians need to learn to “stay” and work hard and get some years under their belt before they can become excellent. Better yet, before they even know what it is.

posted at 1:37 pm on March 30th, 2009 by Charlie Matz

I get what you’re saying, and agree that the “product” isn’t always right, but I still see in a majority of churches, especially in my own tradition, the tendency to do less than excellent because “it’s just the church.” We can build it out of cheap paneling, print in plain black and white, and leave the instruments out of tune. It is just church afterall – why not save money? So I’m hoping people read your article to keep the balance, but that the idea of excellence continues to grow too.

posted at 2:05 pm on March 30th, 2009 by Brandon Cox

All good points, Brandon. Perhaps what I’m advocating is an awareness of the difference between creative/technical/artistic excellence and communicative/spiritual excellence.

In other words, let’s pursue excellence in communicating the gospel first. Sometimes, that will mean something super-artsy. Other times, that’ll mean getting out of the way. Effective communication, not award-winning excellence, becomes the goal.

posted at 12:18 pm on March 31st, 2009 by Scott McClellan

Church Media Group, Inc.