Excellence is Archaic and Over-rated

The idea that God demands our best, or excellence from us, has stuck like a splinter in my brain over the past few days. The statement struck me with the dissonance that “God likes the color blue” might bring. It left me wondering if it was true about God.

Excellence is archaic and over-rated. Good, better, best works well when shopping for tires at Walmart. Yet, evaluating our work, life, marriage, parenting or ministry in a similar comparative way might be problematic. It is too low and too precarious of a goal. Spending too much time weighing ourselves, or our product against the performance of others, or our past performance often leads to tug-or-war match between insecurity and pride (ref. 2 Cor 10:12, 17-18). Honors and accolades are cool, but they all provide an external target – being better than someone or something else.

So, we are left with finding a way to move that target inside - working not to be the best, but reaching toward a deeper goal. A comment about GE setting a business plan for closing up shop unless they can be the top #1, 2 or 3 leaders in a field. Checking around the current website, I didn't find their current leadership culture touting “be number one” slogans. Instead… innovation, quality, integrity, imagination. They are reaching far beyond the top end of the bell-curve by focusing on values and purpose.

I read on a recent church leadership blog that: “Many times in the marketplace the greatest credibility we can have with our friends and associates is provided through the fact we are really good at what we do, not necessarily that we are really nice or helpful or polite or kind.” I work for a quick service restaurant group. It is fun that our company and specific store sits at the top of some list. Certainly, no one hopes that that will change, but it does and will. We set goals and work hard. However, in the end, the mark and continued success of our vocation is built one face-to-face encounter at a time.

Embracing and expressing values like authenticity, honesty, determination, generosity, faithfulness and love will make an impact wherever you are “ranked” and will provide bedrock for the success that comes (and goes).

God likes values – justice, mercy, compassion, honesty, generosity, integrity... I’m not sure that God cares about excellence in the same way that we do.

Does God Demand Excellence From Us?

COLLIDE

Creating a Great Experience

Brad Lomenick - Originally posted Thursday, October 14, 2010 - Comments (15)

It’s important that we start and end with this: God demands excellence from us. And excellence is not about having more money, more staff, or more talent. Excellence is a choice. It’s setting a standard and living up to it. And our Creator wants a level of creativity in our churches and in our programs that is at the highest level. We are commanded and required to deliver.

Brad Lomenick is the Director of Catalyst, a movement of young leaders. Keep up with him at www.bradlomenick.com.

Ugh... I was loving this article until this closing paragraph. It has me think about whether God indeed demands excellence from us and what that means. My thoughts have lingered around Galatians... "For freedom Christ has set us free..."(Gal 5:1).

I think offering the utmost of our skill and creative beauty to God as an act of worship is pretty cool. Let's definitely set our sights high. However, I am a bit cautious about claiming that God demands that we set excellence as our goal. Especially, figuring that excellence can be fairly subjective.

Beth Moore, at Passion 2010, shared a story about a young Special Olympian, who after running his race came in dead last, but in the end he won the gold medal. It turns out he was the only participant that stayed in his own lane. True excellence can be tricky and I think the point of Beth's story was to just get out there and run our own race the best that we can.

I think that this is why James wrote about true religion being marked by caring for widows and orphans. Also, why Jesus, not so gently, steers some folks struggling with "right church practice" toward justice and mercy in Matthew 23:23. Running with Christ as the goal rather than excellence.

Reading some of the posts here and replying to your questions about setting our sights low, there is a danger in viewing this conversation through a monochromatic lens - for vs. against, Spirit vs. show, excellent vs. crappy...

I lean towards a vision and values approach that is contextual, rooted in grace and motivated by love for God and the people we are serving. Again, I really resonate with Brad and get to enjoy some of that production skill from both sides of the platform. I think God deserves my best, but I don't think God demands it. The latter subtly crafts an image of God that may be skewed.