Excellence

I have come to admire excellence almost above all. Excellence in almost anything, though I will admit excellence in illegal pursuits seems a waste to me. I find that people who work with excellence in mind, or live or love with excellence in mind, have a drive and zest for life that attracts and motivates me. It is like the moth to the flame thing, I just think I want that!

In preparation for leadership training at my church I have been thinking about churches that are growing and doing well, and those who are not. I know that God does what God does but it seems to me we do our part best when we work with excellence towards a goal. I can see where hard work and striving towards getting the details right can be negative when it done to extremes, but I have never seen mediocrity produce fruit. At best it can maintain, but to see real growth there needs to be some excellence present somewhere. I am eager to see more excellence in my own work, church, denomination and church universal.

I have heard lots of moaning and groaning about numbers and the lack of growth in the mainline denominations and there is much to moan and groan over. I just wonder when the light bulb goes off and we realize that the biggest issue we have to resolve is why we ever thought that promoting and keeping the lowest possible standards would ever result in anything else. I am not talking about moral issues, as long as we have people we will have moral issues. I don't really think I am talking about keeping a list and checking it twice kind of thing. I am talking about planning and dreaming and working with the objective at the end to have done something worth doing. To say, it wasn't perfect but it was good and I am satisfied we have done our best. What is it we are saving our best for anyway?

I heard a sermon series on the parables in Matthew and I was struck by the one on the talents. First, I guess I had no idea what exactly we were talking about in terms of dollar amounts and I was stunned by the figures when talent was translated to dollar. Once I got that I realized that in the parable Jesus is indicating the even the servant who was left one talent was left a lot of money. A huge risk for the master to leave that much money with his servants. I think about that for us, not in terms of dollars though that analogy still works, but in terms of giftedness and I think, we have been given vast riches. My church is busting out at the seams with leaders and speakers and teachers and musicians and athletes and artists. So much talent! Surely we can, with excellence in mind, produce a harvest that will double what we have been 'left with'. We are seeking to double our attendance for Pentecost this year, the birth of the church. It is my hope that we will see the same outpouring of the Spirit and God will grow us. I don't think that happens in a mediocre lets not rock the boat kind of approach to ministry. I don't know that God can't, I just wonder if He does.

I will admit to being a little driven. I am sure this is both a strength and a weakness and I rotate between celebrating victory and grieving defeat. I don't know that I will achieve excellence but I intend to go down fighting. One day, at the celebration following my graduation from this life into the real one, I hope there will be a footprint left, a person or two who's walk with God was aided by one of the goofy things I tried to do with excellence. I would like to stand at my Masters side as he sees what I have done with my gifts and tells me, well done good and faithful servant, come and share your Master's happiness.