Excellence

While watching TV today, a NewBalance commercial came on, in which at the end, a slogan popped up.  A slogan that fits the shoe company, but would better fit the Church.

"Let's make excellent happen."

Claiming a striving for excellence is not something uncommon in churches.  But making it happen is something that happens a little less often.  Why? Because its hard.  Excellence doesn't happen by accident, or by just thinking of a great "big picture" idea with no idea of how to get to it.  Excellence happens by practice, strategy, and people that share a vision for excellence in the church.

"So why should a church seek excellence?" you may be asking yourself.  "Church isn't a production."  Correct.  But it is a service designed to worship our God.   The God who created everything around us.  So right off the bat- have you ever seen a tree designed to be held together with duct tape?  Probably not.  God is not a god of "well, it will work for now."  God is a god of perfection.  of excellence.

A worship service is not a production in the same way a play is.  But, it is a production.  Something is being produced.  Do you want lost people visiting your church to come in and see a poorly structured and horribly planned service put on in honor of the King of kings?  It will reflect poorly on you and your church, and more importantly, it will reflect poorly on God.  

The reason I believe the church should adopt the phrase excellence rather than perfection- is because churches have different resources.  Excellence, to me, means using what you have in the best possible way.  Capstone does not have a multi-million dollar budget, so we make the best out of what we have.  

There is a difference between 'limited resources' and 'lazy'.

Excellence can be portrayed in many, many ways.  Some churches are traditional, and portray excellence through it.  Other churches are modern and contemporary, and portray it with excellence.

When you are planning your services, stage design, set list, even sermon, announcement slides, and bulletins- think about what will make God look best, not what is easiest and most efficient.

Maybe you are a portable church, or use a portable projector.  Start setting it up 15 minutes before normal and make sure the screen is focused, level, and straight.

Maybe you are making a video for your church- take the time to write out a script idea, even if it isn't a word by word thing.  Take time in editing to make sure everything flows smoothly.  

When I made a video for Capstone about the 10 Commandments, entitled Perfect, I didn't proof as closely as I should and realized after it aired that I had left out "Do Not Murder" on one of the graphics.  Did the average person notice it? Maybe not.  But I did. And I should have checked it before hand.  It was a good video, but it was not a video of excellence because of minute errors.  Little things like that can make a huge difference.

Let's make excellence happen.  Let's create worship services for God that not only we can proud of, but our Lord can be proud of.