Excellence

Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker. He’s a student of our shifting culture, and he’s an astute observer of organizations. In his book Linchpin he asks a question that I summarize this way: “Who are we organizing ourselves around – the average or the excellent?”

Just a couple weeks ago on this blog we reposted an article by Bishop Mike Rinehart of the ELCA. He directly addressed the question of who churches are organizing themselves around – the insiders or the outsiders. It’s a great question, and critical to our vitality. I encourage you to read the article if you haven’t already.

I think the second half of Godin’s question deserves a look, too. Are we organizing ourselves around the average or the excellent? This is tricky for the church. Our measuring rods aren’t the same ones used by secular culture, or by business. It’s not all numbers and profit. Unlike in business, church is not about competition, or outdoing someone else for our advantage.

But excellence honors God, honors the gifts God has placed within us, individually and in community. We are called to offer the best of what we have, to serve with our own excellence, because we are grateful to God for it. We’re not competing with each other; my excellence can compliment yours.

Excellence does not equal perfection or grandeur. Excellence can be humble. But it is always care-filled and intentional. We often know it when we see it. We can feel it. We know when people are “phoning it in,” and we know when they’re bringing their best.

Too often in the church we settle for average, for getting by, for good enough, when instead we could care enough to provide excellence – or we could stop doing that thing and doing something different with excellence instead. We ought to call forth excellence from our people, because there is great joy in offering God the best we have, and in seeing how that matters to people who encounter it.

Greg