I had a coupla thoughts as I stood and talked to people at the end of our Hope in a House of Blues series Sunday, and a stranger gave me the gift of encouragement.
A man told me he had attended the first and last weeks of HOB. He drove three hours from near Blacksburg VA to come the first week, because he is a Mike Farris fan and learned of Mike's visit to Lake Forest through a concert website. Then he told me, 'We drove three hours again to worship with you today, so I could bring my son and show him what excellence looks like in a church. Thank you for the hard work, preparation, thought, and prayer that clearly goes into everything you do here at Lake Forest. We were each edified by the worship and teaching this morning. He has never seen this kind of attention to quality and care, and is tempted to give up on church.' Tears sprang to my eyes and I did not know what to say, except 'you're welcome, and thank you for taking a moment to encourage me and our leadership- I will pass it along.'
I'm just like you. I'm hyper-aware of how far my personal and work life fall short of mine and others' aspirations for each. Often. So the occasional glimpse of something done well is a gift. That is why God calls us to encourage one another - which stimulates us further to love and good deeds.
So I pondered the man from Virginia's comment as I went to say goodbye to our guest blues guitarist. We hosted more national blues artists this year than ever for HOB. Mike Farris and Larry Mccray are seriously the Shakira or Lil' Wayne of their genres (hmm, bet they've never suffered those comparisons before). Both of these world-class blues rockers simply LOVED playing with Kyle, our band, and vocalists. They were struck by the environment, and our worship tech supported them wholeheartedly and skillfully.
Having just been complemented on our 'excellence,' I walked into the worship center and thanked God out loud for the excellence of our building, our worship, our leaders - symbolized by the worship team that day. Kyle has led them to be so excellent at what they do, that national talent enjoyed playing with them, even learned and joined in on our stuff. And they were able to do their own music at the same level of excellence they expect in large concert venues with their full-time professional bands and techs.
Here's why this matters so much to me. For our blues-guest Larry last Sunday, as far as I could tell, all this meant that a person of high excellence in his profession, who had 'given up on church but not on God' actually darkened the door of a church because of the excellence in it that he related to. And Larry had a good experience, maybe even a God-experience. Perhaps you've had that experience when an unchurched friend attended worship with you.
In a church, excellence honors God and reaches people. Traditional church, rock n roll church, polka church. Whatever your calling, do it with excellence. If you're a hippie/gen x-y-z church that values extreme informality and intentional shabby-chic imperfections, then do THAT with excellence (hmmm, how would you know if you were excellently shabby?). In each case, unchurched people of that subculture will be reached. Do it poorly, half-way, 'just good enough,' and only the committed saints will give it the time of day. Why God uses excellence this way, I'm not sure (it would over-lengthen this blog to speculate). But its a fact that he does.
"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:17 This is a verse we began citing in the early years of Lake Forest Church. It meant to us that if we do 'whatever we do' at Lake Forest in the name of Jesus, as an expression of thanks to God, that would mean we would do our ministry aspiring toward excellence. And holding one another accountable for that as leaders.
Oh come on. If you know me at all, you know I'm not talking about perfection, not slick over-produced performance. To protect against excellence leading into a performance mentality at Lake Forest, that means we always keep some sort of rawness or spontaneity in the mix, among other things. It also means we don't measure excellence against others. We measure it according to available resources, stage of life of our organization, and the unique vision and calling of, in our case, this particular church. For instance, in our early days as a church in the skating rink, I remember Sundays when I was the full extent of our percussion and rhythm section. Most of you would not have visited our church a second time back in those days, but we were attempting excellence with who we had at hand. Mitch White still likes to call me 'bongo boy' on occasion. I don't think he means it as a compliment. Another example - many other churches would not call our shabby-chic concrete floors 'excellent.' We call them 'most excellent.'
That's my take on the excellence principle and how it applies specifically to my life's work, and the work of the leadership team and all leaders of ministry at Lake Forest Church. How does this apply to personal life? Be careful, this principle could be twisted into one more reason to feel like a failure before God, and discount the sufficiency of Christ for you, since I can quickly make a list of all the things in my life that are not 'excellent.' Instead, allow it to be a spur to know ever more clearly the few, very few, things you care about most and are decent at (raising kids, cutting a deal, generosity, protesting an injustice, etc.). For the sake of glorifying God, and others being encouraged and even affected: Keep kicking your own butt to do those very few things well, in this manner:
"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:17
mike, thanks for these thoughts. excellence and perfection are two very different things - and God is well aware of the difference. thanks for being a friend, a mentor and a brother as we seek to honor God with all we have each day! you guys rock!
Posted by: Jeff Gardner | November 05, 2009 at 01:59 PM