Colossians 3:23-24 (CSB)
23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people,
24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.
Excellence, ah, the murky waters that many a church have waded in. It’s a word that not everyone is clear on what it means in relation to the church. To be honest, a lot of weird stuff has been done in the name of excellence and a lot of churches have used excellence as a smoke-screen to spend exorbitant amounts of money or to do things that are clearly off mission for the gospel.
Alternatively, some well-meaning church folk see ideas like excellence, structure, policies and organization as totally secular and completely unnecessary for church life and have refused to pursue anything related to this idea because they don’t see how the idea of excellence and the authority of the Bible could possibly agree.
The purpose of this article isn’t to break down those arguments, but instead to articulate what the idea of excellence should mean in a church and what it should look like.
Excellence is a characteristic that is taught in business schools, pursued in the corporate world and seen as an opportunity to edge out the competition. I drive a Toyota for just that reason! Yes, they are clearly the best!! If you disagree, you’re wrong, but that’s a conversation for another day. :) In my view, Toyota's pursuit of excellence has resulted in a car that lasts longer, has less repair needs and endures the less than stellar way I take care of an automobile!
But, for the Christian, we cannot pursue excellence to EDGE OUT THE COMPETITION! Our pursuit of excellence should have an entirely different motivation. As Andreas Kostenberger puts it, “The starting point for Christians, as well as the end goal, is God’s own glory and excellence, as believers seek to be effective and fruitful participants in what God is doing in the world today”. Later on he says “In all of our efforts, the glory of God should be our ultimate goal.”
At Fairview, I take excellence to mean both quality and focus. So, yes, we should be aiming for the highest quality all the time. The pastor I grew up with used to say “there’s first class and there’s no class”. I don’t know that I prescribe to this exactly, but we shouldn’t be content with settling, or with doing things the way they’ve always been done because that’s the way they’ve always been done - if that’s not the best we can do! Our goal should be to play the best music the people in our church family can possibly produce, provide the highest quality teaching to students that our body can provide. We must dedicate time, energy, and effort to planning, developing and delivering quality in everything we do as the church. We do this not to bring glory to ourselves, but to remove distractions so that glory and attention is given to Christ and the message of the Gospel. If we give our leftovers, it demonstrates to the world the low level of priority that we place on the Gospel.
Quality should be coupled with the idea of focus. The idea of focus I am referring to comes from the book “Simple Church” by Thom Rainer. In this book, Rainer teaches the idea of “saying no to almost everything”. At first glance, this might seem a bit harsh. But, the lesson here is really important. Each unique church, in each unique community has unique gifts and the pastors leading it should be prayerfully focused on a mission that can be accomplished by the church family.
As you know, I’m a bivocational pastor and I have the great privilege of serving in a world-class non-profit organization that supports public education across the country. We have conversations frequently about cautioning ourselves as an organization and as individuals from “mission drift”. This happens when we give our focus and attention to good ideas and good things, but take our attention from the main idea and the main thing. It’s not that that the good ideas don’t deserve attention, just that our organization doesn’t have the capacity to give them attention and we must remain laser focused on our mission so that we can accomplish the goal of providing at-risk students the college and career opportunities that they never thought was possible. So, I’d love to support other ideas that teachers have to help their students engage with the curriculum or to connect with the classroom. Many of them are great ideas, but I can’t allow myself to be distracted from the main idea, the mission!
This is what must happen in the church!
This is what must happen at Fairview!
We are a group of finite people with finite resources and we must remain laser focused on the main mission of the church.
Can I be honest for a minute? I recognize that sometimes people just don’t trust pastors. And, I recognize that sometimes people don’t agree with the decisions that pastors have made about what should be the MAIN focus and what shouldn’t. I get it. But, this is the structure that God the Father put into place and we all must do everything we can to honor that structure as we serve the bride of Christ, the church.
I’m not saying “don’t question the pastor” or “thou shalt obey thine pastor and whatever he sayeth shalt be thine guide”. Clearly, that’s crazy! Pastors don’t always get it right. But, I do know this. At Fairview, the pastors prayerfully consider each decision. And decisions are made with the church body in mind and after exhaustive discussions, research and consideration has been given to decisions – especially those that will have major impact on the church.
We have a lead pastor who takes VERY seriously his responsibility to be ON MISSION FOR JESUS. So, he prayerfully considers every decision. He thinks through every program, every ministry. And, if it’s not contributing to the mission, then maybe it’s time to restructure it or remove it. Not because he’s a brutal dictator, but because he recognizes that church isn’t about a social gathering on Sunday morning but is about the most important message this world has ever known and we must do everything we can to organize ourselves around the mission of getting the gospel into the community around us. I’ve served under a few pastors and I’ve known many more. We have an amazing pastor who isn’t anywhere near perfect, but is one who is trying everyday to love Jesus with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength and who dedicates all he has to the mission of the church. And, I love getting to serve alongside him as he leads the church, submitted always to Jesus. Ok, enough gushing.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, we are a finite group of people, we need to stay laser focused on the mission of the church and we must do everything we can to reach the community around us with the Gospel of Jesus. It’s also important to acknlowedge that the community around us continues to change, which requires us ALL to think differently, creatively, and to focus on the mission. So that we will be witnesses in our community, in our state, in our country and across the globe.
All of this is done NOT to proclaim the name of Fairview, the SBC or to edge out the church down the street. It’s done with excellence so that the name of Jesus might be glorified in everything we do, and on our knees begging the Holy Spirit to save some.
Until next time...
23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people,
24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.
Excellence, ah, the murky waters that many a church have waded in. It’s a word that not everyone is clear on what it means in relation to the church. To be honest, a lot of weird stuff has been done in the name of excellence and a lot of churches have used excellence as a smoke-screen to spend exorbitant amounts of money or to do things that are clearly off mission for the gospel.
Alternatively, some well-meaning church folk see ideas like excellence, structure, policies and organization as totally secular and completely unnecessary for church life and have refused to pursue anything related to this idea because they don’t see how the idea of excellence and the authority of the Bible could possibly agree.
The purpose of this article isn’t to break down those arguments, but instead to articulate what the idea of excellence should mean in a church and what it should look like.
Excellence is a characteristic that is taught in business schools, pursued in the corporate world and seen as an opportunity to edge out the competition. I drive a Toyota for just that reason! Yes, they are clearly the best!! If you disagree, you’re wrong, but that’s a conversation for another day. :) In my view, Toyota's pursuit of excellence has resulted in a car that lasts longer, has less repair needs and endures the less than stellar way I take care of an automobile!
But, for the Christian, we cannot pursue excellence to EDGE OUT THE COMPETITION! Our pursuit of excellence should have an entirely different motivation. As Andreas Kostenberger puts it, “The starting point for Christians, as well as the end goal, is God’s own glory and excellence, as believers seek to be effective and fruitful participants in what God is doing in the world today”. Later on he says “In all of our efforts, the glory of God should be our ultimate goal.”
At Fairview, I take excellence to mean both quality and focus. So, yes, we should be aiming for the highest quality all the time. The pastor I grew up with used to say “there’s first class and there’s no class”. I don’t know that I prescribe to this exactly, but we shouldn’t be content with settling, or with doing things the way they’ve always been done because that’s the way they’ve always been done - if that’s not the best we can do! Our goal should be to play the best music the people in our church family can possibly produce, provide the highest quality teaching to students that our body can provide. We must dedicate time, energy, and effort to planning, developing and delivering quality in everything we do as the church. We do this not to bring glory to ourselves, but to remove distractions so that glory and attention is given to Christ and the message of the Gospel. If we give our leftovers, it demonstrates to the world the low level of priority that we place on the Gospel.
Quality should be coupled with the idea of focus. The idea of focus I am referring to comes from the book “Simple Church” by Thom Rainer. In this book, Rainer teaches the idea of “saying no to almost everything”. At first glance, this might seem a bit harsh. But, the lesson here is really important. Each unique church, in each unique community has unique gifts and the pastors leading it should be prayerfully focused on a mission that can be accomplished by the church family.
As you know, I’m a bivocational pastor and I have the great privilege of serving in a world-class non-profit organization that supports public education across the country. We have conversations frequently about cautioning ourselves as an organization and as individuals from “mission drift”. This happens when we give our focus and attention to good ideas and good things, but take our attention from the main idea and the main thing. It’s not that that the good ideas don’t deserve attention, just that our organization doesn’t have the capacity to give them attention and we must remain laser focused on our mission so that we can accomplish the goal of providing at-risk students the college and career opportunities that they never thought was possible. So, I’d love to support other ideas that teachers have to help their students engage with the curriculum or to connect with the classroom. Many of them are great ideas, but I can’t allow myself to be distracted from the main idea, the mission!
This is what must happen in the church!
This is what must happen at Fairview!
We are a group of finite people with finite resources and we must remain laser focused on the main mission of the church.
Can I be honest for a minute? I recognize that sometimes people just don’t trust pastors. And, I recognize that sometimes people don’t agree with the decisions that pastors have made about what should be the MAIN focus and what shouldn’t. I get it. But, this is the structure that God the Father put into place and we all must do everything we can to honor that structure as we serve the bride of Christ, the church.
I’m not saying “don’t question the pastor” or “thou shalt obey thine pastor and whatever he sayeth shalt be thine guide”. Clearly, that’s crazy! Pastors don’t always get it right. But, I do know this. At Fairview, the pastors prayerfully consider each decision. And decisions are made with the church body in mind and after exhaustive discussions, research and consideration has been given to decisions – especially those that will have major impact on the church.
We have a lead pastor who takes VERY seriously his responsibility to be ON MISSION FOR JESUS. So, he prayerfully considers every decision. He thinks through every program, every ministry. And, if it’s not contributing to the mission, then maybe it’s time to restructure it or remove it. Not because he’s a brutal dictator, but because he recognizes that church isn’t about a social gathering on Sunday morning but is about the most important message this world has ever known and we must do everything we can to organize ourselves around the mission of getting the gospel into the community around us. I’ve served under a few pastors and I’ve known many more. We have an amazing pastor who isn’t anywhere near perfect, but is one who is trying everyday to love Jesus with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength and who dedicates all he has to the mission of the church. And, I love getting to serve alongside him as he leads the church, submitted always to Jesus. Ok, enough gushing.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, we are a finite group of people, we need to stay laser focused on the mission of the church and we must do everything we can to reach the community around us with the Gospel of Jesus. It’s also important to acknlowedge that the community around us continues to change, which requires us ALL to think differently, creatively, and to focus on the mission. So that we will be witnesses in our community, in our state, in our country and across the globe.
All of this is done NOT to proclaim the name of Fairview, the SBC or to edge out the church down the street. It’s done with excellence so that the name of Jesus might be glorified in everything we do, and on our knees begging the Holy Spirit to save some.
Until next time...
