Home Worship Planning Music Resources The Opposite of Excellence

The Opposite of Excellence

EXCELLENCE -- highest or finest quality; superiority; exceptionally good; superb.

Who would not be pleased to have someone say of their music ministry, "It is excellent"? Or who would not like to be able to say about oneself, "I did an excellent job at that," or say to the choir or congregation, "That was truly excellent singing"?

In the church we like to say, "God deserves our very best. In all our worship and music, we must strive for excellence." It is a worthy goal. Unfortunately we don't always succeed. We come up short. We may even do poorly. We play wrong notes on the organ. Our voice breaks on the high note. We forget the words. We cue the choir a beat early or lose our place in the score. The sound system quits working in the middle of the sermon. The band just didn't get enough rehearsal time. The PowerPoint is always five seconds late with the next screen.

The result is certainly less than excellent. It may be bad, poor, ineffective, regrettable, inferior, mediocre, or dreadful. These qualities in worship and music, however, are not the biggest obstacles to excellence in worship. The bad and mediocre can be corrected, perhaps with rehearsal, new people, or some training or continuing education.

The real obstacle to excellence in worship and music is GOOD worship and music; that is, worship and music that manages to contribute to and support the congregation, but without calling attention to itself because of its inferiority or superiority. It is worship that is passable. It ALLOWS people to worship. It is music that DOESN'T GET IN THE WAY of worship. It HELPS people to worship in the sanctuary without any effect on their daily lives. It CONTRIBUTES to good feelings at church, but without the hassles of being transformed by the Spirit.

We used to have a saying in the Air Force -- "Good enough for government work" -- meaning that we could have done a job better, but for whatever reason we did not. It would pass. It was OK. What it really meant was that we were not held to a standard of excellence, and as individuals who were such unimportant and insignificant parts of so large a whole, it really wouldn't matter if our work was passable, mediocre, good, or excellent. No one noticed and no one really cared. There was no motivation for excellence.

May we never be found guilty of leading merely good worship. May we never limit our striving to the good. May we look, with St. Paul at the end of 1st Corinthians 12, for that more excellent way.

Questions:

  1. What is the difference between good and excellent worship?
  2. How do we lead our people to experience excellence in worship?

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