Give God Good or Give God Excellence

Does excellence matter to God? Does God care about quality? Is He concerned with how well things are done? Does it make any difference to God whether: the instruments are in tune; the worship team has rehearsed the songs, etc.? Some would say, “no.” All God cares about is our hearts. It’s the thought that counts. God is not impressed with a slick program or flashy audio-visuals; what matters to Him are internal things like love, compassion, and humility.

And that’s right – partially. It’s also partially wrong. God doesn’t care about those things in and of themselves. God is primarily concerned with our hearts. But God does care about those things as an expression of our hearts. Because the way we serve God – in the church, in our communities, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our families – the way we live out our faith; the level of commitment we have to doing things well, to honoring God in every area of our lives – that reveals what is in our hearts. It’s not the things themselves God cares about. It’s what those things say about our hearts.

Bill Hybels, founder of Willow Creek Community Church, had this to say about excellence.

Good enough is just not good enough when it comes to honoring God through the Church. In response to his holiness and greatness, in gratitude for his monumental sacrifice for us, our attitude ought to be to pay tribute to him with the best we can offer. Not obsessive perfectionism, but an attitude of excellence that permeates all we do in the Church and in our personal lives. What we do as Christians reflects on the Christ we serve.

Personally I like that. Excellence’s goal is not obsessive perfectionism, it is simply saying God I want to give you my personal best. No it might not be as big as the persons behind you or in front of you but it is yours. Your talent, Your time, Your resource.

Park View Christian Church if each one of us had the attitude of excellence, I wonder how differently our worship experiences would look. As a church we can get there, as I have seen us make great steps in the past year.  We will continue to press into what God has called us to do, to be relevant to the community around us and through that pressing we will give God our best because He already gave His best to us.