Worship Wednesdays: In the Pursuit of Excellence

You will notice in the title of this article I said excellence not perfection. I think that is the first thing we need to remember when it comes to worship, we should never strive for perfection because we are never going to reach it. If we wait for everything we do to be perfect then we will do nothing. What we need to do is strive for excellence, that means we need to constantly strive to do our best. We should also be actively seeking to improve our talents and abilities in order to achieve even greater excellence. The flip side is that we can handle failures much easier if we know that we offered our best.


 We should never strive for perfection because we are never going to reach it.


As I have mentioned in earlier posts, God expects us to serve him with excellence. The bible is full of references to excellence.

1. God recognizes excellence in His creation (Gen 1)
   "...and God saw that it was good" (vss. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25)
   "God saw all that he made, and it was very good" (vs. 31).
   The New Living Translation renders it as "excellent in every way."
   
2. David's choir had a standard of excellence (1 Chron. 25:7).
   "All of them trained and skilled in music for the Lord - they numbered 288."
   
3. Skill (excellence) is commanded in music offered to the Lord (Ps. 33:3).
   "Sing to him a new song; play skillfully and shout for joy."
   
4. There is also a cost in the offerings presented to God (2 Sam. 24:4).
   "I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing."

The Application

If we don't give our people opportunity to grow they won't.


So what does all this mean when it comes to our worship? How do we offer God our very best? Well, I just so happen to have a few suggestions:

1. Music selected for worship should be excellent music. I know that is very subjective, but let me continue. First of all the lyrics should reflect sound theology and should be creatively constructed (i.e. free of cliché). The music itself should follow actual musical rules and should match the message of the lyrics. Chords and rhythmic patterns should fit with the melody. This leaves a lot of options to choose from, but overall there should be some conscious effort placed on the selection of music for worship.
   
2. Artists (i.e. musicians, dancers, actors) should be prepared for the presentations offered to God in corporate worship. Sloppy offerings should never make their way to the house of worship. This means very simply that artists should put in plenty of practice, I know many of us are amateurs and volunteers, but we are all called to serve God with excellence.
   
3. Leaders should train those entrusted to them. As a leader we need to give ample opportunities for those we lead to gain additional skills through practice and training. If we don't give our people opportunity to grow they won't.
   
4. This is not limited just to the Arts as all service is considered worship unto God. We should strive to give the best we can offer in all areas of ministry.