You would think that with all the technology available to us, all the systems that allow for cheap entry into different spaces, that excellence would be on the rise. But oddly enough, it seems the opposite is true. How many times have you gone to a restaurant that claims to be excellent at least according the to the prices they charge, and yet the food and service is barely mediocre? Mediocrity reigns in corporate board rooms, in church leadership, and in families. And we all suffer because of it.
I want to dare you to be excellent by giving you a workable definition. I think we’ve mistaken excellence for something unattainable, more like perfection than what might reside within the reach of the average man or woman.
You can define excellence this way, and it’s achievable to anyone who wants it. Here it is. Excellence is doing the best I can with what I have where I am in the time allotted. When I realized that, everything began to change.
Twenty years ago my family and I moved to Nashville to start a church directed toward people who didn’t want to go to church. No money, no support, a rented, run-down school building: not much about what we looked like or sounded like when we started was excellent.
As we began to persevere and grow, I realized that there were a lot of things that people would put up with if they knew and were convinced that we were doing the best we could do with what we had, where we were, in the time allotted. That definition makes excellence available to anyone who wants it badly enough.
At the end of the day, you won’t be remembered for how much you earned, or how much you bought, or how many people attended your church. You’ll be remembered by the quality of your life and the service you offered. Let it be excellence and nothing less.