Why We Want to Pursue Excellence
I always found it a bit funny that much of boot camp involved cleaning. Cleaning toilets, cleaning rifles, cleaning the corners of the squad bay. All this cleaning was in preparation for a weekly inspection. No one joins the military because they want to get better at cleaning, yet there is something about learning to clean well that prepares one for service in combat. It’s probably the conscientiousness and attention to detail; on the battlefield, something little like forgetting your tourniquet can mean the difference between life and death.
This year at JVC we want to commit ourselves to excellence in all we do, particularly in the little things like responding to scheduling requests, showing up on time for volunteering, and paying attention to other details.
These aren’t the most important things in the church, but they can have a big impact; conscientiousness in the details can make a big impression. Pursuing excellence, I believe, will help us reach more non-believers in this valley.
Back in October the elders gathered to think, pray, and plan for the future at JVC. We couldn’t do that without first acknowledging and giving thanks for all the ways God has blessed and provided for our church. As I often say, I feel privileged to be your pastor.
As we talked we gave thanks for the people who have come to faith at JVC, but realized there are still so many people in our community who don’t know the grace of Christ. We believe JVC is a great church for people to experience the love of Jesus, in particular because of the love you all show to everyone who walks through our doors.
One theme that emerged in our discussions was a desire to grow in excellence in everything we do. In part this is because we worship a God who is excellent. We want to take everything we do seriously as a reflection of how seriously we take God.
We want to pursue excellence because of the visitor—particularly the visitor who has never walked into a Christian church before. For that person, little things communicate a lot. Trash on the church grounds communicates something to the person walking into the church for the first time. When someone opens the door and welcomes them with a bulletin, it tells them we’re glad to have visitors. Microphones that are turned off and on at the correct times communicate something about our attention to detail. Having someone at the kid’s check-in booth when a new family arrives ten minutes early shows that we were expecting them.
I’m not as worried about the longtime churchgoer who has moved to our area and is looking for a church to attend, but I deeply care about the first impression we make on the person who spent six weeks working up the courage to come to our church in person. Every little detail will communicate something to them.
This commitment to excellence is something that we cannot do without your commitment. Over the coming months we are going to be talking about ways you can help. Things like showing up on time for your volunteer commitments, knowing the job description, and keeping an eye out for the visitor are all ways you can help present a positive first impression for the people who are really nervous about walking into a Christian church.
I don’t want you to think that we are forgetting God in all this, that if we just do everything well enough, people will come to Christ. Nothing can be further from the truth; in the end no one will come to faith unless God does a supernatural work in their heart. I take great comfort in knowing that if God draws someone to himself, I can’t mess it up with my incompetence. But at the same time this doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. I think it’s easy to over spiritualize things like this as well, by squeezing some verse in to show why we shouldn’t let trash accumulate in our parking lot; but I do think mentioning 1 Corinthians 10:31 is appropriate, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” In the ways you serve, are you in it for God’s glory? That attitude will change how we approach everything we do in church–even the little things can (and should!) be done for God’s glory.
I’m excited for the future of JVC and believe we will see many good things in the coming years. But I also know that we won’t get there unless we are committed to serving the church for God’s glory, wanting to honor him in what we do, even in the details.
I hope this gets you thinking about how you can better pursue excellence at JVC. In the coming months we’ll talk about specific ways you can join us in pursuing excellence for the glory of God.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon