Serving Together with Humble Excellence
by Kyle Edwards
On April 29, my dad stood up from his chair and immediately collapsed to the ground due to cardiac arrest. My mom called 911 and performed chest compressions as she waited for the paramedics. Her heroic actions saved his life, but unfortunately, he was never able to recover. He spent the next 37 days in the ICU, with me, my mom, and my brother taking turns sitting at his bedside. He died on June 5 with us all by his side.
In those weeks, as he was dying, and in the weeks after he died, I had time to think, evaluate, and dream. I thought about my ministry commitments and priorities and the future of the church that I pastor on the northside of Chicago in the post-COVID world. My dad's death probably prompted this evaluation, as losing him made me take stock of myself and my calling.
As I think about my hope for the future of my own church and the church around the world, the phrase humble excellence captures my desire for every ministry, every event, every Sunday service, and each part of the Sunday services. At the risk of being overly ambitious, I would include as well the particular callings of every Christian. Many ministries and events await the end of the pandemic to really put this into practice; if your ministry or area of focus is on hold at the moment, you can think of this in future terms. For others, your ministry goes on, albeit with severe restrictions. Whatever the case, let's be excellent in everything we do, and let's be humble in everything we do.
I'll start with excellence. The seed of this idea was what a tweet from Karen Swallow Prior, a writer and English professor I greatly respect, said. I can't remember her exact words, but essentially she advocated for excellence over results. I resonated with that comment. A results mindset can be something I fight constantly in my own heart. I need to know the numbers—attendance, giving, rate of growth over the last quarter, and so forth—and that need can be crushing. On the other hand, I have a tendency to lose focus on some ministries within my church and thus quench their potential for excellence. It's a helpful corrective for my own ministry to replace a results mindset with an excellence mindset. Results, of course, can be a consequence of excellence (or the lack of excellence), and in reality, we might not need to choose between excellence and results. However, the driving motivational question should not be "How can I make this bigger?" but "How can I make this excellent?"
So why should we be excellent in absolutely everything?
Excellence honors God. A few Scriptures come to mind. In Genesis 1, God repeatedly pronounces his creation "good." He is a God of excellence. In Exodus 35–36, God is very concerned that the tabernacle and all its furnishings should be constructed with skill, so he appoints Bezalel, a particularly skillful craftsman, to lead the work. I also think about Paul's exhortation in Philippians 4:8 to give attention to "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, [or] if there is anything worthy of praise." When we work and minister skillfully and excellently, we bring glory to the one who commends excellence.
Excellence helps people. I'll use my preaching as an example. God can, of course, use even very weak preaching (and often does in my case) to build up the church, but generally speaking, it's true that a better sermon (more diligence in preparation, more devotion to prayer) is more helpful to people than a sloppy, poorly prepared, poorly delivered sermon. I think that's true for everything we do—signage, website, musical performance, everything. The more excellent we are, the more we can help people.
Excellence is missionally attractive. Attractive can be a loaded term, since in some contexts, the full truth of the gospel has been diluted to make the church more attractive to outsiders. However, the New Testament assumes that outsiders will be coming to church services and that what they experience should have them in mind so as they can understand and believe (1 Cor. 14:23–25). Moreover, the gospel itself will already be a stumbling block and an aroma of death to some people. To focus on the missional attractiveness of excellence means that it's only the gospel that turns some people away.
Let me use an example that to my knowledge has never happened. Imagine if a new family came to church with their kids, and they discovered a dirty nursery with inattentive nursery workers. Would they come back? Probably not. If they have a great experience with childcare, they still might not like what they hear from the Bible, but that's up to the Holy Spirit. So let's welcome them with a clean and excellently run nursery (and excellence in everything else) instead of creating a stumbling block when there doesn't need to be one.
So let's be excellent in everything we do, but let's also be humble at the same time. There are three ways humility should operate:
Humility means not patting ourselves on the back for excellence. We will never have ourselves to congratulate for anything we do, "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). Our most excellent work is performed under the sustaining and merciful hand of God. We celebrate him, not ourselves.
Let's be humble in recognizing our limitations. Our work towards excellence in particular areas might be hampered or slowed by restrictions and difficulties that are entirely beyond our control. There are limits to our time, resources, and energy. COVID itself is a major limitation that affects so much of what we can do. Humility recognizes these currently unchangeable realities and looks to God's help to work faithfully and excellently, even if it's in smaller ways than we might otherwise wish.
Let's have humility to say, when necessary, "I need help." There might be times when what's slowing our growth in excellence isn't so much external restrictions but our own ignorance or confusion. We might say, "I want to be excellent in what God has called me to do, but right now, I'm not sure what excellence looks like," or "I know what excellence looks like, but I'm not sure how to get there." In these cases, it is right and humble to say to God and each other, "I need help getting there."
So where does this take us? The first step is to think about the day to day work that you do and the ministries you lead or are involved in and to do an honest evaluation of it. Are there ways it can grow in excellence? Second, what are the concrete steps you need to take to move in the direction of greater excellence? Third, how can we, as a church, empower and support you in your work? Reach out to me, another pastor, or other person of influence in your life with particular needs you might have so that you can receive all the assistance and encouragement you need for the work God has called you to.
"Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Cor. 15:58). Whether or not we serve in the same ministries, congregation, or church, know that we serve the same God, and it is a pleasure to serve in the gospel with you. Let’s serve together with humble excellence.
Kyle Edwards is the Lead Pastor of Holy Trinity Church North Side, where he has served for six years. He lives on the northwest side of Chicago with his wife Toria, their three sons, a dog, and a cat.