Spirit of Excellence (Part 1)

Spirit of Excellence (Part 1)

Why is it that we as the body of Christ have come to accept sub standard forms of quality and call it good? I'm afraid with this blog post I may be walking on egg shells and it could very well be that I have a spirit of pride that must be broken - please feel free to admonish me if this is the case. But I'm very passionate about this and keep examining my heart to be sure that I'm not just whining and complaining.

I am a 1999 graduate of Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, OK. They offer a two year program in biblical studies. While attending I heard over and over again that we as Rhema graduates must have a Spirit of Excellence about us.

If we are representing Jesus to believers and non believers shouldn't we want to a have a Spirit of Excellence and desire to show the world the very best we have to offer through the talents and gifts that God has given us. We should especially want to offer the very best to non believers so that we may possibly persuade them to Christ. Most non believers have already formulated in their mind a stereotype when you say you're a Christian - most automatically think Ned Flanders and a sub standard version of everything.

I read this really interesting article today. A non believer had interviewed some Christian Comedians. It was actually a very enlightening article. One of the comedians the author interviewed mentioned that Chrisitianity has it's own version of Pop Culture which is so very true - tshirts, books, BRACELETS (remember WWJD), candy (Testa MINTS) - need i say more? Because it's the Christian version we buy it even though these businesses are using all of the same marketing ploys that secular businesses like Mattell and Disney are using. I mean honestly are you going to be more of a Christian and more spiritual because you eat Testa MINTS as opposed to eating Mentos. For every thing secular there is a Christian version. I'm not preaching against supporting businesses owned by believers. What I am saying is that perhaps because somebody brands something as Christian we should not automatically rush out and buy it. We seem to have personified things that cannot according to natural law have any spiritual qualities.

When I was in high school Christian bands were a dime a dozen - there were Christian punk bands, rap, rock, country, etc - however most of them were not any good. All of their songs sounded the same, there was no texture to their music and the lyrics were crap. However, I bought their albums because they were Christian and they were okay to listen to and somehow I felt really cool because I had a Christian version of what the world deemed as cool. Most of these bands ONLY labeled themselves as Christian because Christians are more forgiving and would give them a chance by listening to their music and giving them a venue to play in - even though it was complete crap.

Now, there is a lot of great, great Christian music out there - I absolutely love anything by Hillsongs or Passion - I feel both groups have a very high spirit of excellence about them - especially Hillsongs - you can hear this quality in the mix of all of their live albums. But, there are a lot of great secular albums that are mixed really well too. There are a lot of Awesome Christian songs and artists like Steven Curtis Chapman, Chris Tomlin, Rich Mullins, The Winans - but there are also a lot of great secular artists as well.

The body of Christ seems to have this attitude of "good enough" instead of asking ourselves how can we make this excellent? How can we make the mix of this song excellent so that even secular artists will listen and appreciate it for it's mastery? I mean, we serve the MASTER of all creation - God has made everything excellent. Let's show the world how EXCELLENT our God is - let's no longer settle for good enough.