As I look towards launching a new campus, opening a new building and starting a service on Thursday night, I’m being challenged to train new leaders. Here are 5 principles I want them to know before we ever talk equipment or technology.
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Fresh on the heels of my last post about the importance of excellence, I want to consider some of the downsides of chasing perfection. Here’s what happens when perfection becomes the end and not the means.
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So here’s the deal, I want our worship services to be excellent. Shocking right? Every cue should be on time, every light should be the right intensity and every video should impact the gathered crowd. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to this.
I doubt this surprises anyone that knows or works with me.
But I don’t seek excellence as a value in itself. I seek excellence because of what it means. [EDIT: I'm defining excellence as "doing the best you can with what you have."] Here’s what happens when you’re excellent:
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So I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately and I’m not really sure why that is. Perhaps it’s the holidays or perhaps it’s because the 5-year anniversary of his death is approaching. For whatever reason, it’s been on my mind a lot lately.
It hasn’t been so much him, as what I’ve learned from the experience of suddenly losing a father. It hasn’t been easy, but God has taught me more than a little from it. So over the next few days or weeks I’ll be posting a little bit about that experience.
I figured I’d start with the most important part – what I’ve learned.
1. God can do anything. Seriously. Anything. And I don’t mean that He can come wreck your life by taking away a parent. I mean that He can enter your heart and take away pain. Anyone can take a life (unfortunately). He’s the only one I know that can literally take away pain. And let me be very clear, God did not take my dad. Death is a result of sin in the world…this was not God’s initial plan for our existence. But for some reason, God entered the world again, gave us a path to redemption, and then left us His Spirit – the Comforter. Now that’s a God worth serving.
2. It matters when you pray for people. I had very little to do with overcoming the pain of losing my dad at 22. God had everything to do with it. And God acts when people pray. We see it all the time in the Bible. God wants us to go places with Him. We do that through prayer. Sometimes prayers don’t get direct answers…but trust me, it matters when you prayer for someone.
3. You never know how much time you have. My dad passed away suddenly (more on that later) and not from an accident or anything. You’re never guaranteed tomorrow, or this afternoon for that matter. It makes me think about my priorities. I have career ambitions. I’m driven to be the best. But the day I die, I don’t think I’ll be concerned with status. I’ll want to know that the next generation (my kids) knew they were loved and are taking up the mantle (so to speak). Not that my kids have to be technical directors (or even in ministry) but my hope is that I’ll know that they love Jesus and are actively loving others by serving them. I’ll want to know that I spent enough time with them. I knew that about my dad. I want my kids to know the same.
And that’s it for now, because I have a toddler who’s begging me to play ‘Bone’ on the Wii. We need to work on enunciation…