Daniel Darnell talks about how scripture commands us to pursue excellence. Everything about the process of leading worship for the church should be done excellently.
Here are some of the main points:
Why do we pursue excellence?
We know that God is the excellent one, and the most obvious answer is scripture, because scripture says so. So that’s the first point. Why do we pursue excellence? Well, because scripture says so.
“Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.”
I think that’s pretty plain and simple. When we are pursuing excellence in the work of our hands and what we’re doing, we’re doing it heartily with excellence for the Lord and not for man. We want to pursue excellence in what we’re doing and how we’re leading ultimately for God’s glory and for his praise.
“Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works (excellence) and in your teaching showing integrity and dignity.”
So we want to be models of excellence and models of good works. Those are just a few of the scriptures. There are a lot more in scripture that command us to pursue excellence.
Another really great example is the book of Exodus. There are five chapters, chapter 35-39, that talk about the building of the tabernacle. Really it just talks about the careful detail that God is asking and has described for this tabernacle to be built, and how he is looking for skilled men and women to adorn it, to build it, to design it. He’s very, very detailed in the amount of excellence and work to be done in the tabernacle.
And so, we too, we want to be excellent in our heart and our mind and our spirit as we lead people in worship, as we prepare set lists, as we prepare environments, as we lead our teams. We want to pursue excellence because scripture says so.
