When only the best will do

Former President Jimmy Carter was a Lieutenant in the Navy when he decided to apply to the nuclear submarine program. He was required to meet with Admiral Hyman Rickover who was in charge of that program. During the interview Carter was asked about his grades at the US Navy Academy. Carter proclaimed he was in the top 10 percent of his class. Rickover then asked Carter, "Did you do your best?" Carter truthfully answered no, to which Rickover responded "Why not?" and then turned back to his desk. The interview was over, and Carter, shaken, left the room. He was selected for the nuclear submarine program, but he never forgot that question and the impact it made on him. 

I doubt that few, if any, of us could truthfully say we've always done our best at anything. I can see many times in my own life when I've been satisfied to just complete the task. Forget about doing my best, I just want to get it over. Good enough is good enough.

The problem with that is that good is often the enemy of the best. We sometimes think that we have to choose between the good and the bad, but that's not the case. The real option is often between the good and the best. We settle for good when we should be striving for the best.

In what I consider the best leadership book, Good to Great, Jim Collins writes in the first chapter

We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely, because the vast majority become quite good - and that is their main problem.

In the margin beside that paragraph I wrote, "The same is true of churches." The vast majority of churches I've worked with over the years are satisfied with being good. They are content to offer the same ministries they've always offered without giving any thought about doing something different. Preparing the budget is easy because they only have to add a little to the line items to reflect projected utility increases and any increase in the pastor's salary. Little thought is often given to budgeting for new ministries that might reach new people. Most self-identified highly evangelistic churches do not reflect that mindset in their budget.

Most churches are satisfied with doing good things without ever reflecting on if they are doing the best things. Without a fresh, clear vision of God concerning their ministry, they have no way of identifying the best things they should be doing, and most churches lack such a vision. Without a roadmap taking the church to a new place, they remain content to repeat what they've done for the past few generations. As Dr. Phil might ask, "How's that working out for you?"

I do not challenge churches to be perfect, but to do their best. Do everything with excellence. If you want to do something, but it cannot be done at this time with excellence, then don't do it. The timing is not right. You cannot build a church on mediocrity. 1 Corinthians 10: 31 tells us, "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." God asks us for our best in all we do.

Let's refuse to settle for the good. Pursue the best in everything. Maybe, in an attempt to do everything with excellence, you will find you have to do fewer things. That's OK. Just do what you do with excellence. If you do, in time you will be able to do more.

Doing ministry with excellence

In some of the seminars I lead for church leaders I stress that smaller churches can often accomplish more by doing less. Sometimes smaller churches try to compete with larger churches by offering more ministries and programs than it can do well. It is far better to do a few things with excellence than a lot of things with mediocrity.

A good thing to do is to try to look at your church and its ministries through the eyes of a stranger. Some churches even hire "church shoppers" to do that for them. When we've been part of a church for a number of years we stop seeing the things that a new set of eyes would see. There was a time when the church nursery could be in the basement next to the furnace with a couple of teenage girls watching over the kids. New parents visiting a church for the first time are not going to find that acceptable today. There was a time when visitors to the church were asked to stand and introduce themselves. No one wants to do that today! I've been in churches where it took almost as long reading the announcements out of the bulletin than it took for the preacher to deliver his sermon.  Few people want to hear an announcement about an upcoming finance committee meeting.

People today have an expectation of excellence. They shop in stores that provide good value and a nice shopping experience. Most people would rather eat in a clean restaurant offering well prepared meals than to eat at the Road-Kill Grill. We want fast, reliable Internet service rather than the slow dial-up Internet we started with. When something goes wrong we want a quick response to our problem, and we want it fixed right the first time. That same expectation of excellence is carried over into our church experience as well.

How would outsiders rate the quality of your worship service? I realize that is pretty subjective, but there are some things you can measure. Are the people in your service engaged in worship or is there a sense of boredom and weariness? Do people rush out to their cars when the service ends or are groups of people standing around chatting after the service? Is there a warmth to your service? I've attended the First Church of the Refrigerator where there was a coldness felt throughout the worship service. Do things move along quickly? Our attention span decreases almost every year, and just like radio stations don't want dead-air time, our church services need to move along quickly.

As churches struggle financially one of the first things that often happens is that building maintenance and upkeep suffer. What do people see when they drive by your building? Is the yard kept mowed and the flower beds weeded? Do the windows and doors need a fresh coat of paint? How long has it been since the carpet was cleaned? Do the interior walls need a fresh coat of paint? If you're still using hymn books, what condition are they in? Are the bathrooms kept spotless and smelling good? Are there signs directing new people where they need to go? Do you have trained greeters at the entrances ready to welcome people as they enter? First impressions do matter, and they influence a person's entire worship experience.

Excellence is a mindset. Anything that a church is doing that is being done in a haphazard manner should be stopped. Either improve the way it is being offered or don't do it until improvements can be made. "Good enough" is not good enough for the Kingdom of God. I'm not talking here about perfection. We may not do some things perfectly, but they can still be done with excellence. Focusing on doing those things we can do with excellence will impact our ministries and make them much more effective.

Purple cow ministries

In 2002 Seth Godin published his best selling book, Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. This marketing book emphasized that to be successful it was important to stand out. When all the cows are brown it becomes pretty boring, and people stop noticing. However, if you have a purple cow in the field, people are going to stop and pay attention. In this classic book Godin linked success to doing things worth noticing.

Cal Newport has written a book titled So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love that I'm currently reading. In one chapter he writes about how one computer programmer took Godin's words to heart and looked for ways to stand out. As he sought to develop a program that would truly be remarkable he finally achieved it when he created an open-source artificial intelligence program that writes and plays its own dance music.

How does this thinking apply to ministries? Much of what churches do today often receives little notice. We tend to approach ministry much the same way we did in the past. We offer the same programs at the same times and in the same ways we did two, three, even five decades ago.

In one of my seminars I like to ask the attendees why would anyone want to attend your church? I then explain that where I live there is a Baptist church on every gravel road in the county. If every one of them sings three songs, has a couple of prayers, takes up an offering, has a sermon and an hour later sends everyone home inspired to eat lunch, what difference does it make which church you attend. These churches are like a herd of brown cows out in the field. People stopped paying attention to them a long time ago.

But, what if you drove past the field and saw a purple cow? You would probably stop, take a picture, and call your friends to come and look at this purple cow.

Churches become purple cows by offering purple cow ministries. They don't try to copy what every other church in the area is doing, and they don't try to do so many things that they cannot do with excellence. Note this well: Ministries done with excellence are purple cow ministries. These are the ones that will change people's lives and cause people to take notice of your church and what it's trying to do.

Maybe it's time to look at everything we're doing in the church and ask if it's a brown cow or a purple cow. When we begin to think of new ministries to launch or new approaches to old ministries let's stop and ask ourselves how we can make this a purple cow. Maybe it won't be a purple cow when we first launch it, but we should never stop tweaking it until it becomes one.

When Jesus was here on earth people could follow Him or reject Him, but they could not ignore Him. Among all the religious leaders living at the time He stood out as someone unique. When He finished the Sermon on the Mount we read that the people were astonished at His teaching because He taught as one having authority. The people were further amazed at the miracles He performed and the changed lives that resulted.

If you're tired of people ignoring your church, if you're tired of the ministries your church offers having such little impact, it's time to begin thinking  how to turn those ministries into purple cows. If you want people to be amazed at how people's lives are being changed as a result of your ministry then transform what you are doing into purple cow ministries. It's only when people are amazed at what you are doing will they begin to want to hear what you have to say, and when they hear the Gospel they will have the opportunity to respond to it and have their own lives changed.

Surplus churches

I just finished reading Boom! written by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg. The book addresses how to transform a business or other organization to lift it above the competition. Towards the end of the book they quote another book that discusses the problem we have living in a surplus society.  "The 'surplus society' has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality." They then ask the question, "What makes you unforgettable?"

Sometimes I will ask churches why anyone would want to attend their church. I'm not trying to be mean. I want to remind them that there are dozens of churches in every community that people can attend, so why should people choose their church?

If every church sings three songs, has a couple of prayers, takes up an offering, has a sermon, and sends everyone home inspired to eat lunch, what difference does it make which church a person attends? In the quote above change the word companies to churches and the statement still rings true. We have surplus churches, not because we have too many, but because the vast majority of them do nothing to make them different from dozens of others in the same community.

In one of the greatest leadership books I've ever read, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't, Jim Collins writes "We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good - and that is their main problem." In the margin next to that statement I wrote "The same is true of churches."

If your church is to make an impact it has to find ways to stand out from the rest. Get outside the ministry box and identify the needs of the people you are trying to serve and develop ministries that will actually meet their needs. Pursue excellence is all you do and refuse to settle for good enough. Stand for truth and practice grace. Determine that your church is going to be a world-changer. Open yourself up to the Spirit of God and invite Him to lead you in the vision God has for your church. Ignore those who say you can't, and follow the One who will make it possible.

We have an abundance of surplus churches. We need churches that will stand out and make a difference. Which church will you lead?

Excellence, not excuses

In my small church workshops I challenge the attendees to focus the ministries of their churches on one or two things they can do with excellence. Many smaller churches are trying to do too many things. Often, they are still structured as they were when they were a larger congregation and trying to do all the ministries they did back then, or they are trying to compete with the larger churches in the area in an effort to attract people. Either reason will get a small church in trouble. They simply don't have the resources to offer a lot of ministries. Such churches offer all kinds of excuses why some programs or ministries are not effective, and fingers are pointed, but the bottom line is they just do not have the resources to do more than a few things.

When a church tries to do more than their resources allow they end up doing a lot of mediocre things. Great ministries are built around excellence, not mediocrity. Despite what many people believe, a small church can enjoy an excellent ministry, but only if they focus on doing those few things they can do with excellence.

Leaders in smaller churches need to take a hard look at their structure. How many of your committees and boards are really necessary? Committees and boards focus on making sure things are done right, but are they doing the right things? Does their work actually contribute to achieving the mission and vision of the church? Committees and boards do maintenance work; you need to free people up to do ministry. I would guess that most churches could eliminate 80 percent of their committees and boards, and no one would be able to tell the difference.

How effective are the ministries your church currently offers? Many of those ministries exist today because at one time they provided excellent ministry opportunities for your church, but have you evaluated their effectiveness today? Things change, and what was effective in the past may not be effective today.

When I was growing up the churches in our area offered two-week Vacation Bible School, and our small church was full of kids both weeks. Later, when I was a pastor, churches offered one-week VBS. Today, I see churches offering weekend VBS, one night a week for a month VBS, and other alternatives. Still, many complain that it's hard to get the kids to come because there are so many other things for them to do. Maybe it's time to consider if this is really a good use of our resources.

I'm not picking on Vacation Bible School. This is just one example of how things have changed over the years. I know many churches that still have vibrant Vacation Bible School programs, and it would be a mistake for those churches to eliminate that ministry. But, what about your church? Is this a vibrant ministry in your church or is this one that needs to be changed or even eliminated for something that might be more productive?

Many smaller churches will have much more effective ministries if they can focus on a few things they can do with excellence rather than trying to be all things for all people. For some churches, that may mean doing only one or two things, and that is alright if they can be done with excellence.