If you want to build an equipping church, you have to tear down the idol of excellence. Why? Because most people are not excellent; most people are not extraordinary. Most people are ordinary. If you're going to do ministry through ordinary people, you have to give up the notion of excellence.
If your highest value is excellence, then you aren't going to entrust ministry to ordinary people. You are going to go out and find the very best people. You won't risk putting a developing person into a significant role either, because you don't want to compromise excellence.
This quote raised a lot of questions for me.
- How do maintain a high quality standard while providing people room to fail?
- Can people fail without destroying the standard of excellence?
- Am I overlooking what people can grow into because I focus so much on who can get me the best results right now?
- How unfaithful is that?
- How much ministry do I NOT entrust to other people because I feel that I will do it better myself?
- How unfaithful is that?
- Do I make demands on people to be excellent...to be extraordinary...before they can be empowered to "do ministry" on my team?
- How many developing people am I leaving out because I'm not putting them into significant roles?
What kind of questions does that quote bring out for you? Or does it provide some answers?
