Cultivate Excellence in Serving God

New Creation Church was the first church I attended on a consistent basis. It was there that I had my first taste serving in ministry. Many people perceive ushering to be a simple and menial job, but New Creation ushers will tell you otherwise. As one of the Royal Stewards, I took great pride in my duties, even if it were cleaning toilets. We were required to report for duty at 1pm to prepare the room for 5pm service and often stayed later than 9pm to clean up. Furthermore, there were strategies involved in greeting the congregation and getting them to fill up the seats promptly and efficiently. Lead ushers even used high-tech communications systems to ensure good and orderly flow. It was in New Creation that I learnt excellence in serving.

Many do not realise that we Christians have the best reason for pursuing excellence because whatever we do, we do unto the Lord. What more church leaders? Unfortunately, the pursuit of excellence is missing in many churches.

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  (Colossians 3:17)

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24)

I am against mediocrity when it comes to serving in ministries. We must eliminate this “as long as it’s good enough to get by, it’s fine with us” mentality. What frustrates me is tardiness and half-heartedness coming from servers. Being volunteers doesn’t give us a free pass to serve with that kind of attitude. In fact, as volunteers in the local church we ought to show double the dedication and commitment because we are God’s representatives there! 

We don’t do it for our pride’s sake, but we do it because we serve a God who deserves nothing but our best. And there is a side benefit to serving God with excellence – people notice excellence. We can draw people in because of the excellence we exude for God and in so doing, we draw them to God.

I acknowledge I am not perfect. But I try my darndest when it comes to fulfilling my promised duties as a church leader. I pray that every church leader in my church, including myself, and in every other church will rise up and humbly serve with excellence to bring glory to God.