Valerie Jones

{Live with Purpose. Lead with Passion.}

I am a blogger, worship leader, and speaker who helps worship leaders and team members connect with purpose and passion in life and leadership by offering encouragement, community, and practical resources so that they can thrive in life and leadership, both on and off the platform.

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{Be Excellent. What’s that mean, anyway?}

April 29, 2023  /  Valerie Jones

Just thinking . . . Disclaimer: One short blog post can’t possibly say all there is to say about this topic. But this is a start.

I’ve been thinking a lot about excellence. This is an easy one to misrepresent and misunderstand. I’ve been all over the map over the years on this topic. What is Biblical excellence and why does it matter? Could it have more to do with a posture of your heart than it does with the end result? Could it be about how you show up and engage more than it is about meeting a certain standard?

God deserves excellence. But, you can be super excellent and have a heart that’s far from God. In that case, your excellence doesn’t matter one bit to Him because it’s not motivated by your love for Him. When excellence becomes more about you than Him, you’re missing something.

God can, and often will, do more than we care to admit through a heart that is fully surrendered to Him and committed to keeping the main thing the main thing. He doesn’t need our lights and super-slick, polished production. He doesn’t need perfect rock-star vocals to do something in the room. Those things are not inherently bad; I actually appreciate and enjoy them. But, if we’re not careful we condition our selves and the congregations we lead to *need* those things more than we desire Him and His presence. If we believe, even the tiniest bit, that we can’t encounter God without them then we’ve misunderstood the heart of excellence and the heart of worship.

Encounter with God is the ONLY thing that brings transformation to people in the room. And that cannot be produced. In reality it actually has nothing to do with us. Thankfully, God shows up in spite of us! When we over emphasize excellence in an unhealthy way—a way that’s out of alignment with Scripture—we can start believing that it does have something to do with us. We get hyper focused on what WE are doing in the room and fail to concern ourselves with what God wants to do. And friends, that is a dangerous place to sit.

Production is a cheap, poor substitute for Presence. And excellence is not the same as anointing. Let that sink in.

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