If you talk to church planters at all these days, there is a lot of talk about excellence.  It is usually a core value for every new church start and it is something they preach in a lot of different venues.  "Everything we do here, we do it with excellence.  And why not, the things we do around here are for God and He deserves excellence!" At first blush, it sounds logical and right.  It is hard to argue with doing things with excellence if you are indeed doing them for God.  But here is the question that has been stewing in my mind for quite some time . . . at what point does the core value of 'excellence' simply become an Americanized excuse for extravagance?  That is the difficult question before us. 

For example, does God desire for us to have excellence in our sound equipment while our brothers in Iraq don't even have excellence in their diet?  Does God desire for us to have state of the art facilities while our brothers and sisters in Darfur are like Jesus in that they literally 'don't have a facility in which to lay their heads at night'?  Does God, who is multinational, really desire for us to have excellence in Christian education institutions Pre-K through post doctorate while a large majority of the world's pastors have absolutely no means for any education? 

Don't shoot the messenger, I am just asking the questions.  Hard questions, but questions we need to be asking one another.  As for my opinion, I think that sound systems and facilities and Christian education are all good things and we should pursue them and provide them.  However, we need to be cautious when we say we are pursuing excellence in these arenas and doing that "for Jesus".  At this point, it is easy to simply become extravagant and indulge ourselves and write it off as 'excellence' in ministry.  When we do this, we wind up taking the money God intended for an anemic toddler in Zimbabwe and instead we spend it on an excellent workout facility for over-nourished students at a Christian college looking to up enrollment.  Or perhaps we choose to pump $500,000 into an excellent, state of the art sound system (and yes, people used to spend this much on pipe organs as well) while brothers and sisters accused of the capital offense of blasphemy in Pakistan can't afford excellence in their legal defense team.  Is that really what Jesus wants?

So the issue is not really one of excellence vs extravagance, but rather an issue of where you will expend your excellence, as you have a limited supply of it.  Will you be excellent in facilities or media or will you be excellent in feeding the poor and defending the helpless.  Why do we have state of the art stage lighting but our food aid is always rice and beans, never steak and fresh vegetables?  I know, I know, everyone is shouting now and saying this is a false dichotomy and they can simply do both with excellence, and I say that is a cop-out.  It can't be done.  One will necessarily take priority over the other and it really is a matter of dollars and cents, for a wise man once said in red letters, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

So by all means let's do things for Jesus with excellence, but let's be careful to expend our excellence in the areas important to him, not the areas important to us, as those two do not always line up.  We are Americans, He is a multinational.  He sees the global community, not just our local or national community.  As for me, I am praying that God will provide me with the faith I need to excel in the grace of giving, rather than excelling in providing excellent stuff for myself or my ministry or my local community.  This is admittedly difficult, but it is also really holy and really attractive at the end of the day, and I suspect it will be even more holy and more attractive at the end of the age.

^But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us see that you also excel in this grace of giving.  2 Corinthians 8:6