X:Worship (1.0)

April 23rd, 2007 by Jaybrams

(preface) Part of my responsibility with the Youth Praise Team is to transistion the group from musicians who happen to play in a worship band, to worshippers who use their musical talents to fulfill God’s work in their lives and the lives of others. In order to fulfill this responsibility, from time to time I will have a short lesson before practice about what it means to experience worship from a leading perspective. (/preface)

Lesson 1: Excellence vs Perfection
“I’m careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business” - Michael J. Fox

I recently got a promotion. While my manager was giving me the good news, he said “I don’t know what motivates you, but whatever it is, keep it up.” What he doesn’t know is that my motivation is simple; I feel strongly that as Christ followers we should strive for excellence in everything we do. I fail miserably in this area in many of the things I do in life, such as with my health, but over all excellence is a driving motivation in my life.

Perfection is unobtainable; excellence simply means giving your all, moving forward, looking for ways to grow and striving to be everything God has designed and intended you to be. Excellence allows for mistakes and failures because you understand that God is not finished working; striving for perfection does not, and induces guilt rather than growth.

As a worship team, we need to strive for excellence not only in our muscianship, but in our attitude and character as well. We need to be responsible with our time and focused during rehearsals. We need to strive to learn to love who Christ is and have a heart of worship, rather than just playing in a worship band.

Expectations of perfection comes with a very weighty and unneeded pressure. Striving for excellence allows room for grace and understanding.

I’m looking forward to continuing to develop what Christ has put on my heart and hope with the help of our co-leaders we can bring these students, who are immensly talented, to a place where worship and glorifying God is first and foremost their motivation for excellence.

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