You can’t be great at everything. And, if you do everything, you can’t be great at anything.
Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church, writes that he loves both Ruth’s Chris steakhouse (“the best steaks in town”) and Golden Corral (nothing “particularly great, but you can eat almost anything you want”).
How does this apply to churches? Furtick writes,
Most churches are more like Golden Corral than Ruth’s Chris, don’t you think?
A little bit of everything. A program for everybody. Every night of the week. All you can eat. None of it is very excellent, but boy, the menu (church calendar) is robust!Elevation’s philosophy:
Don’t try to do a little bit of everything.
Give everything you’ve got to a few things.
Make the best steaks in town. Steaks so good that people wouldn’t dream of haggling about the price, or suggesting that they should be allowed to go back for free seconds.
But the question remains, Why is it important to be excellent? No, seriously: if we can reach more people with the gospel by being mediocre, don’t we have an obligation to be as mediocre as possible?
Yes. But at TTUMC our intuition, backed up by what we’ve seen at other churches, is that excellence makes more impact. That’s one reason that Pastor Jerry has asked us to focus on four areas: worship, First Impressions, Children and Youth, and Community Life Groups. If we can be excellent in those four areas, we believe God will use TTUMC to change both of the cities we straddle.
