Mediocrity, Excellence and the Heart Behind It All.

I've often wished I'd been blessed with an extraordinary talent.... the voice of an angel or a Mozart-like musical precociousness or an irresistible charisma.... Sadly that is not my portion. I can sing a bit and play a bit and I hope I am not totally devoid of personality, but my 29 years have so far revealed that I was not born with exceptional talent.

(and yes, I know that I am made in the Image of God and I am exceptional and unique etc.... this is not a post born out of insecurity, rest assured, so don't leave "but David you are wonderful"comments. This I already know.)

But I have been pondering a lot recently on the nature of excellence, particularly in the context of worship. Although I may never be the best, do I settle for not doing my best?

Am I comfortable with my mediocrity?

Well, no actually, I'm not.

It is dangerous ground to start talking about standards in worship because there is only one standard that ultimately counts - the heart of worship behind our songs and words and music. But recently I have been moved by the 'excellent' nature of Old Testament worship - it was always the best.

The best cows. The best doves. The best grain. The Temple made from the finest wood, purest gold and perfectly crafted stone.

Yet with that I know, as every good worship leader should, 1 Samuel 16:7 like a mantra.

Heart. Heart. Heart - it is what the Lord wants more than anything else from us.

Ring fence that thought now. For what I'm about to say may seem contradictory to that - bear with me.

God still wants our best. Actually, I think God still demands our best.

I heard a new worship song recently that was featured somewhere and as I listened to it I was underwhelmed by its mediocrity. Bland tune. Bland chords. Bland lyrics. It was the kind of song that would be good only if it was the first song you ever wrote.

I have no doubt that the heart behind it was sincere. None at all. And I have no doubt that in what really matters, the issue of heart, God was satisfied with this song. But in every other way it was utterly unsatisfying. And although those 'standards' are not the most important thing, the central thing, they equally, are not nothing.

But we want to encourage, don't we? And we don't want to criticise, do we? So we say "Yes that's a great song, well done". There is another name for this kind of encouragement: Lying.

If we say all is good and nothing is great then we kill all achievement. I think some in the church would have it this way. And so we hear mediocre song after mediocre song and we sing bland lyric after bland lyric and we read boring book after boring book. All in the security that what matters is heart so every other consideration is pointless at best and devious or idolatrous at worst.

Wesley Owen is full of good intentions and bad songs and boring books.

So we forget about doing our best. We forget about working hard to be a good writer before we publish a book. We forget about learning more than 5 chords before we promote a song. So we call the mediocre songs good and the good songs great and nobody ends up making anything that's really very good anymore. We kill all drive to improve, to progress, to evolve. We forget about all standards of excellence and achievement and merit because all God wants is our hearts. Right?

No. I don't think so.

We need to do our best because of hearts for Him, not in spite of them. We do our best because of who He is. So we don't say "that's a great song" when it isn't. We don't have to shoot it down in flames either, but we are able to encourage the person without lying about the achievement. Much in the same way that we love people but don't affirm their sin. It just take a little pastoral nous, that's all - and the Holy Spirit is great at that sort of thing.

God wants our hearts, firstly and utterly. But let us never forget that He also wants our very best.

Comments and discussion, as always, are greatly received...

dg