Creating a Culture of Excellence.

I think any church or ministry that you visit has to set the bar for productivity, creativity, staff culture, the preaching of the word, worship, and influence. Every single ministry that is pushing the mile marker forward for the gospel all have one thing in common which is they all operate with a spirit of excellence. However, excellence is just not an easy thing to achieve. I know a lot of people who would want their ministry to be marked by excellence, but I don't know that I've ever heard an entire teaching on how to achieve a culture of excellence. And that is exactly what we are going to tackle in this blog post.

The moment you try to enforce, build, or create a culture of excellence, you're going to get some pushback. I get called picky all the time by my wife, my team, my volunteers. One of the hurdles that you're going to have to face and jump over is you've got to get everybody not to submit to a culture of excellence, but to agree with a culture of excellence. Now if you don't want to get called picky, then don't even pick this battle. Because you are going to be called nitpicky and you're going to be called all kinds of things, but you've got to know that you're fighting for a culture of excellence.

I'm going to give you all the tools in the ammo necessary to create a culture of excellence on your team. We've got to start in the Bible because if you don't start with a biblical foundation for excellence, then you open yourself up for your volunteers or your team to just call you picky. But we're going to help everybody realize that you're not the one that's picky, actually God is the one that's picky. God cares about the details. I know that it's a very common colloquialism that the Devil’s in the details. Actually, the funny thing is God is in the details. God loves details and you can't even get halfway out of the Old Testament without being inundated with details. And if you're going to be an excellent leader or if you're going be a leader that builds a culture of excellence, then that means you're going to have to be a detail-oriented leader.

Let's go to Exodus 26. This is God speaking: moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits in the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five shall be coupled to another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtains in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtains in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is the second set.

What is Exodus 26 full of? Details.

There has to be a certain amount of cubits that you must have. Think about this, the people of Israel are in the middle of the wilderness and they are marching through the desert. God says, find blue, purple, and scarlet yarn. This was not convenient for them. Nothing about the construction of the tabernacle was easy, quick, nor convenient. We've got to stop lowering the bar for convenience’s sake.

I want you to ask this question the next time somebody on your team tells you that something can't get done. Ask them a very simple question: is it impossible or is it just inconvenient. Because to be honest I just don't care about everybody's convenience. If Moses cared about everybody else's convenience, then the tabernacle would have never gotten built. Not only did they just build a tabernacle, but it had to be the right colors and the right measurements.

When people walk into your facility does it smell like you care about the details? Does it look like you care about the details? When you release a graphic does it look like you care about excellence?

So often people say things like, “Did you have to spend 23 million dollars on this facility?” Or, “Oh my gosh, does the stage setup have to be this spectacular and does the LED screen have to be ultra HD?” It’s like asking, “Did God have to hang stars in the sky? I think we'd be good without stars because we have the sun. I mean do we have to have Jupiter or Saturn?”

Well guess what, God is over-the-top. God does unnecessary things all the time just because it's beautiful.

Do we have to have colors? Did God have to make green or purple or a quadrillion different species of fish? No, but He did. Why?

Because God is creative.

Because God cares about beauty.

Because God is a God of excellence.

Because God has a capacity for details.

The first thing that you are going to have to teach your team is that excellence reflects the character and the nature of God. If we are going to minister in God's name, then we should do it with excellence.

That means the sermon should be excellent. That means the setlist should be excellent. That means the musicians should be playing their instruments with excellence. That means the graphics should be excellent. That means the screens we put those graphics on should be excellent. That means the lyric slides should be excellent. That means the seats should be excellent. The temperature in the room should be excellent. The set of the room should be excellent. The greeters should be excellent. The parking lot team and ushers should be excellent. The cleanliness of the restrooms should be excellent. The check-in process for the kid’s ministry should be excellent. Everything should be done with excellence.

One time I had a volunteer say, “Pastor Manny, I feel like you just care about everything.” And I said, “Well, sweetheart, you finally figured it out. I do I care about everything.” I care about the toilet paper that we use in the bathrooms. I care about whether or not we use spray for the glass windows that we have in the entrance of our lobby. I care about everything. Because if God can care about the colors, the measurements, and what I consider insignificant details of his house, then I can care about what I would also consider insignificant details of God's house.

Does your youth ministry reflect God's heart for excellence and details? Or are things kind of thrown together last minute? Are you trying to do the best you can because your church is small and doesn't have a big budget? That mindset will not work because we've got to have a standard of excellence. Why? Well in the passage where God is giving Noah instructions for the ark, God gave Noah detailed instructions. The instructions did not have to be so painstakingly detailed; it was just a boat for eight people and animals. As long as it does its job. Well, God is a God of details. God is a God of excellence. And if we are going to minister in His name, reflect His glory, and emulate His beauty and creativity, then everything we touch should be done in a spirit of excellence.

You do not want to center a culture of excellence around the pastor's pickiness. You want to center a culture of excellence around Biblical Orthodox teaching. The Bible gives us enough ammunition to kill anyone who would say, “Well, Pastor, that's just the way you want it.” That’s not just the way I want it, but God actually cares.

He cares about whether or not there's enough Windex in the facility so that every time teenagers smudge their oily, little hands on the glass door to the entrance of your lobby, somebody on your team can actually get it clean.

There is a saying I heard Bishop TD Jakes say once and I love it. I've been stealing it ever since and I must give the Bishop credit. We were in a leadership seminar and Bishop Jakes said, “What's the difference between Red Roof Inn and the Ritz-Carlton?” People started barking out answers and pointing out the differences. And Bishop Jakes stops and says, “No, there's only one difference between the Red Roof Inn and the Ritz-Carlton. The difference is in the details.” The Red Roof Inn and the Ritz-Carlton both have beds, but there's a difference in the quality of the beds. They both have sink fixtures, a faucet, doorknobs, a bathroom, an ironing board in the closet. But the only difference is in the details. One is insanely detail-oriented, the other they did just what was good enough because they didn’t really care.

If we're going to have excellent ministries, it can't just be good enough. It has to be over-the-top and done by the spirit of excellence.

1. Excellence is a reflection of the character and the glory of our God.

2. You cannot be excellent without being detail oriented. You don't have to be administrative. You don't have to be organized. But you must be detail oriented. I'm not administrative and I'm not organized, but I've led multiple teams in 10 years of full-time ministry. However, I am incredibly detail oriented. Nobody's asking you, as a pastor, to be administrative or organized. But you must be detail oriented.

3. Multitasking is a myth. When you multitask, things don't get done excellently because a part of excellence is that things get done thoroughly. When people multitask, that means everything gets done just kind of good enough. If you're going to do things with excellence, it means that you cannot multitask because the one thing that you're doing has to deserve all of your attention. Now, multitasking is great if we're going after quantity. But it's not the best if we're going after quality. And a spirit of excellence is always going to prioritize quality over quantity. I don't just want a lot of things to get done, I want things to get done to the best of their potential and to the best of their ability.

In order for your team to become excellent and detail-oriented, you will need two things: exposure and agreement.

My dad exposed me to excellence. But I'll be honest, I'm 32 years old but I’ve only spent roughly the past six years of my life not living in what I would call the hood. I grew up in a very low-income neighborhood. It was not the kind of neighborhood that I would choose to live in today. My mom was pregnant by the time she was 13 years old with her first kid and she lived in the projects most of her life. When I was around 11 or 12 years old, my dad put me in the car and he drove me about 90 miles outside of our low-income neighborhood. We went to the suburbs and got out of the car. My dad said, “Son, what do you see.” I said, “This is a nice neighborhood, it looks amazing.” He said, “Let me show you this—there's no liquor stores around here. There's no trash in the streets. All the lawns are manicured. Look at the trees. It's just beautiful. All these homes are lined up. It’s just excellent.” My dad told me he had to expose me to what normal is because him and my mother couldn’t afford to live any place other than where we lived.

I never want you to think that where you currently live is normal because it’s not. My dad exposed me not to what I was experiencing in the moment, but he exposed me to what he wanted my new normal to become. If you're a youth pastor and everybody on your team has only ever seen small-town church or the most excellent ministry that they've ever seen it's just not your definition of excellent, you may have to get everybody in a van and take everybody on a field trip and go to a conference. Actually walk through a facility that you would say is excellent or visit a youth ministry with people who are excellent.

I live in North Carolina. The word I think of when I hear Elevation Church is perfection. One of the things that I've done with multiple team members of mine is load everybody up in a van and go visit an Elevation campus. We go inside Elevation. Why? Because I want my greeters to be exposed to excellent greeters. I want my facilities team people to be exposed to excellent facilities team people. I've got to expose people because exposure creates expectations, and expectations create experiences. If you want to change your team's experiences, you have to change their expectation which means you have to expose them to excellence.

Not only do you need exposure, but you also need agreement. You don’t want submission, you want agreement. Submission only happens when you don't agree. But you want everybody to come around and agree.

Don’t make excuses and don't cut corners. Excellence comes from conviction, not convenience. If we're going to do things with excellence, it means we're going to take extra time on it. It means we've got to have a deep-seated conviction around why we do things with so much excellence.

We were looking for a conference coordinator for a long time. We did a massive young adult and youth conference and it grew to about 1500 young adults and students. I think it was just top-notch.

We eventually found a conference coordinator, Jeff, and one of the things that sold me on Jeff being the conference coordinator is that I went to Jeff's house. When I went to Jeff's house, he had socks for people to wear when they first got in his house. His house was clean.

I knew that he was going to care about God's house because he actually cared about his house. One of the ways to figure out if your leaders are excellent is by going to their house because if someone doesn't have a spirit of excellence in their personal life, it's going to be really hard for them to have a spirit of excellence in their ministry life.

Excellence can't be faked. You can't be excellent at church but not be excellent in your whole life. You want to pick people that excellence comes natural to them.

I hope this blog post has been really helpful for you. We’re trying to nail down a spirit of excellence so that we can go further in all of our ministry endeavors.

I’m praying for you. I love you. And I believe in the ministry and the call of God on your life. I want you to take that seriously and begin to bring some excellence to your team.

Peace,
Manny