When I first started working at Moon Valley Bible Church, my boss was this guy named David. He was a really bright church leader, who taught me a really important lesson. When it came to preparing for Sunday morning, he would say, "We're going to prepare as if 20,000 people are coming this Sunday." Then he led by example. And each week he would work his tail off to make everything about Sunday morning excellent.
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| Photo courtesy of Morgan at Flickr.com |
A slippery slope
But fast forward a few years, and things have changed. Allison and I have another child, my role at the church has increased significantly and... I'm older and slightly worse for the wear. But most notably, that sense of hard work to make things great isn't as strong as it was. It slipped away so slowly I didn't even notice it.
Then Last night, after worship rehearsal I was sitting with my good friend Tony, talking shop, and we both confessed that we felt we had been dragging our feet a little. In the midst of very busy lives, we got in the habit of saying an evil phrase. When the going got tough, we began saying, "It's good enough".
I used to spend hours preparing the stage for my musicians to come play music, but lately I've hardly done more than print music before rehearsal. I also used to spend quality time with the praise team on Sunday mornings by hosting a discussion group in our greenroom during 2nd service. But lately I've hardly been present in the Greenroom at all on Sunday mornings. Last night Tony confessed that my lack of preparation has been coming off as a lack of caring. Ouch!
A Plan for crushing "good enough"
Hard work is hard. And when life is hard all on it's very own, it can make it easy to justify passing off mediocre work. Once you let mediocrity through the door one time, it just gets easier to let it through the door again and again.
But awareness is the first step to recovery. Last night we spent almost an hour calling out laziness in ourselves and each other. And now I'll take a stab at calling it out in you. Whether it's your job, marriage, parenting, ministry, hobby, or other relationships there's almost always an area of our lives where we need to step it up.
Chances are, you already know which area of your life this is. It's likely the one that's been nagging you day after day, or even staring you right in the face. And all I'm saying is now might be a good time to put your foot down and do something about it.
Tony and I are facing our complacency with accountability. We made a list of things that we'd like to do better, and then set a time to sit down and talk more about how we're going to accomplish them. If you think accountability might be a good next move for you, you might think about a good friend like Tony, or a gf, spouse, or even your boss (no joke, bosses can be awesome motivators).
One of the things I'm going to be doing is committing some more time to preparing my stage so that it's a plug and play environment for my musicians. I'll also be working to spend more time with my team during Sunday services by staying in the greenroom with them during the service where I'm not sitting in to listen to the sermon
But I want to hear about you. What's the one area of your life where you know you need to step it up? Please leave a comment in the section below, or join the conversation by 'liking' and commenting on my Facebook page. Or you can post on your own page with #crushmediocre
Warmly,
-Tim
I would like to propose a life principle to accompany this one, which is entirely valid, by the way. As leaders demonstrates strength and quality in what they do, they become the go-to person for more more responsibilities, hence your experience: "my role at the church has increased significantly". That doesn't happen all at once, but slowly over time. Eventually the load of responsibilities builds to a crushing level in which quality outcomes from efforts expended are impossible. There simply isn't enough of you to do it all in a quality way. When that happens, another treatment needs to accompany the one you offer. Without it, burn-out is just around the corner or may already be right there with you in full force. We need to say 'No' to things in order to build margin. The schedule must be eased, the load lightened, and the hours dropped from 60-80 per week to somewhere around 45-50. When that change has been made, we leave room to part ways with "It's good enough" and accomplish things at a level worthy of the Most High God.
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