Excellence is a word used by many individuals and organizations to communicate high standards or outstanding qualities. Though many Christian 
organizations desire excellence, very few have a clear understanding of how to achieve or measure it. There are many definitions of excellence. Godly Excellence is a standard of superior qualities that are above the world’s best standards, with the goal to reach Christ’s standards. Those qualities exceed natural high performance with love.
The Christians in Corinth were competing against each other to demonstrate who exemplified the best spiritual gifts, but they were approaching excellence from a worldly paradigm. The world uses excellence to compare someone’s performance with a competitor’s, rather than using it as a tool to achieve one’s best with love. Godly excellence must be achieved with love; otherwise it is purely empty performance. Unfortunately, Christian organizations that desire excellence often find themselves striving to achieve high performance without love, or love without high performance. High performance without love creates a culture of competition, pride, and self-centeredness; while love without high performance creates a culture of slothfulness, excuses and a lack of accountability.
How do we achieve godly excellence? First, we must recognize that godly excellence has a cost associated. Organizations that desire godly excellence must be prepared to invest their time and resources to achieve it. To achieve godly excellence you must first identify the areas in which you are trying to gain superiority and then create your definition of superiority. Research the best practices within your industry or among similar organizations and then prayerfully determine Jesus’ best. Godly excellence must find itself between the worlds’ best practices and Jesus’ best. Too often, Christian organizations that strive for excellence in the name of Christ demonstrate natural performance beneath the world’s best standards and wrap their mediocrity in biblical values. This is not godly excellence – godly excellence insists on high, natural performance.
Each organization has four functional departments that make up its infrastructure. These departments include marketing, administration, finance and operations. Some organizations may have different names for these departments and some combine them, but all organizations have them. To create a culture of godly excellence, your organization must determine the best practices in each of these areas and identify key performance indicators in each department. Those indicators should not only line up with the world’s best practices, but they should also exceed them and reach toward the standards of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ Standard is defined as: doing things as unto the Lord in love, with a redemptive purpose. In other words, your marketing, operations, finance and administration disciplines have to be run in love, based on the best practices in your industry, with a redemptive purpose in mind. This is a tall order because whenever you strive to achieve high, natural standards, there is a possibility that stress and anxiety will occur because you are pushing human limits. There is also a possibility that you may become arrogant when you achieve those standards because you may have a sense of personal accomplishment without God. Godly excellence cannot be done by might or by power; it is accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. Man was created with the ability to reach natural, peak performance, but that comes now with a price as a result of our disposition to sin. To avoid that price and maintain our peak performance, we need to access a supernatural power beyond ourselves. This supernatural power is the power of the Holy Spirit. His power is able to help us strive beyond our limitations; it is able to help us achieve Gods’ best with love in all situations. Finally, excellence cannot be achieved without the right people. No matter how effective your processes and systems or how clear your measurements are, without the right people who are properly equipped, you will never achieve excellence.
Where is your organization? Do you have a culture of excellence? Research similar organizations in your industry to identify their best practices, determine key performance indicators based on Jesus’ best, identify the right people, and ask God for wisdom and the power of the Holy Spirit to inspire your team to strive toward “a more excellent way”.
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