Excellence Can Be Found Even Under a Rock
By Bishop Pride Sibiya
This past Sunday the Lord helped me and led me to define what excellence is. in this I was also led to talk about some good things that church people confuse with excellence but are not so. The topic was excellence can be found even under a rock. This is a part of the book that I am writing called Executing Excellently. Please find some notions that can be of help as you prepare this month's teachings.
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| Sponge Bob and Patrick |
The statement, “excellence can be found even under a rock,” is spoken by Sponge Bob in the episode “Big Pink Loser” when he is trying to hide for his best friend Patrick Star. The statement means that beautiful, exceptional, remarkable and excellent qualities and things are not limited to fancy, high echelons and prestigious places only. When people here of excellence, they immediately envision a lot of money and feel that quality is far-fetched from them since they are not rich. In the episode Patrick tried to win awards by being like his friend oblivious of the fact that he himself could be excellent by focusing on his innate gifts. While excellence may require a lot of resources it is far from the truth that it is just about these.
Excellence starts from your inner being, from a mindset of desiring to exhibit yourself or what you do in an outstanding manner.
This I got when I asked first when I asked for a definition of excellence from one of my mentors who does it in a great way he responded in a way that I did not expect. “Excellence is doing what you do but with a little bit more care, love, thought and detail to it,” he responded. That is how excellence starts. Whatever you are doing can be done excellently if you add a little bit more of those. A family living in a small house, in a poor suburb can decide that they will not leave the walls undusted, papers on the ground, periodically cut the grass, decide to plant more trees, clean the property, host their visitors with more concern, wash plates in time and keep the yard clean. Without adding any resources, they start to exhibit a level of excellence.
Mensah Otabil defines excellence as the highest, best or the superior quality. It is outstanding quality; thus, it stands out from the normal standard. It is a commitment to quality that is always improving.
According to our core values, we define exceptionality thus: a commitment to work toward becoming outstandingly good by being the best that we personally and collectively can be at each and everything that we do across a broad range of interests and activities (Ecclesiastes 9:10a, Daniel 5:12, Colossians 3:23).
Things people confuse excellence for
In the next few qualities I will explore, you will find out that the majority are necessary for any organization. We need to keep these but the fact is that all these are not tantamount to having excellence.
1. Loyalty. Many people confuse being loyalty with excellence. While it is an absolutely necessary trait of the Christian faith, it is not excellence. Many churches and organizations are failing to excel because their great and loyal members never go beyond this level. Loyalty must be coupled with action: “So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs” (John 21:15).
2. Good character. The bedrock of Christianity is character. However, an organization full of godly people who never develop themselves beyond the fruit of the Spirit to be skillful in what they do will never excel to take over the world: “Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy” (Psalm 33:3-5).
3. “Being here for long.” A lot of organizations award people leadership solely on the basis that they have been with us for long. The value of a worker is not in the length of service but in the excellence of his work. You do not get a salary increase because you feel you deserve it but by how much you are adding value to the organization. As the organization and the world moves on these remain holding on to the fact that they are the founding members while they fast become irrelevant: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Luke 5:37-38).
4. Better than them. As I pressured some of my leaders to do better than we were doing, they immediately repelled the thought by showing me that we were doing way better than the churches around us. “Excellence is not about being better than them,” I explained, “it is about being better than what we were yesterday, better than what God has purposed for us to be, better than what we should.” “No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:27)
After all excellence can be found even under a rock. Excellence is not initially about places or resources. You can excel wherever you are.
St Francis once said, “bloom where you are planted!”
Receive Jesus Christ today and go to church for spiritual fellowship.
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