Good to Great

Experts of all sorts, from those working with the titans of industry to those working with local churches, agree that it is a huge jump from good to great. There are lots people, companies, institutions and churches that are good – are doing a good job.

I can’t help but think of Garrison Keillor, of Prairie Home Companion fame, when he speaks of his mythical Minnesota home town, Lake Wobegon. He describes it each week on his radio program, “Where the women are strong, the men are good looking and all of the children are above average.” Don’t we all like to think of ourselves as above average; as good? It begs the question, if we are all above average, then where do the below average people live?

In my years of consulting with churches all across this nation, almost every church I have talked to has described itself as friendly and good. And if I have ever worked with your church, please understand that this critique does not apply to your church.  But most of the churches are not friendly to visitors. We are friendly with those whom we know. We are friendly with our friends, but not newcomers. And we are not good at doing church. Quite frankly and honestly, if we were good at it our churches would be growing; our churches would be attractive. So, most churches haven’t even made it to good and I am about to suggest we become great.

As I have mentioned several times, the First Christian Church of Burlington, Iowa, is a good church. We do many things well and most people who visit the church would carry away from their experience a positive report. If we took the time to interview our visitors, I am confident that a vast majority would have good things to say about the church. And that is good. (No pun intended.) If functioning at a higher level than the average church, it being better than most, if being good were our objective; we could sit back, congratulate ourselves on a job well done and relax a little.

I don’t know about you, but I am not that interested in being just a good church. I want to be a part of a great church. It is not only my personal values that push me in that direction, it is about the God we serve. God is a great God who has done and continues to do great things. The church is called to be the physical representation of God to our modern culture. The New Testament describes the church as the Body of Christ. If people are looking for God they should be able to look at the church and say, “Ah, ha. There he is. Now I can see and understand who God is and what he is like.”

Do you really think the church, just being pretty good at doing church, is going to get that kind of a reaction? If we just do pretty good church then people will have no choice other than to see God as a pretty good god. Not the great God that he is. My hope is that we have the courage, the will power, the commitment and the drive to make the leap from good to great. We can. That is not the question. The question we must ask and answer is WILL WE?

To go from good to great means we will have to focus our energies on doing what we are called by God to do – with excellence. We will have to give up our innate selfishness and drive to have things our own way and pursue God’s mission and vision for this church with a full throttle abandon. We will have to give freely of our time, talents and resources. (Let me make sure you understand I am talking about money here.) We will have to make sacrifices of our time, our preferences and our treasures. This will be difficult and uncomfortable. We will have to embrace new people who may not think like we think, look like we look, do life like we do life, and desire the same things we want. Not just tolerate them, but embrace them.

So you see, the leap from good to great is a challenging leap. That is why so few churches make it. We can. Will we? I pray we do.

Copyright © 2012, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved