I have a really good friend who would love to write a book celebrating mediocrity.
It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot recently as both of my boys dive back into their schools. The worlds of academia, sport and music don’t seem to put a high value on the person of average ability who doesn’t excel. An athlete doesn’t get trained to come fourth, a musician doesn’t go to a conservatoire with the aim of playing second violin. The Christian church musician can often feel the same sort of pressure to excel, having watched or listened to the polished arrangements of songs performed by others on the Internet. Church musicians are not performers – we’re servants, but our skill is still up for public scrutiny, and expectations of ‘excellence’ can put pressure on us to please men by our technique rather than to please God by the attitude of our hearts.
I’m going to get my caveats out of the way early! This article certainly isn’t encouraging sloppiness – we are called to work heartily for the Lord in everything (Col. 3:17, 23), but even in this verse the emphasis is on the attitude of the heart rather than the quality of the end product. My second caveat is that striving for excellence isn’t in itself a bad thing, but excellence merely for the sake of excellence can easily become idolatry – in that we can end up serving our creativity rather than the Creator.
