Crowds are fickle, but oh how we love a crowd.

There is an obsession in the world today with getting popular approval, mass support, and adoration.  I sometimes wonder just how much this desire has infiltrated the church.  Some pastors (not all) want big churches because big churches mean big popularity.  Some church members want their church to be big because that means we look credible and impressive in the eyes of the world.  It’s nice to tell your friends or colleagues how many hundreds or thousands of people are at your church.

I’m not against big churches or the very deliberate effort to grow churches.  On the contrary, I believe that is the very definite plan of God.  I’m convinced the Bible predicts a very, very impressive picture with regard to the future of the Church.  As one preacher put it, “Jesus is coming back for a massive bride…” (an unfortunate turn of phrase, I’ll admit.)

However, despite this very definite trajectory that the Church of Jesus Christ is set on – unstoppable growth – it is nevertheless equally true that the crowds we call churches may be deceptively big.  Not everybody in a church is necessarily in the Church.

What do I mean?  It’s obvious when you think about it that size does not equate to success in any direct sense.  If it did, then the Catholic Church is clearly doing quite well… Jesus isn’t interested in gathering crowds if the individuals in that crowd can get the wrong idea that they’re part of Jesus’ Church, when in fact they’re not.  There may be a feeling of safety in numbers that actually stops people getting saved.

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On Sunday I mentioned the wonderful book Seeing With New Eyes by David Powlison.  In that book Powlison helps us to uncover the idolatrous motivations of our hearts – the hidden reasons that lurk behind your every action. I was considering typing up all 35 of the questions (as I only gave 7 of them in the sermon). I wasn’t really sure about copyright and all that, but thankfully, there are plenty of people on the internet who seem to have done the job already.

I thoroughly recommend you work through these 35 questions, and journal your answers. I have found this process very helpful. It doesn’t provide a quick-fix solution, but at least it sheds light on those dark corners of your heart that rarely get attention. This, in turn, helps you to repent and change.

So, to see the questions, check out this blog post by Scott Thomas.

Here are a few nuggets I’ve found helpful in my recent readings and studies on leadership and change management.

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” (Machiavelli, The Prince)

“In building a great institution, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, our research showed that it feels like turning a giant, heavy flywheel. Pushing with great effort – days, weeks and months of work, with almost imperceptible progress – you finally get the flywheel to inch forward. But you don’t stop. You keep pushing, and with persistent effort, you eventually get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You don’t stop. You keep pushing, in an intelligent and consistent direction, and the flywheel moves a bit faster. You keep pushing, and you get two turns…then four…then eight…the flywheel builds momentum…a hundred…moving faster with each turn…a thousand…ten thousand…a hundred thousand. Then, at some point – breakthrough! Each turn builds upon previous work, compounding your investment effort. The flywheel flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum. This is how you build greatness.” (Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors)

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“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Hebrews 10:17

Thud, the mail dropped through the letter box, and so began a surprise happy day in the Thorneycroft house…let me explain.

A number of years back I made a couple of foolish decisions that ended up in me committing a serious driving offence. I was stopped by the police, summoned to appear in court and punished with the loss of my licence and a very hefty fine.

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As a church we believe in excellence. It’s one of our core values. But it is so easy to confuse excellence with perfectionism. Perfectionism is: setting impossible goals; motivated by a fear of failure; meditating on failures/mistakes and discounting successes; taking criticism personally (value as a person is related to performance); unhelpful comparisons (with other people and organisations, leads to pride/discouragement); frustrating; elitist: some people will not be able to achieve an ‘A’, their best may be a ‘B’; expensive: lots of money being spent unnecessarily on state of the art/super luxurious stuff (yet Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee in a fishing boat not a 30ft luxury yacht); always out of reach, a perfectionist’s bar on excellence is constantly being raised, which gives the impression that leaders and God are never satisfied; exhausting; puts a person under the law.

Excellence on the other hand is: giving your best efforts; going beyond (your) mediocrity; motivated by God’s grace (Romans 12:1); about learning from mistakes how to fail forward (Proverbs 24:16; Psalm 42:5); learning from criticism (Proverbs 9:8-9); deriving our value as people from God (not performance); doing all things well for God’s glory; each believer reaching his/her greatest potential; being better tomorrow than you were yesterday; matching your practice with your potential.

As we pursue excellence together, let’s try to avoid the perfectionist trap by drinking deep from the wells of God’s grace.