Is excellence in worship necessary?

I see a recurring theme in these last few entries. It has to do with how we worship and how we allow worship to lead us.  Worship is an integral part of our faith. 

But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks...because the LORD your God has blessed you. Deuteronomy 12:5-6, 7b

I'm worried that we think excellence is a must in worship.  We see in this passage from Deuteronomy that we are to bring our best before God. Burnt offerings and sacrifices aren't just any gifts. They're of the best quality that we have to offer.  We don't just tithe what's left over. We take off the top 10% and give it to God.  The "firstborn of [our] herds" are given, showing our faith in God.  So, naturally, we would come to worship, expecting God to want only excellence.

But that's not true of God.  God expects what we give to Him to be an offering of sacrifice.  I think God expects us to do the best with what we've got.  Sometimes that's not "excellence" in our eyes.

“If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done” (Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT).



 It's so important for us to alter the way some of us see worship.  Sometimes we notice the things that we think go wrong.  I think some worshippers focus on the "errors" they think they see in worship.  They must leave worship that day feeling lost or as if they hadn't worshipped because of a lack of focus.  They were waiting for the "perfect conditions" mentioned in Ecclesiastes instead of getting caught up in what worship was focused on that day.  
 
I saw a Dove commercial once called "Dove Evolution."


Our culture expects perfection as well.  So when we come into worship from a world that is not of God, we're expecting perfection.  If things are not perfect, we're distracted and we allow the imperfections to pull us away from a genuine worship of God.  We should be so caught up in worship that we don't notice when the instrumentalist plays something incorrectly.  We shouldn't allow a reader's mis-spoken word distract us.  Imperfection is natural. Ask David...

God doesn't bless only excellence. He blesses those that are faithful enough to trust Him and offer some sort of sacrifice to Him. Let's stop worrying about perfection or excellence in worship.  If there's some down time, let's enjoy the silence. If there's a few misspellings, let's understand the true meaning of the word that is intended.  If something unplanned happens, let's enjoy the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit working in and through our worship.

Our family of worship will not demand perfection or excellence in our offering of worship. Instead, we'll seek perfection in our actions and words outside of worship.  We can thank God for the perfection of Jesus and what His life means for us. 

Worship well,
Jonas