The other day, I was out for a run when I heard a horrible, continuous screeching sound. I looked for the source and saw it was coming from a car that had just backed out of a nearby garage. But this wasn’t any car — it was a beautiful, late-model BMW.
It was an odd juxtaposition: a gorgeous new luxury automobile, known for its fine German engineering and quiet ride, squealing like an old rust bucket on its last legs. Yet, it happens to the best of them. Even BMW’s need regular fine-tuning to run at their peak.
About a year ago, I was attending a major national leadership conference. Picture the scene: 13,000 leaders, the arena rocking with a big-name worship band, lights, booming audio — the highest quality production you can imagine. And then…a typo in the song lyrics. Projected on multiple enormous high-definition screens.
Again, an odd juxtaposition. This conference had access to the best of everything: world-class creativity and the resources to match. And yet…someone misspelled a word, and someone else failed to catch the mistake. As simple as that.
I confess to feeling oddly comforted by the error. I have served and worshipped at many churches where it’s an ongoing struggle to achieve a reasonable level of technical excellence. I want to believe it is possible to “arrive” at a level where mistakes no longer happen; where if you have enough skill, you will no longer have to proof-read. Yet as this conference demonstrated, it happens to the best of them.
If you’re serving in a ministry situation where you feel like almost everyone else is doing things better, take comfort. It can happen to the best of them. And if you’re serving in a situation at the top of the food chain, where everyone looks to you as the paragon of excellence, take warning. It can happen to the best of them.
Pro Ecclesia 