Excellence

Almost a year ago the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism and Q Place formed a partnership called Rekindle: Engaging Gospel Conversations. The result is a new YouTube channel that equips and inspires Christian leaders in all levels and sectors of society to prioritize gospel witness through short relevant videos from their peers.

One of this month’s ReKindle videos features Q Place supporter Rich Berg, who is the CEO of Performance Trust, a successful Chicagobased financial advisory firm. In this video, Rich talks about excellence in work as a precursor to gospel conversations. His premise is that Christians must be excellent in their vocation to be credible in talking about their faith as an effective witness to the gospel.

Because we desire to be an effective witness to those around us, our staff at Q Place is also striving for excellence in all that we do to achieve our mission to mobilize Christians to facilitate group discussions with spiritual seekers so they can find God as revealed in the Bible. With limited resources, tight deadlines, and unexpected challenges, sometimes it’s challenging to achieve that goal of constant excellence.

Yet even when we are disappointed in less than stellar results, we can be encouraged by these instructions from the apostle Paul: I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse (Philippians 4:8, The Message). With our minds fixed on these things, the fruit in every aspect of our lives—work, family, church, community—will be more consistently excellent and appealing. And that will be a great precursor and witness to conversations about God.