Excellence vs Performance | Messy Middles Ep. 2

So guys, today's conversation is on excellence versus performance.

We live in a world where we want to do great and we want to do things well.

but also it can creep into being performative instead of being real.

And I think in some of our fields, that distinction can be a little bit kind of like hit and miss.

So how do we battle or deal with the messiness of excellence versus a performance?

Absolutely.

Good question.

Do you want to

kick us off?

Yeah.

So I guess from my standpoint and my point of view that I would bring today is I'm a worship leader at our local church and I've previously been involved in some huge national events where there's big staging, there's big lighting rigs, there's a really strict program, all that kind of stuff, where from the outer point of view could seem like we've delved into performance.

And I think for me, that's always been something where, yes, you want to do this really well and you want this to be um memorable for attendees and all that sort of stuff uh there's a lot of people that come that may be non-christians so you want it to be appealing to them but first and foremost the heart of it has got to be we are worshiping jesus so that's sort of my what i'll be bringing today yeah i'll be good

yeah i think so i do a lot of behind the scenes stuff in my many many jobs um so i think for me i see the excellence is like a how can i set this up really well but then how do i make the performance look well at the same time yeah yeah

i love this topic because i am pursuing being a performer and at uni that's what i want to do in like performing on stages and stuff but i also i lead worship at my local church in Liverpool as well.

So it's kind of balancing what sort of things I'm focusing on when I'm performing and trying to put on a good performance and when I'm just trying to pursue the Lord and be that facilitator for a congregation.

Yeah.

Well, let's jump into the messiness about this topic.

I remember years ago going to a conference where they were talking about the importance of excellence, especially kind of like for people that would be coming and using the things that you are providing.

So, for example, stuff like this podcast of going for the people that are viewing at home, they want to see something that is of good quality.

Yeah.

But I remember thinking, all right, everything has to be absolutely perfect.

But the reality of that, it takes away some of the realness.

So it's not saying excellence is not good.

Sometimes you end up venturing into that.

This has been performative.