The Calling to Excellence: A Response

Musings on creativity, Christianity, and culture

On a recent perusal through the myriad articles I’ve saved to read, I came across a true gem from R. C. Sproul that impacted me enough to elicit an essay in response. I highly recommend reading it before you read what I’ve written so you can get a sense of his thoughts and lines of argument. It’s a masterful, challenging, and convicting piece that bears pondering—particularly if you’re a Christian with whom God has entrusted a creative gift.

If you’d like to read what I’ve been writing lately outside of Substack, please feel free to checkout my recent bylines:

• The Full Weight (included in Broad Sound, Vol. 2, part 1)

• Plants May Have the Power to Prevent Chronic Disease: Review

• What is the MAC Diet? This Gut-Healthy, High-Fiber Plan May Reduce Risk of Disease

• Struggling With Existential Anxiety? Study Shows Doomscrolling May Be to Blame

Thanks for your ongoing support!

---

The Calling to Excellence: A Response

In his 2021 essay, "The Calling to Excellence", theologian R. C. Sproul poses a convicting question: Why aren't modern Christians impacting the culture for God to the same extent as previous generations?

His words pricked my heart. As a professing Christian who firmly believes writing is my main calling, I'm supposed to dedicate myself to developing that talent fully and using it to serve God. Like the Apostle Paul, I'm to orient my life around doing what God has called me to do—and doing it with all my might (Phil. 3:18-19; c.f. Eccl. 9:10, Col. 3:23).

Which leads me to pose my own questions: Do I really want to be not just a writer, but a great writer? Do I desire to make as big an impact on this world for the Lord and His Kingdom as possible? And can the writing I do actually serve that purpose—or am I simply releasing more pointless noise into an already saturated internet landscape?

The Purpose of Words

As I consider these questions, I wrestle to untangle the enigma of what the written word is for. I come to a point where I feel drawn to put pen to paper and bring an idea to life...but I freeze. I hesitate to write until understand the purpose of words. Because if I don't know, how can I be sure my words fulfill it?

It's stunning to think that God revealed Himself through words. That, by His Spirit, He directed the Biblical writers to record specific details about Who He is, what He's done, and how He deals with humanity. And that He preserved these details the same way. Throughout the centuries, words—particularly written words—have been the vehicle that carries God's self-revelation to mankind.

It would seem, then, that the answer I've been struggling to find is straightforward: Words are meant to point people to the God Who made them; created the world they inhabit; and set the standards for how they, and all of us, are to live.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying every written work must be a Biblical commentary or theological treatise. A piece of writing can proclaim God without being overtly about Him. Explorations of the human condition highlight sin's effect on the world and our desperate need for redemption. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, writers can use words to demonstrate the futility of seeking that redemption from any source apart from the God Who provided it.

For Christians endowed with creative gifts, exercising that gift turns our minds and hearts in toward the character and nature of this very God. As we write, paint, sculpt, dance, or play music, the concentration required for creativity causes us to think about God more deeply. We dwell on Him and abide in Him as we create, and as we do, we're blessed with joy. The resulting works enrich us and lift God up as glorious to all partake of the results.

Where Do We See Greatness?

And yet, Sproul points to a lack of this deliberate abiding—and the dedication it's meant to engender—as a major issue for modern Christianity:

Where do we see greatness in Christian art today? Where do we see greatness in Christian music today? Who are the leading great Christian novelists of our age? Who are the great Christian politicians? Where are the great Christian research scientists? ... The leaders of the classics in all the fields have been Christians.

Whereas men like Bach "consciously sought to use the medium" they worked in "as an instrument to capture men's minds for the glory of God," Sproul notes that the Christian community is failing to "dent the culture" in the current era. Rather, the culture may be denting us—to the detriment of the Church and the world.

Like Sproul, I fear the world makes inroads into the Church far more often than the Church makes inroads into the world, including in the matter of excellence. We live in a culture obsessed with doing more and doing it faster, that invents an ever-increasing collection of tools to keep the productivity machine running at top speed.

Christians aren't immune to the pressure. Faced with a constant stream of chatter that suggests others are producing more, achieving more, and enjoying success more than we are, it's hard to resist the temptation to abandon excellence in favor of ramping up our output in an effort to simply be heard above the noise.

This "just ship it" attitude is the antithesis of the slow, deliberate focus and diligence required to develop the excellence of which Sproul speaks. We may increase the volume of our output, but it's often at the expense of quality. The result is a spiral of steadily devolving work as those who read or view what we create become accustomed to a lower level of quality and cease to expect anything better. Instead, novelty becomes the driving force, which increases the pressure to produce.

And on and on.

I wonder if we've become so accustomed to the mediocrity spawned by the speed of modern "content production" that we no longer recognize excellence. Do we truly understand the standard God calls us to? Do we recognize the power that the Holy Spirit has to transform our creative gifts? Or are we so ignorant of these realities that we've stopped demanding excellence of ourselves—and of our Christian brothers and sisters?

Putting in the Work For God's Glory

Of course, when we demand excellence of ourselves, we face the reality of the effort it involves and put ourselves in an uncomfortable position that discomfits our fleshly nature. Committing to excellence, Sproul rightly points out, requires "submitting [yourself] to the discipline" of the training and labor required to become truly great.

What it takes to achieve excellence, more than anything else, is not talent but perseverance. ... Excellence takes work.

Yet the concept of "work" is fraught with angst and resistance in our culture. No thanks to the ubiquitous presence of tiny pocket computers, vocational work hovers, omnipresent, at the edge of our consciousness. Combined with societal pressure to Get Things Done, this omnipresence breeds an ongoing stream of background stress that drains our energy and leaves us feeling overwhelmed and listless.

In response, many people—particularly young people—are on a quest to personalize every aspect of work. They're demanding flexible hours, remote options, and unlimited paid time off. Some are exiting the workforce entirely, opting to be their own bosses and chase the elusive dream of making eight figures while working four hours a week from a laptop on a remote island paradise (floppy hat and big sunglasses optional).

It's not wrong to want balance between work and life; God built such rhythms into His creation. But He also made work integral to what it means to be human. Made in His image, we're called to work as He worked. We're called to point the world to Him by influencing the culture in which He places us. He gives us gifts to that end—and expects us to develop them by the means He provides.

The gift we've been given by God is supposed to be brought back to God to be developed to its ultimate potential.

Our attitude must mirror Paul's in Philippians 3:13-14: always pressing forward, determined to grow and improve for the sake of God and His Kingdom. We must commit to the long haul of pursuing excellence day by day, year after year. We must be ready to lay aside our pride and admit we're not as good as we think we are, we don't know as much as we think we know, and we have so much to learn that it will take until glory to even scratch the surface.

We must be willing to make sacrifices of time and preference. We must be willing to submit our gifts wholly to God and let Him lead us by His Spirit through the process of learning, practicing, and refining. We must embrace the humbling reality that excellence requires a slow, steady pursuit if we desire to follow an upward trajectory and not plateau in a mire of mediocrity.

But are we, as Christians, willing to do what it takes to do great work for God and make an impression on the culture?

I have to point this question at myself and allow it to try my heart. Am I willing to work hard, toil, sweat, put in the time, and wrestle with the details of the writing craft so I can leave a legacy for the Lord?

The Fountain That Feeds Excellence

I find myself coming down to the fundamental issue of loving the Lord with all my heart as commanded in Scripture (Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22:37). If I love Christ, I'm supposed to give myself to Him as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:2). That means giving Him my whole life, every aspect of my being. It means I'm to submit my writing talent to Him to use as He will. And from that, a desire to work diligently for Him—and a delight in that work—is supposed to flow.

And yet, I'm deeply that I don't love God as I ought. I don't meditate on Him and His Word when I awake in the night or sing His praise every morning as the psalmists did (Ps. 5:3, 55:17, 88:13). I don't identify with people who gush over how beautiful Christ is and pontificate on how Christians should gaze upon His beauty until they melt like my giddy 13-year-old self at the sight of a Nick Cater centerfold in Teen People.

My faith has leaned toward the intellectual and the practical for the majority of my walk with Christ. I delight in burying my head in commentaries, concordances, and dictionaries; chasing rabbit trails through word studies; or taking deep dives into Bible books and passages. I study Scripture like the nerdy reader and writer I am: digging into the particulars of language and setting, seeking to understand the meaning, and journaling insights the Holy Spirit provides.

This leads me to question why I don't seem to have that deep desire to "behold the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4)"—a state of heart that troubles me. I'm to labor and strive for excellence out of love for the God Who gave me my talents, abilities, and gifts, but in examining myself, I find a lack of appreciation for His inherent beauty.

Unless "beauty" means more than the narrow definition we've given it. Unless it describes more than something attractive or a sight we're drawn to look at and linger on. And indeed, it does. Beauty expresses a particular excellence that encompasses delightfulness, pleasantness, and splendor, that possesses a pleasing harmony or symmetry.

An excellence, indeed, like God's.

So perhaps intellectual nerdity is my way of beholding God's beauty. As I plunge into the depths of Scripture and come away with notes that I feel the urge to organize and share, my spirit communes with His and glimpses His perfection. The more I read and study His Word, the more I learn about Him: the pinnacle of all things pleasing to the human mind.

Which brings me full circle. Do I desire to worship this God now, in this life, to the point of giving Him all I have and all I am? Am I ready to submit everything, including my writing, to be used by Him and for Him now? And do I long to be before His throne forever, serving and worshipping Him with my brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us using our gift for Him as stewards and rulers in the new creation?

Mastering the Details

Eternal devotion has a price in temporal life. It means humbling myself and realizing I have a long way to go. It means walking the fine line between rejoicing in what God has already done in and through my writing abilities and not being satisfied with staying at my current level of skill. It means stepping the shallows and applying myself to the deeper discipline of learning and growth—a discipline that must be lifelong if I'm to truly use my words for God.

When I first realized that "writer" is my main calling, I wrote:

"I want to approach writing like a craft, to apply myself to it like a working writer instead of a blogger or content marketer. I want to learn to write sentences and prose that flow with satisfying rhythm and cadence. I want to serve God with my writing talent, to be a good steward of what He's given me, and honor Him by treating writing as more than a means of making money. I want to approach writing joyfully and with all my might, to pursue excellence because this talent and this life are from God and for God."

I didn't understand what pursuing excellence with all my might would entail. As Sproul points out, to use a gift fully, it's essential to master the details. If I'm serious about excellence, I must commit to the training required to become a great writer—studying technique and grammar, learning proper word use and syntax, and brushing up on punctuation—and put in the time to apply what I learn.

But at the same time, I can't allow fear of not yet being excellent to hold me back from writing as I train. I often afraid to try because I'm weighed down by the realization of how much more I have to learn. When I do venture to try, I wrestle for hours to find the best words, the most economical sentence constructions, the most logical flow of ideas. Writing is excruciating; editing is even more so.

Developing excellence is intimidating.

But Sproul shines light on an underappreciated benefit of putting in the work: "The more you master the details, the more freedom you have to be creative." Knowing how to use the tools of our creative trades to the fullest allows us to bring to life whatever God puts in our minds or hearts to share. At the end of the tunnel of struggle, we find the light of freedom.

Turning the World Upside Down

Matthew 5:16 points us to the best use of that freedom:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Christianity is active. People should see a difference not only in believers' conduct but also in enterprise. Says Sproul, "The Christian is called to Herculean efforts of discipline and achievement that would make the labor and industry of the world pale in comparison." The world labors for a corruptible crown (1 Cor. 9:25), for riches that make themselves wings and fly away (Prov. 23:5), for temporary accolades that fade the moment the Next Big Thing comes over the horizon. But Christians are meant to labor out of gratitude for the eternal God Who saved us from the darkness of our sin through the greatest act of love and mercy the world has ever seen: the atoning death and glorious resurrection of His Son (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

Early Christians understood this, and their zeal for the message of Christ earned them the title of men who "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). I echo Sproul, then, in asking: What happened?

What happened to turn Western Christianity into a largely motivational and therapeutic endeavor that feeds congregations with spiritual cotton candy week after week and tickles the ears with "music" barely distinguishable from the playlists at high school dances in the '90s?

What happened to convince us that, to reach the culture, we have to become like the culture; to embrace its frameworks in art, media, and entertainment; to turn Sunday services into rock concerts, youth groups into pizza parties, and sermon series into bite-sized bits of pragmatic life advice to be consumed without thought or attention as we run from activity to activity?

What happened to turn us away from a Christianity rooted in a love for Christ that sparks a burning desire to live, work, serve, speak, and use our gifts for God? Have we forgotten—or, perhaps, ceased to be taught—the magnitude of what Christ did for us in dying for our sin? The depth of mercy and love God showed us? The steep price paid to enable us to become what God has always meant us to be, including developing our gifts to the fullest without the sinful self-focus that leads to futility?

Sproul ends his article with an interesting declaration:

"The essence of ethics is gratitude. That's the motivation for excellence."

"Essence" refers to the substance that makes something what it is. So I think what Sproul means is that our conduct in society—our ethics—should flow from gratitude to the God Who fully pardoned and justified us, saved us from death and hell, and provided all we need through Christ. He has given us gifts to use for His glory and enabled us to pursue true excellence by the power of His Spirit.

And if we focus on pursuing excellence for Him, it will show in how we behave and how we spend our time. We won't be distracted by the world's temptations: pointless entertainment won't grab our attention, self-promotion won't taint our motives, and money or accolades will never be our chief end. Instead, we'll allow God to work in and through us and improve our talents as part of our ongoing sanctification.

As a result, we'll impact the culture by using our creative works to shine the light of Christ and leave a legacy that outlasts us. Not so our names will be remembered, but so people will look at what we wrote or played or filmed and recognize that we, like the early disciples, have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

That is how I desire to use my words.

---

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this one. What does pursuing excellence mean for you? What have you given up in order to put in the work necessary to master your gifts?