You Don't Need to be Perfect!

I had known about it for months, but in my mind, no amount of preparation could make me ready. As the worship leader of a 19,000-member crowd, I would invite those who had never decided to follow Jesus to make that commitment. As much as I truly tried to trust Jesus that this was his work, I still carried the weight of speaking the actual words that would vibrate the air, that would move the eardrums, and hopefully stir the souls of the people who needed to repent and believe. This would be the most enormous altar call of my life—I’d better get it right.

How often we give in to this “get it right” mentality when we’re leading worship! As you start the new school year, remember one thing: Jesus is the perfect worship leader, so you don’t have to be.

Jesus did everything his Father asked of him while on earth. He lived a life of perfect obedience fueled by the Father’s perfect love (John 15:9-10). He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). This obedience was Jesus’s worship offering to the Father.

Not only that, Jesus continues to worship the Father. The author of Hebrews refers to Jesus as “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” where he is a “minister in the sanctuary” (Hebrews 8:1-2). The word for minister refers to a public servant, a functionary in the Temple, a worshiper. Simply put, every time we worship, Jesus leads us in offering up perfect and continual praise to the Father. He is the leader of our worship.

This is not just some ethereal, airy fairy, theological idea. According to Hebrews, Jesus said, quoting the words of Psalm 22:22, “. . . in the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (Hebrews 2:12). Our Lord isn’t ashamed to belt out some loud, heartfelt worship!

Jesus removes the need for us to be perfect worship leaders because he is continually offering up perfect worship on our behalf. When we lead others, he is there to lead us all into the Father’s presence and glory. Jesus is the expert worship leader; we are his apprentices, which is much different than being a hired hand. Apprentices work alongside and under the supervision of their teacher.

Too often, we think of God as a contractor and ourselves as his workers. God says: “I hired you to lead some good worship; now produce.” In this mentality, we curry God’s favor with a job well done. In fact, it is never up to us to get God to be gracious through our actions. He is gracious just because he is.

Furthermore, God’s grace is not a mere commodity that he dispenses—some object apart from himself, like a new car. Grace is God’s very presence with us, which we can experience every time we lead worship with an awareness that we don’t have to be perfect since Jesus is already perfect. Realizing this is the difference between life-giving and life-draining worship leading.

The song “You Are My King” (from worshiptogether.com) starts off “I’m forgiven, because you were forsaken. I’m accepted; you were condemned.” I’m accepted because of Jesus’s worship offering of his perfect self. Whenever I start at the wrong tempo, wonder if people like the songs we’re singing, or begin to obsess over whether I’ve said all the right things, I remember that Jesus is our worship leader—it’s not up to me to make it perfect.

The morning after I gave the invitation to follow Jesus for 19,000 people, God showed me how arrogant and silly I had been to think it was up to me to say the exact right words that would convince people to become Christians. I cried, realizing how gracious God had been to invite me—a self-focused perfectionist—to partner with Jesus in leading people closer to God. That’s what we do every time we stand up to lead others in worship: we join the already-worshiping Jesus, who is the most wholehearted worshiper of all.

—Sundee Frazier and her husband, Matt, led the Urbana 2000 worship team. They now live in Pasadena, California. Sundee is a freelance writer.

[For a more in-depth discussion of Jesus as our worship leader and the importance of the Trinity in worship, try reading Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace by James B. Torrance (IVP®).]