At the risk of ageing myself, I am reminded of the He-Man comic book and animated TV series by Mattel.
In one of the comic books, He-Man is hit by a large boulder while rescuing a girl and loses his memory. He is captured by an unfamiliar tribe who imprison him in a dungeon and later throw him in an arena to fight other captives. With no memory of who he is and where he comes from, He-Man loses his will and desire to fight and ends up getting beaten up by fellow captives in the arena.
It is only when one of the blows from a fellow prisoner brings back his memory that He-Man regains his will to fight, thereby landing his mighty fist on his opponent while yelling, “I am He-Man!”
I don’t know about you but I think we worship leaders are like that He-Man suffering a memory loss.
(Disclaimer: While all that I am about to say holds true for every follower of Christ, my goal here is to speak to fellow worship leaders.)
He-Man and the worship leader
We worship leaders can often be like He-Man. What do I mean by that?
Have you ever had a bad week of sin, prayerlessness, self-condemning thoughts, unforgiveness, interpersonal conflicts, poor performance in studies or work, or simply a lack of devotion time with God and then had to lead worship on a Sunday?
How did you feel?
Please tell me it’s just not me who has had to struggle with thoughts of being unworthy to lead others in worship of a Holy God.
Of course, there is no excuse to tolerate a sinful lifestyle or behavior pattern and we are responsible for our walk with God in holiness and righteous living.
Yet, whether we sin or sin happens to us in this fallen world, the enemy will use anything to trip us up. And every time we stand up to lead worship, we’ll feel weak in our knees with this nagging question running in the back of our minds, “Am I worthy?”
But the question we should be asking every time we get up to lead is: “Who am I?”
The identity crisis
It is here that, like He-Man, we lose our sense of identity, not knowing who we are, and thereby lose the will to fight, or in our case, the will to get up and lead others into worship.
This is because quite often we correlate leading worship or preaching with our acts of commission or omission throughout the week and determine our worthiness based on how we have lived. It’s funny that often we might not feel this way while putting up chairs or folding up cables. But the moment we hold the mic or an instrument, the nagging thoughts about our worthiness pull us down.
But the reality of the kingdom of God is not that our actions determine our worthiness or our identity. Instead, it is our identity in Christ as God sees us that determines our actions.
Our true identity
If only we took God at His Word, how liberating it would be to believe that in Jesus Christ, we are now a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), accepted by God (Romans 15:7) as His children (John 1:12) and His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
It would then be liberating for us to realise that while we often face temptations and lose the battle and end up sinning, we are in reality “no longer slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). Instead, we have been “set free and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:18).
The day we begin basing our identity and how we view ourselves on what God and His Word say we are is the day that we will stop looking at what we do (such as leading worship) through the lens of guilt and shame. Instead, we will begin to view the things we do as a privilege and approach them with gratitude and humility.
Of course, there is no excuse if we are stuck in a habitual cycle of sinning and pardoning ourselves, and we should seek help from others to overcome sinful patterns. But more often than not, we end up being too hard on ourselves than we ought to, thereby failing to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).
I pray that as we begin to rest and work from a place of our true identity in Christ, we will not only find freedom but also the joy of God’s salvation that will help us to lead others in worship with empathy and boldness.
After all, we are HIS-Man (or HIS-Woman).
The Common Worship Leader 
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