It hits before the first song. The bass player asks a question you don’t know the answer to. The lead pastor wants a meeting “to talk through some things.” A volunteer asks if she can pray for you and you almost cry. Some part of you is convinced you weren’t supposed to be the one doing this.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.
2 Corinthians 3:5 (WEB)
What’s actually going on
Most worship leaders we hear from carry some version of the same quiet conviction: I shouldn’t be the one doing this.
You can be three years in and still feel like a fraud. You can have credentials and still feel exposed. You can be objectively gifted and still wonder, on the drive home Sunday, whether someone is finally going to figure out you don’t know what you’re doing.
A worship leader told us last month, “I’m waiting for the day they realize I shouldn’t be here.” Another one said, “I’m not enough. I think I’ve always known I’m not enough.” Both lead worship at churches that love them. Both have teams that respect them. Both wake up Tuesday with the same gnawing.
The feeling isn’t dishonest. It’s incomplete.
What’s true
Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 3, that he is not sufficient of himself to claim anything as coming from himself. Not he might not be. Not on his bad days. He is not. As a default posture of the apostle who wrote a third of the New Testament.
But the sentence doesn’t end there. “Our sufficiency is from God.”
That’s the part the inadequacy story leaves out. Yes, you are not enough. You weren’t ever supposed to be. God did not call enough people. He called called people. The call carries its own sufficiency, and the sufficiency does not come from you.
Moses tried this. “Who am I?” Jeremiah tried this. “I am too young.” Gideon tried this. “My clan is the weakest.” God’s answer in all three cases was not “you’re right, never mind.” It was the same answer every time. “I will be with you.” That was the qualification. The presence of God was the credential.
You feel inadequate because you ARE inadequate. The freedom is, you don’t have to be enough. The God who called you to this is enough, and he sent you into this room with you and his presence both. That’s not poetic. That’s the structural arrangement of how this works.
The day you stop feeling inadequate is the day you should start to worry. Sufficiency that comes from you is a story. Sufficiency that comes from him is the only kind that holds up Sunday after Sunday.
For your team
- When the feeling of inadequacy hits hardest, what’s it usually attached to (the team, the music, the lead pastor, your own walk)?
- What would change about how you lead this week if you took it as a given that you’re not enough, and that God knew that when he called you?
- Who is one person in your life you can name your inadequacy to without it becoming a referendum on your ministry?
Pray this
Father, I’m not enough. I never was. You knew that. Be enough through me this Sunday. The room doesn’t need me adequate. It needs you. Amen.
This Sunday
Before the first song, name out loud (to yourself or to a teammate) one specific way you feel unprepared. Then go lead anyway. The unprepared feeling is not the disqualifier. It’s the doorway.
Go deeper
In the network: Search “Leading From Inadequacy” for the live training where Chris and I walk through what it looks like to step on the platform every week with the unsteadied feeling instead of waiting for it to go away. Free at thechurchcollective.mn.co.
This devotional is part of The Church Collective’s free 52-week worship team devotional series. Get the first 12 as a free PDF and a fresh devotional in your inbox every Monday morning.