By Abigail Hasebroock

“I have literally never once been on stage and not gotten the lyrics wrong to at least one song.”

Grant Spears is not ashamed to admit his tendency to mess up the lyrics of songs, primarily because he said he has mastered the art of covering up these mistakes.

The 20-year-old UF economics sophomore joined the Cru worship team his freshman year and has since led worship multiple times, successfully persevering through the severe limits that COVID-19 placed on live congregational worship.

“I was kind of sad that we weren’t able to have more worship toward the beginning of the semester just because I think worship is such an integral part of the congregational vibe,” he said. “Trying to listen to people sing through a mask is a little weird, too.”

In his two decades on Earth, Grant has acquired talents in playing the piano, guitar, bass, drums, saxophone and singing. He picked up a minor in piano performance during his freshman year, and he said he is taking a class this Spring where he gets to play the steel drums.

Spears said he joined a worship team in middle school with his youth group because his older siblings had been involved with it, and he simply enjoyed playing instruments.

“I was like, ‘Hey, that looks like fun, I like playing instruments, I’m in the youth group, this sounds like an easy equation,” he said.

However, after a lesson on irreducible complexity in his freshman year biology class, Spears decided he wanted to take his faith more seriously, which involved altering his mindset toward his participation on the worship team.

“That’s something that I still struggle with, is playing to flex,” he said. “I have to remind myself every time I play that the purpose is to use my talents to glorify God and allow an environment where the congregation can feel closer to God and that will be directly inhibited by my enormous ego.”

While he believes the focus should always be exalting the Lord, he also must consider logistical aspects of worship, like choosing certain songs based on the content of the sermon, playing the correct notes and ensuring that everything sounds cohesive.

“Our goal is to reach the world and that’s going to be hard if people don’t want to come [to Cru events] because the worship singer sounds like a bag of butter being slapped against the wall!” he said.

While Spears views worship as the most direct form of communication between himself and God, he said he understands this is not true for everyone.

“When I’m leading worship, I like to give a caveat at the beginning and say, ‘Hey, if singing isn’t your thing, that’s totally fine, take a moment to think about what the lyrics mean to you,’” he said.

Spears made a promise that he plans to uphold indefinitely, however.

“I will never play ‘sloppy wet kiss,’” he said. “It is the waffles versus pancakes of worship music.”