Last night at our weekly worship nite we had a special guest worship leader Aaron Schweinberg with us. Aaron was the worship pastor at APC a number of years ago before I was here. I actually used to play drums for Aaron back in the day. Let me just say it was an incredible evening. The presence of God was so strong as God’s people declared truth and lifted up the name of Jesus. Powerful.

As I was worshiping last night, I was observing how Aaron led worship. The entire night was pretty spontaneous, except for maybe a few opening songs. Aaron is a master of flow. He has an incredible amount of music memorized, a diverse repertoire of song styles, and has really learned how to flow with what the Holy Spirit is doing in the moment. He also has one of the best voices I have ever heard in my life, which makes each song he does even more intense and powerful. It was awesome and I just soaked it up.

This brings up a question in my mind.

How do we balance spontaneity and preparation? Are we supposed to have just one or the other? Allow me to outline the pros of both approaches:

PROS OF SPONTANEITY

• A healthy dose of spontaneous worship is an important reminder that worship is not just about executing hit songs. Each worship service is unique. The Holy Spirit wants to breathe upon each of our gatherings in a fresh way.
• It’s difficult to just ‘go through the motions’ if worship is spontaneous. In a love relationship, it’s the spontaneous times that can create the best memories.
• Spontaneous worship will push your musicians to become better at ‘flowing’. I think less experienced musicians are too ‘into the chart’ that they don’t look up or really focus on what God is doing. Teach them how.
• When you as a leader are led by the Holy Spirit and begin to flow into a string of songs that have a particular theme, momentum is created. Aaron did a great job connecting one song to another that was similar in theme.

PROS OF PREPARATION

• When you prepare your worship team and a culture of excellence and discipline is created, the music enhances rather than distracts. Sometimes when everything is totally spontaneous, each member of the band does whatever they want and it can create confusion, unless your playing with pros.
• Preparation leads to more effective spontaneity. The more disciplined your team is, the better they will flow when the moment comes.
• Preparing arrangements is a great way to teach your musicians the dynamics of playing in a band. Less is more. Each instrument has their part which contributes to the whole. Sometimes that contribution should be to not play. I have seen firsthand how this discipline has helped raise up some great young musicians in our church.
• Preparation helps you as the leader focus on what really matters in a worship service – ministering to the Lord and leading your congregation to do the same. Executing arrangements and leading the band MUST come secondary to those goals.

Bottom line: strive for both. Dive into the tension and raise up a worship team that plays great music but also knows how to flow as the Holy Spirit leads.

Sometimes we love it. Sometimes we hate it. Rehearsal can equal a recipe for disaster – bringing together different people of different ages with different skill levels with different musical experience with different opinions and different styles. Ready for a good time? I hope to equip you in this post with practical advice on how to improve your worship team rehearsals so you can start seeing some instant improvement. It’s possible for you to look forward to rehearsal. It’s possible for you to have consistently good rehearsals. It’s even possible for your team to have fun. It just takes hard work and some time to build momentum.

I think most worship leaders leave their rehearsals up to chance. Here are some things you should begin to implement:

1. Put front end work into rehearsals

• Prepare for your rehearsals like you would prepare for a service.
• Give intense thought/prayer to songs, transitions between each song (musically & vocally), musical arrangements.
• Call/Email/Facebook/Twitter/Text/Go door-to-door to make sure everyone arrives on time. Enforce this in love 🙂
• Depending on your musical knowledge, have ideas for what each instrument should do. You need to ‘produce’ the sound so it’s not mass musical chaos, which is very distracting to the goal of worship. If you don’t have this type of musical knowledge or training, you should find someone you trust who does and work very closely with them.
• Make sure the stage is set for your musicians! You want to minimize distractions and focus on your rehearsal. Too often loads of time is lost finding direct boxes, cords, and making sure the stage and sound is ready. Do this beforehand. TRUST ME!
• Don’t plan a rehearsal covering 400 songs. I typically rehearse for 2 hours and plan to get through 3-4 songs. I spend the most time on one song that I know will be a challenge. I also try and leave time for spontaneous practice too. More on that later.
• Ask the question, “What is the goal of this rehearsal?” Write it down. Plan around it. See it happen.

2. Create a fun, disciplined culture

• RELAX! Don’t be tense, mean, impatient, and rude to your team. You may be leading worship by yourself if you are. Give them a reason to respect you.
• Have fun! Make jokes. Laugh at yourself a lot. Something weird seems to come over us musicians when we’re on a stage with lights and a guitar in hand. You’re not really that good 🙂 It’s healthy to realize that.
• Don’t allow everyone to say whatever they want whenever they want to. The front-end work you put in will enable you to have an organized practice with a specific goal and outcome. Definitely allow your worship team to offer ideas and give input (which may even be better than yours), but realize YOU ARE THE LEADER! Lead them!
• Challenge your team to musical excellence. Less is more. If someone is consistently messing up, talk to them personally. Challenge them to practice on their own and come to rehearsal prepared. If they come unprepared, again, talk to them personally. If you set this standard, over time you will see dramatic improvement.
• Don’t be afraid to confront.

3. Prepare for the spontaneous

• I’ve noticed the best worship experiences are not my breakthrough musical ideas, drum loops, and air-tight arrangements. It’s what happens in between.
• Reserve 10-15 minutes of your rehearsal for ‘flow time’. Take a simple chord progression and flow with it. Teach them how be spontaneous musically, follow the Holy Spirit, and be sensitive to the moment.
• Don’t be solely ‘music-centered’. Pray. Worship during your rehearsal. Lead the way.
• BEFORE rehearsal, take time to pray over your songs, your musicians, and ask for the Holy Spirit’s leading in your practice.

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on my recent post on worship leadership. I’d like to take some time in the next week or so to dive into some of these qualities on a deeper level. There is a way to be a worship leader that is not burned out, stressed, and just trying to survive. It’s staggering to see that the average tenure of a worship leader in the local church is 2 years. Where are the steady, passionate, vision-filled leaders who are building up a worship team of ‘on-fire’ worshipers? Hopefully this stuff will help. Some topics covered will be:

• How to plan for a great rehearsal
• How to plan a great worship set
• The tension between spontaneity & preparation
• How do I get inspired each week?
• Getting behind the vision of your local church
• How to approach personal practice
• Creating a fun, disciplined culture
• What to do when your worship team doesn’t ‘get’ your vision

Anything else I should add?