Beyond Sunday Worship

Worship Podcast

How To Audition Worship Team Members (without losing your mind)

I know you’ve been there. You’re the worship pastor, the worship leader, the music minister, the architect of spiritual atmospherics, and you have some people on your team that can’t cut it. Their attitudes drain the life out of rehearsals, their musicality is poor, they show up unprepared, late, and with a Big Mac, super-sized extra value meal that they proceed to eat during rehearsal. And they just don’t seem to take instruction or work with a team very well.

How did you get here?


I think we’ve all been in this place where we either inherited a worship team mess or we created one ourselves. I’d like to help you with some tips on how to go about auditioning worship team members in a way that will help you, not paralyze you.

1. SET HIGH STANDARDS

It is better for your worship team to consist of you and an acoustic guitar than with a harmonica enthusiast, drunk percussionist, horn section, rain stick amateur, 7 year old drummer, pot-smoking dulcimer player, and someone who likes to sing. OK, that was a bit ridiculous. But it’s better to have a smaller team that is tight than a massive team that doesn’t know what they’re doing. Build your team slowly over time. You don’t need 40 acoustic guitar players like Hillsong. Start small. Create quality environments with less.

2. AVOID MASS AUDITIONS

Now, I know many churches hold auditions. My philosophy here is that it’s difficult to say no to that many people. Rather, engage with your congregation. If you encounter musicians, invite them to hang out at your rehearsals a couple times. Don’t say, “Hey bro come join our worship team. Wanna play next Sunday?” Keep it casual until you know for sure this person is a good fit.

3. ASSESS, BUT BE HONEST IMMEDIATELY

If you assess someone who wants to be on the worship team, be up front immediately about what you’re going to do. Don’t beat around the bush and say you’ll get back to them. You won’t. It’s confrontation we all like to procrastinate on. Just tell them. Trust me, they’ll appreciate your honesty up front. Suggest ways they can improve. Tell them you’ll listen to them again after a few months of hard work. It’s not that you enjoy turning people away, it’s that you want a skillful team that knows how to minister worship music. You need a certain degree of musical skill.

4. SUGGEST OTHER MINISTRIES FOR THOSE YOU TURN AWAY

People are very self-conscious and emotionally attached to their musical skills. You will quite possibly offend some people when you turn them away. Maybe they were the “main drummer” at their last church and feel they should fulfill the same role on your team. Don’t just turn them away but suggest other areas in the church where they could serve. We always suggest the choir for those who want to be on the worship team but don’t have the skills to be that front-and-center.

5. LOOK FOR PERSONALITY, HEART, & HUMILITY, NOT JUST SKILL

You need people who are fun. You need people who have a heart for God and for music. You need people who are humble and can take instruction without ‘knowing it all’. Learn how to see that. I’ve worked with musicians who were a little weak  but because they had personality, heart, and humility, I was able to train them to be better. If someone already knows it all, you probably want to suggest another area of ministry 🙂

WORSHIP LEADERS, What did I miss? What are ‘auditioning practices’ you have tried?

5 Ways You Can Improve Your Leadership

The subtitle of my blog is “Worship. Leadership”. The reason for this is because worship leading is so much more than just singing songs, maneuvering through a worship set, holding band rehearsals, and listening to music all day. Being a worship leader involves leadership. It requires spiritual leadership.


I mean, noboday wants to follow a worship leader who doesn’t worship, right? Nobody wants to follow a worship leader who doesn’t love Jesus, right?

In this post I would like to outline 5 ways to improve your leadership as a worship leader. Or any leader, for that matter. These are things you can start doing now. I have a huge heart for you and believe God wants to use you in incredible ways.

1. IMMERSE YOUR PLANNING IN PRAYER

Part of what we do as worship leaders is plan. We plan a weekly setlist. We plan Easter productions and Christmas productions and scheduling and a host of other things. When you beging to immerse your planning in prayer, it shows in your leadership. It’s not just about getting things done. It’s about the presence of God, discipleship, vision, passion, expectancy. These are the things you want to impart to your team and congregation and it comes through prayer.

2. DEVELOP A DISCIPLESHIP STRATEGY

If you don’t plan it, it’s not going to happen. This is so important. Make your discipleship intentional. I’ve already written a previous post on How to Disciple Your Worship Team, so I won’t repeat myself here. I find it healthy to plan your year out before it happens. Sure, plans may change. But force yourself to get away for a few hours or a whole day and plan an intentional discipleship strategy for those on your worship team. You want your worship team members to grow musically, spiritually, and be sent out to do the same.

3. BE PREPARED

There’s nothing more frustrating than working with a ‘leader’ who is not prepared. Do the work to ‘set the table’ for your worship team. Put front end work into rehearsals, think through challenges you may face, set the stage, plan your devotional, know where you are going. It will seriously improve your leadership and likelihood of people sticking with you.

4. TAKE TIME TO THINK

I know thinking can be scary. You finally have to face the things you failed at. You have confront what isn’t working. But to be an effective leader you need to not just ‘do work’ but you need to ‘think about work’ to ensure you’re doing the right things. Is what you’re doing aligned with the vision of your lead pastor? Are you fulfilling the vision God has called you to? Are you stressed and losing patience with your team? These are the kinds of things you want to face weekly, think through them, pray through them, and come out stronger.

5. CELEBRATE YOUR TEAM

You may not think it’s that important, but taking the time to recognize individual people for what they contribute to your team is so beneficial. Not only does it encourage them but it increases the likelihood of them following you. People love to be recognized and will follow a leader who appreciates what they contribute.

LEADERS, what is ONE THING you have done to improve how you lead?

How Close Should Sunday Morning Worship Reflect the Recordings?

Over the years as I’ve talked to many worship leaders, I have encountered different approaches to Sunday morning worship – some who are vehemently opposed to structure and click tracks and arrangments and others who have their entire worship set planned to the ‘T’ without much wiggle room.

One of the questions that has come up time and time again is how close should Sunday morning worship resemble the recordings? I mean if Chris Tomlin, Jesus Culture, and Hillsong do it it’s gotta be from God’s rulebook, right? Well, maybe not God’s rulebook. But it can be helpful to use what others have done.

I like to strike a healthy balance between personal arrangements, recorded arrangements, and the spontaneous.

Here’s my thoughts:

UTILIZING RECORDED ARRANGEMENTS SAVES YOU TIME

As a busy worship leader, this is great. You don’t have to personally and creatively arrange every single song because someone has already done that work. Just listen in, take notes, and teach. It’s nice to use what they’ve done and build upon it.

UTILIZING RECORDED ARRANGEMENTS IS THE BEST WAY TO TRAIN YOUNG MUSICIANS

Young musicians are not typically honest about how bad they are. I don’t know what it is but it’s easy for we musicians to get an inflated view of ourselves. We easily blame external factors (can’t hear, can’t see the music, use the “it’s OK I’ve got it” comment, etc.) for our mistakes. Maturity is learning to admit when you mess up (maybe I should save this for another post :))Holding young musicians accountable to learning and playing their part of a recorded song teaches them a much needed discipline if they want to be good musicians.

ARRANGE, BUT LEAVE SPACE

At my church we typically do four songs for our main worship set. Not all four of those songs are sequenced and perfectly arranged. I usually leave one or one and a half for flowing purposes and ‘see where it goes’. This keeps the worship time from becoming too mechanical. Listen in to the Holy Spirit and follow Him where he is going.

Worship Leaders: what are your thoughts on the “do it like the recording” debate?

3 Ways Worship Leaders Can Deal with Discouragement

With my recent posts on worship leading blunders, it’s easy to laugh at the mistakes when you’re in hindsight. You can look back, learn, laugh, and grow to become more humble.

But in the moment it’s not so funny. Sometimes when we miss the mark, we get discouraged.

You’re asked to lead a song and you botch the lyrics…again. You’re excited for this rehearsal only to feel like no one on your team respects you. And that comment from a church member about how you don’t flow in the Spirit doesn’t help either.

Sometimes it’s easy to laugh at mistakes but sometimes it hits too close to home.

How can we be better prepared for this? Here’s 3 Ways:

1. Draw confidence from God’s love

Musicians and worship leaders need this. We have a tendency to base our self worth on how well we do. While we should place a priority on excellence, that has nothing to do with our self worth. Before we are musicians and singers and worship leaders, we are loved by Jesus. Period. You’ll also be a more effective worship leader with this truth at your core.

2. Surround yourself with those who believe in you

I have a great relationship with my Senior Pastor. I know he believes in me 100%. That also doesn’t mean he’s not afraid to point out what needs improvement. Surround yourself with great leaders who believe in you and take to heart what they say. Don’t allow the criticizers to discourage you. Be polite, but listen to those who love you.

3. Plan Well

You see, a lot of mistakes can be avoided if you prepare well. Look ahead and put out necessary fires before they happen. Things may still go wrong, but at least you’ve done all you can to avoid them. Spend time in personal worship, put front end work into your rehearsals, plan your setlist.

What about you? What has helped you deal with discouragement? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Common Worship Leading Blunders (Part 2)

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Vicky Beeching recently wrote an excellent, thorough blog post on dealing with disasters in a worship set. If you’ve been a worship leader for any length of time, you know encountering a disaster is a “when” not an “if”. Vicky gave some great advice for a variety of situations and I suggest you read it.

Whereas my last post was on worship leading blunders you should avoid, I wanted to expand on Vicky’s post to include a few more ‘blunders’ that just seem to happen…and how to recover. Here goes:

When You Say “Crap” instead of “Clap”

This may never happen to you. I mean, it hasn’t happened to me once. It actually happened twice. Let’s face it: sometimes you just say the wrong word. The best thing to do is move on, but if it was so obvious to the rest of the room that people are laughing at you, go ahead and laugh with them. Embarrassing as it is, it is a healthy reminder that you’re not an indestructible rock star for everyone to stand in awe of. Be human. Lead with humility. Laugh. Now, go. Lift up a ‘crap’ of ‘plaise’. 🙂

When that song didn’t ‘take off’ as you expected

Not every song you do needs to be done over and over. Some songs resound with certain congregations, others don’t. In my experience, there are three types of songs: songs that are instant hits, songs that take 2-3 weeks before they’re hits, and songs that need to retire. It’s not that they’re bad songs, necessarily, it’s just that your congregation isn’t engaging with it. So test a song out a few times and if it’s just not “working”, let it rest in peace.

The off-beat tambourine lady is on the front row

Actually, I don’t really need to specify that she’s on the front row. She’s ALWAYS on the front row. That’s what off-beat tambourine lady’s do. It must be in their contract. The best thing you can do is try and ignore it (I know, it’s tough) but also show the congregation how you want them to clap (check out what Jon Acuff has to say about clapping). The off-beat tambourine lady has good intentions, but she will threaten to bring the entire room into a code red state of chaos. As the leader, keep referencing the proper clap. And pray the tambourine breaks.

What about you? What are some blunders you’ve encountered?