How would you like it if you had more musicians than you could handle?
What if your team was filled with passionate, skilled players who were invested in the vision of your church?
Not only is it possible, it’s where you should invest your best energy.
I’m at a place with my worship team where a transition is about to happen. The fall is almost here and you know what that means – college! A few of my best team members are leaving for school and I’m left with some gaps.
I’m sure you’re facing the same situation.
Since this is a normality when it comes to leading a worship team, you need to build a system where there is a constant influx of musicians.
I am going to show you how (because I’m working on it myself).
2 Questions
You need to answer these two questions:
1. How am I capturing and developing the young musicians in my church?
2. How am I capturing and developing the older musicians in my church?
You need a separate strategy for both.
Here’s the truth: Young musicians are transient. While they provide great energy to your team, they’ll only be with you for a while. Older musicians are more grounded – they’ll stay longer.
That’s why it’s smart to invest energy in both the old and the young.
But how, you might ask? Great question!
The 4 Stages Of Your Worship Team Growth Track
I know, processes can be agonizing. But once you’ve defined it, it never stops working for you.
1. Beginning – You need a place for people to enter. How does the gifted worship leader who just moved to your area get plugged in at your church? How does the ambitious 12 year old with his Digitech pedal board start the process?
It’s up to you to define. Maybe it’s quarterly auditions? A weekend touch point in the fellowship area? Get crystal clear on how people begin in your ministry.
2. Preparation – After people have entered your worship team pipeline, you need to determine what to do with them. You’ll have two camps: those who are ready and those who are not. You need a strategic plan for both.
- Ready – If a musician is ready, how do they get scheduled? Is it instantaneous? Do they need to become a member? Do they need to attend a couple rehearsals? It would be good to have a conversation with your senior pastor to help clarify this process.
- Not Ready – You may disagree, but I like to create space for those who aren’t ready. I’ve had musicians in the past who weren’t ready but through the training they received on the worship team, they improved dramatically. Once you audition a “not ready” musician, you need to be prepared with a place to send them for training.
3. Launch – When you begin to schedule someone, make sure they are aware of your expectations. You set the tone for your worship team culture. You’ve worked hard to define it. Now you need to work even harder to communicate it.
Otherwise, your team members will define it for you. And everyone has a different idea of what’s important. Before you schedule players make sure they understand your vision, dress code, arrival times, personal practice expectation, etc.
4. Review – It’s more than common for worship leaders and worship musicians to get burned out. Services are constant and leaders can be hard task masters. But not you. You will treat your volunteers with respect and make it a priority to not burn them out.
Set up a process of review for each of your musicians. Offer them an “out” if they need it. Oftentimes there are team members who need a break but won’t speak up for fear of disappointing you. Set up times throughout the year where you do worship team evaluations. Sit down one on one and evaluate the spiritual, physical, and emotional health of your team members.
At all times, you’ll have people at different stages of your process. Not only will they be discipled, they’ll discover their ministry – a place for their unique gifting to be released.
I know it’s easier to hide from this type of work, but you can’t afford to. You are called to make disciples. You are called to release people into ministry.
World changers are waiting for your call.
Question: What does your worship team process look like? Take a minute and share what has or hasn’t worked well for you. You can leave a comment by clicking here. You may have just what we need to hear.
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I completely relate to the young and the old scenario. It has been a constant battle trying to fill the gaps in. I haven´t done team evaluations which after reading this, I would certainly start implementing intentionally, although I talk with different team members at different times. Thank you for this article. it opened my eyes to a few areas that really need to be addressed within my team.
Chapa, that’s awesome. Let me know how the changes go!
Great post David and I really appreciate that you cove the age gap, which can be ignored.
The “not ready” part is a great way to keep people getting in, working there way into the system of musicians, too often we want everyone ready and that leaves a lot of people with great potential out of the box.
M_
Thanks Marc. Is this how it works with your team? Anything you would add?
You mentioned some great steps, there are three “grades” I guess you can say when an audition happens, “ready” “not ready yet”(but can join) and “not a fit”.
The Middle one, “not ready yet” is a great way for them to partner with another stellar musician as a mentor relationship, connecting them with a leader on that instrument. Then we invite them to rehearsals and let them pik up on the pace and expectations through that process for a month then we review again.
M_
David, great points on the young/old stuff. Great perspective. My team is in a place of “abundance” right now, due partly because of some great high school players. But I know they’ll be gone soon.
Love the high school players. If only they stuck around! 🙂
What if we are a small church? Would we follow this same protocol? Just wondering… I feel like I am begging people to come to rehearsals and have had no luck with people being committed. It gets a little frustrating at times but I try to stay positive. Any thoughts….
Felicia, leading at a small church certainly has its challenges. If I were you I would start by creating a culture of passion and vision within your team. So often we resort to “begging” people and we forget that people are drawn to vision. But I also understand your predicament of not having enough musicians. If you change your culture, I think you’ll eventually see musicians rise up.
Thanks! You’re absolutely right! In fact I read your blog a few weeks ago and one of the questions you asked was “What is your vision” then taking that vision and collaborating with the pastor to create a unified vision for the ministry and church. Something our church definitely needs to work on! I’ll be the first to own up to not implementing or casting our vision the way it should be to create that culture that will draw the people in!
How do you differentiate expectations for full-time worship pastors/leaders vs. Volunteer? Do you think you should differentiate in expectations for a full-time worship pastor/leader vs a Volunteer? I think there are a lot of volunteer worship leaders who compare themselves and get compared to full-time worship leaders. How would you (if at all) adjust this post to be specifically to volunteer worship leaders?
That’s a great question, Thomas. For a volunteer worship leader, I would lay out the top 2-3 things they need to be doing. What is most important? As far as growing and building a team, that would be close to the top of the list. I would simplify their workload so they could focus on the most important items and not have extra responsibilities at the church.
Oh, my! This article is such a wake-up call for me. Thanks so much!
Good to hear!
can you help me with this?
some of my tea wont submit their lives in this ministry, i think maybe this is not a good ministry to them, some are busy in the world like job and study. but i know they like being in the team and praising God by ministering His people. But it is just this ministry is not their first priority. how can i motivate them to prioritize the ministry even though they where busy? thanks and more power
can you help me with this?
some of my team wont submit their lives in this ministry, i think maybe this is not a good ministry to them, some are busy in the world like job and study. but i know they like being in the team and praising God by ministering His people. But it is just this ministry is not their first priority. how can i motivate them to prioritize the ministry even though they where busy? thanks and more power
Mau, you need to create space in your ministry for busy people. It’s an honor to have volunteers on our teams and you have to walk that fine line between challenging them and also understanding all the responsibilities they are juggling.
Hi David
Thank you for this article, I felt that you are almost telling my story.
I am a new full time staff now assigned to the worship team
and next month I will be in charge of the ever growing(in number) worship team, and with no one to train to lead to inspire and to manage, I felt overwhelmed. The need for worship team at our church is huge. I was a volunteer worship leader before I work full time, and our church doesn’t have a worship pastor.
I’ve retyped this message multiple times, because I end up writing too much with no direction.
Therefore I am seeking help, advice, and suggestion in how to train and equip musicians and vocals, as we have much gaps on the Grownups worship team and also youth. Yet we have several new musicians and vocals that is waiting for us to develop them.
Our struggle was the lack of time and space.
Another question, where and how would you allow the not ready yet member to participate and practice as interns? We have interns and have them participate in practices but they do not join us during services.
sorry having a mild brain dead episodes XD
Much appreciated
I loved the term “not ready” musicians and you provide training program to get them ready for the worship team. Wonderful idea provide training for them to get them up to par with everybody else.
thankyou very much for the true words from you!
what is the cause of people leaving one praise and worship team of one church to onother