What else do you do?

[Mike Darley]

This question is for full-time worship leaders. I am a volunteer worship leader. Apparently the pastor is pushing to start paying me part-time but the budget is not there now. Anyway, my wife asked me the other day, "If the church started paying you full-time, what would you do differently?" To be honest, I said I really didn't know. I might spend the time to write out the harmony parts and maybe try to spend more time writing, but other than that I'm not sure. Let me also say I know that this question can come across as, "What in the world are you guys getting paid for?" That's not it at all. I actually just curious. What do you guys do with your time?

[stephen_can_man]

The size of the church will determine what could be, or, should be done. In smaller churches, most of the ministry work is more about starting projects and recruiting volunteers to help grow the church, where as larger churches have systems in place that need to be maintained and are more specialized. Our church is somewhere in the middle so I do a lot of things.

A lot of my time is spent researching music. Finding music that fits our service thematically is a challenge and requires time. It also requires time to chart out the music and teach volunteers the parts. Every Tuesday our Creative team (worship planning) gets together and plans our weekend services about two to three weeks ahead. This gives me time to find special music and come up with creative ideas. We do drama, movie clips, and film our own clips to help enhance the services.

I use the time during the week to train and encourage our current musicians (and other team volunteers) as well as recruit new musicians/volunteers. We have high standards for our services, so it takes time to coordinate volunteers and their schedules and it takes time to train people to do all things with excellence. Our band has about 30 people who rotate through it, our tech team has about 20, Drama 10, Stage Design 10. Most of these people are only connected to the church through these ministries so I use the time that they serve to help mature them spiritually in our conversations and I prepare short devotionals etc. Essentially, I am responsible for a church within a church.

We have a budget that we use to design stage sets for monthly series that we do, and it all has to be built by volunteers. We also move our musicians around our stage several times a month to keep things fresh.

I have a degree in Marketing so I team up with our tech director to do graphic design and website maintenance. I am also experienced in sound and I use time to help train the tech team members. There are a lot of overlapping ministries and teams so I work very closely with our Tech director.

If your church is not concerned about being creative, recruiting volunteers and creating new ministry opportunities (like drama, multiple musicians, video team, technical team, stage crew etc.) then there isn't a lot to do. But if you want to get people involved, you have to create ways for them to serve and sometimes invent teams and positions. A full time worship leader does more than sing, he is usually a team/ministry builder.

[milepost13]

we're a church of about 150 members, 300 attendance. We have three full-time staff, and we all wear lots of hats. Beyond musical worship, I also oversee our greeting team and our communications team. I help out with some youth stuff when I can. I do a lot of odds and ends around the building. I do some blogging. I oversee a few websites.

Nate

[russhutto]

Website.
Print media.
Middle School House Party (small group Bible study).
Worship rehearsals.
Vocal rehearsal tracks (I spend all day monday working on tracks for the week after next - laying down 3 part vocal/piano or guitar rehearsal tracks)
Meeting with potential team members (occasionally).
Research (music).
And whatever else "media/music" calls for on any given work day.

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
Great question ... one thing, ironically, that I don't see posted a lot is something very important ... and it's sort of a soap box for me.

I think if you have a full-time worship pastor/leader ... the question isn't "how many tasks and jobs can I take on to make sure I'm fair to [work] 40 hours per week". I think it's fair and important to do the jobs ... but in my opinion, one of the biggest benefits to being "full-time" is that this enables you to just worship ... pray ... seek the Lord ... more than you'd probably be able to do if you were working a 40+ week job elsewhere.

There are some weeks I'm running pretty good - but most weeks, if I had to clock in 40 hours at the desk, on the property, doing "jobs" ... I'd not clock in 40 hours. The good news ... I may spend an afternoon in prayer, in Bible study, or in worship. I've spent many days in my "studio" just playing piano, worshiping in private, jotting down phrases and lyrics in my journal ...

I think that the anointing and leadership skills that you need will flow out of this.

This type of "free time" needs to be accounted for, and should be accountable. For me, I'll often spend some time talking with my Pastor (who is also my "direct report") ... just sharing what God is speaking, the direction I'm seeing - this is where vision for new events, new songs comes from, etc.

Beyond that, in the more "meetings and tasks" department, I do have a couple of mandatory meetings weekly (Creative/Eval meeting and Staff Meeting). I spend a good bit of time online sending emails, IMs, and on the phone talking with band members, coordinating schedules, etc. And like Stephen said, I spend a good bit of time looking for music and listening to music as well.

In my situation, I share a small office with 2 other guys ... all who, like myself, usually are playing music, talking on the phone, or talking to any of the multitude of folks who like to breeze in and "hang out" in my office. In times like this, I typically just throw my Shure E5's on, or dismiss myself to my studio, or occassionally, upstairs to the auditorium.

Great question - and a good one to ask.

My counsel - don't try to pile 40+ hours of tasks and meetings in your role as a Full-Time Worship Pastor ... just as the Levites in the OT were taken care of materially (food, finances, etc) so that they could dedicate themselves to worship, prayer, seeking God, etc., I truly believe that those in a pastoral/music ministry role should be afforded some of the same time.

(coming down off my soap box now).

[worshiptrench]

Here are my thoughts. Since we ask our members to seek God hard in passionate personal worship and then work a secular job where they cannot do their "quiet time" on clock, I need to model that (even though it would be easy to justify sleeping later and doing my worship time at the office). We do pray as a staff together and when planning worship, but we are loaded up on our hours.

I have also given up trying to convince people that pastors work during the week. I used to, but I gave up.

Here is what I do:

recruit and raise up leader (always #1 on list, after seek God)
conceptualize all "marketing" and creativity for all ministry areas

(video ideas, print ideas, tactile ideas, brainstorming, etc.)
executive staff churchwide leadership/decisions
communicative strategies churchwide
copy editing
oversee team of graphic designers
oversee tech team (paid and unpaid)
oversee worship staff (paid and unpaid)
research cultural and artist trends
plan service orders and creative elements (in conj with brent)
custom score charts
arranging
conceptualize sermon metaphors and determine preaching plan
write worship teaching/lesson for worship rehearsals
basic pastoral duties and pastoral care
oversee all communication and web pieces
temporarily overseeing aesthetic elements of new sanctuary

oh, yeah and write a sermon roughly every other week.

(here is what an example week looked like http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=78

[fmckinnon]

Great response, Jordan ..

Just to be clear, I'm certainly not advocating that we ignore our personal "quiet time" and just do that on the "clock" .. no, far from it. Personal devotion, Bible Study, and "quiet time" is essential, and should be covered just like anyone else in the world.

I just feel that it's fitting and right to allow for extra time for those who are in a position of pastorally leading a congregation, whether in teaching, worship, etc.

In the same way you'd probably not expect the pastor to do all his sermon preparation "off the clock", you'd not necessarily expect a full-time WL to do the same ... and I think one of the best ways to prepare for worship is to .... worship.!

[worshiptrench]

I know you would never do that, Fred. I know some that do and was just giving my 2 cents. A good question to ask yourself is always, "What am I expecting of the flock and do I match it?"

What, you mean I was supposed to be my 30 hours of sermon prep on church time instead of at night?....wow, I can't wait to tell our exec pastor this. hahaha

[El Ben]

I think, too, Fred and Jordan, that you guys have such polar opposite personalities. Jordan (from his stuff on the trench and various other things talked about here) is what we refer to in the game Cranium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranium_%28board_game%29) as a "data head." There's nothing wrong with that, that's just the way he is. Naturally, he is more geared to concrete, definitive tasks and responsibilities.

Fred, on the other hand, is what we refer to as a "creative cat." There's also nothing wrong with that. For Fred, the day is less about "things" and more about "ideas." Whereas (I'm betting) Jordan is in a constant data-stream that requires processing and filing of that data, Fred (I'm betting) is in a constant creative flow that demands feeding with creative things, like studio time, songwriting, worship, ect. Obviouslly their days are going to look different and they choose to execute the tasks at hand differently, but I'm willing to be that at the end of the day, though Jordan might get more "things" done, the collective "impact" of their efforts are roughly the same.

Please, boys, correct me if I'm wrong on this one.

[Mike Darley]

Okay, so it seems to me that those of you who lead worship full-time are not just preparing and leading the music for your various church services. It also seems that a lot of this has to do with the size of your church as well as the need brought on by various ministries in your church. My church for example isn't as the point of implementing a lot of what you guys do on a weekly basis. I appreciate the feedback. You guys have given me some good food for thought as our church moves forward.

[worshiptrench]

Ben--

can you put that on a spreadsheet for me?

[El Ben]

I'll do you one better, I'll put it in an equation:

For equation (A), let Fred Mckinnon= FM; let Jordan Fowler= JF

With the assumption that:

[time(t)+effort(e)+focus(f)]/tasks=productivity(p)]

and that

{[productivity(p)+giftings(g)]/motives(m)}+blessing of god(bgod)=eternal impact(I)]

and that eternal significance of anything without God's hand(Z)=0

and that the blessing of God(bgod)=infinite



So, the proof equation goes thusly:

Equation A:

Step One: FM(P)=(t+p+f)/tasks AND JF(P)=(t+p+f)/tasks
Result: FM(P)<JF(P)
Translation: Jordan's actual "productivity" might be higher than Fred's

Step Two: (FM(P)+g+m)/Z and (JF(P)+g)+m)/Z
Result: (FM(P)+g+m)/Z=0 (or Z) AND (JF(P)+g+m)/Z=0 or (Z)[/B]
Translation: All of Fred and Jordan's productivity plus their giftings plus their motives count as nothing without God's blessing. This is the earthly significance of their actions without God's blessing: nothing, or Z


Step Three: FM(I)=Z+(bGod) AND JF(I)=Z+(bGod)
Result: FM(I)=inifinite AND JF(I)=infinite
Translation: Since the significance of Fred and Jordan's actions without God's blessing is Z or 0, then their eternal impact is determined by the infinite blessings of God.






Um...wow. Did I just do that? I dare not even check the syntax to see if it's right.

[carguy1]

I don't know if the Syntax is right, but I thought it was dang cool.

[fmckinnon]

my head hurts

[worshiptrench]

not mine....
i loved logic class. gimme another one.

btw, its not that i am not artsy...i love Rothko and Fontana (there is a burning exhibit called Declaring Spaces at The Modern in Fort Worth) while most people look at their canvases and say, Wow my 3 year old could do that.

Well, smarty pants, they didn't.

BUT I AM PRETTY ANALYTICAL.