Developing a good, well rounded music ministry team in a small church setting.

[AD(J)]

Okay, as most of you know I belong to a small coffee shop based church. We meet on Sunday evenings and have two services. We're moving toward adding a service, possibly another service pair, on Sunday mornings.

I'm a volunteer at this point, and that may be the modus operandi for a while yet, so I don't have scads of time to plan and implement things.

With that in mind, I'm interested in expanding our current roster to make sure we have enough people involved if and when we do add other services. And I also want to be a good leader to my team, in whatever capacity I am able.



My main question is: How can I develop our music team? What are some practical steps I can take to help the group grow as worshipers, and to expand our current line up? I want to get them and everyone else at church excited about worship.

I have no budget. I have no staff, per se, except my lead pastor. What I have is my spare time and my free will, and I am developing this vision for ministry as each week goes by. Most often I just learn by what has worked and what hasn't, but I want to be more purposeful in my pursuit of this ministry.



Here are some of the things I have done thus far, so if you can, help me add to this list:


I've made 'Ministry opportunity' postings on the forums of a couple local Bible colleges. (Well, the ones that actually have forums). Many colleges have ministry requirements, so this has worked well for Fall/Spring, not so much for Summer, when students often head home.

I've posted on Craigslist.com looking for local musicians.

I've begun to have worship team meetings once a month to foster the group dynamic so that we can grow as a team.

I plan on having outside rehearsals this fall, probably once a month, since right now most of our members happen to be students.



I know that seems like a short list. I'm sure there are things I'm not remembering.

[gsalyer]

Hello,

We (my husband & I) have been leading worship at a small church for the last 4 years. We are certainly no experts, but I can share a couple of things we have learned.

Because we are a small church and resources are really limited we have asked musicians/singers to be on the team who really were not technically ready. If I could start over I would always ask the person to audition and determine if there skills were where we needed. If you have beginner players it can really be a distraction in worship and one of our goals is to eliminate all distraction. We would encourage that person to keep practicing or encourage them to take lessons. Also, if you have a good player that can act as a mentor that would be great. The less experienced player could come to practice and just work with the band until they are up to speed. The problem I have run into, is that some folks want to join the band without the process of learning their instrument.

Also, continually communicate your vision with them. When practice allows we have a short devotion session and prayer time. We are communicating our vision for the team, our heart about worship and other related things with them as much as possible. We also know that it is important to pray together as a team. Let them see your heart, not only through communication during practice or through emails, but in the relationships you build with them.

I also read a lot of worship & leadership books. John Maxwell, Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman are all good. I love A.W. Tozer's book "Whatever Happened To Worship". I have just started reading "Emerging Worship" by Dan Kimball that is about worship ministry for the new generation. I would really recommend that book as well.

Paul Baloche has a lot of good resources. I think his website is leadworship.com.

I heard Darlene Zschech say one time, "If we can get people's eyes off of themselves for one minute it will change their lives". That has become my driver. Everything we do, whether it be song selection, stage setup, team dynamics, sound support, we ask "Is this pointing people to Jesus?"

Sounds like you are on the right track. I will be praying for you.

God Bless!
Gina Salyer

[free_by_grace]

If you have access to a CD duplicator or cassete duplicator I would encourage compiling songs you plan to use and encourage your team to listen to the CD/tape regularly to help unify game plan for song structure. For each week be sure you take time to talk through transitions and any key changes you might do.

Also, start praying for the people who will be joining you... those you know who will join, and also for those the Lord will bring to you to participate. Be sure your team hears from you how their leading worship is a ministry and a calling. Inspire them to recognize their practice and dedication as part of their ministry and worship to the Lord.

[russhutto]

I would also try and build for the future while being excellent today.

By this I mean always be looking for folks who might help out (grow the team). But don't neglect the team you already have, even if it's just a team of one (you).

Do the best with what you have. Don't try and emulate other teams just because it's the "in" thing. When you really think about it, there's no such thing as "modern" worship. Worship is ancient. It's timeless even. When we add music to it, it's just another way we "offer" worship. Knowing that makes any music, whether it's one guy and a guitar or a full band, a "way" of worship, not worship itself.

Teach your people to worship with their lives, and to connect with and experience God in and through music. My thoughts are that since you're in a coffeehouse environment, there should be no reason to try and put together a full throttle rock band or mass choir or even typical church "praise team"...The great thing about a coffeehouse is ambience!! Love the acoustic/djembe duo!

Have you ever been to a church or venue when there were just TOO MANY people on stage? Kinda kills the vibe...

[fmckinnon]

Hey,
Great question and great responses already. Something that we're about to implement here at SSCC is mentoring. Each regular member of the worship team will be required to mentor/teach a someone else (preferrably a younger adult, high school, or middle school person). This will develop a culture of musical training and will invest in years to come of having a good crop of musicians.

[AD(J)]

If you have access to a CD duplicator or cassete duplicator I would encourage compiling songs you plan to use and encourage your team to listen to the CD/tape regularly to help unify game plan for song structure. For each week be sure you take time to talk through transitions and any key changes you might do.

Also, start praying for the people who will be joining you... those you know who will join, and also for those the Lord will bring to you to participate. Be sure your team hears from you how their leading worship is a ministry and a calling. Inspire them to recognize their practice and dedication as part of their ministry and worship to the Lord.

Good thoughts. I do hand out CD's (something I did learn from my previous mentor).

The rest of that I could certainly do more of.

[El Ben]

Not to rain on the parade or anything, but I'm really curious because I've struggled with this in the past...

Is the whole making CDs thing legal?

Fred, you're the resident guru on this kind of thing. Is it?

[AD(J)]

I would also try and build for the future while being excellent today.

By this I mean always be looking for folks who might help out (grow the team). But don't neglect the team you already have, even if it's just a team of one (you).

Do the best with what you have. Don't try and emulate other teams just because it's the "in" thing. When you really think about it, there's no such thing as "modern" worship. Worship is ancient. It's timeless even. When we add music to it, it's just another way we "offer" worship. Knowing that makes any music, whether it's one guy and a guitar or a full band, a "way" of worship, not worship itself.

Teach your people to worship with their lives, and to connect with and experience God in and through music. My thoughts are that since you're in a coffeehouse environment, there should be no reason to try and put together a full throttle rock band or mass choir or even typical church "praise team"...The great thing about a coffeehouse is ambience!! Love the acoustic/djembe duo!

Have you ever been to a church or venue when there were just TOO MANY people on stage? Kinda kills the vibe...

Too many people? BLASPHEMY!!!


Okay, just kidding.

Quick story: At my previous church, I was asked to take over music for Sunday evenings. While in the morning, our two services ran close to 800 total, on Sunday evenings would have about 2 families for certain, and then maybe another 4-6 people. Those numbers got even smaller for summer.

At first, I did things the same way that the main WL had been doing them for years: Full band with drums, 2-3 guitars, 1-2 keyboards, bass, and vocalists galore.

Then I realized we had the same number of people on stage as in the crowd and some nights, we actually outnumbered them. We were blowing these people’s faces off with the volume and intensity of a full-on band. So I gave everyone the night off expect one of the bass players, a close friend.

We went acoustic, and it was great. We actually had more people begin coming over that year and a half that I was doing the evenings. They were mostly form the 8AM traditional service, but hey, it was cool to see growth for an evening service in a church where, just a few months earlier, staff had talked about eliminating the evenings altogether and focusing on their AM services.

I know this wasn’t me, BTW, it was God moving. I’m not honking my own horn.

So now I’m here at Corner Church, and it seems like the move to the acoustic Sunday evenings at this previous place totally prepared me for this new situation.

I honestly hope I’m not trying to do too much. As much as I miss playing lead guitar in the mornings, I really love the smaller, more intimate atmosphere.

I’m honestly one of those guys who does not want to ever make that jump into the ‘big time’ where I have a huge band and fill 50,000 seat arenas every other night. I like to know the people I worship with, it’s incredible. If God says ‘go’, alright, I’ll go. But I am content in that regard.

At the same time, it is hard to know that at the previous church, I had a large pool of musicians to draw from. Now it’s a roster of 5-6, including myself. Meh…

[AD(J)]

Hey,
Great question and great responses already. Something that we're about to implement here at SSCC is mentoring. Each regular member of the worship team will be required to mentor/teach a someone else (preferrably a younger adult, high school, or middle school person). This will develop a culture of musical training and will invest in years to come of having a good crop of musicians.

Great idea.... but not exactly something I can implement just yet. My regular members (and I'm not bashing anyone, really) are mostly novice level players.

But hey, who knows, in another year, this may be totally viable. I'd love to initiate this kind of thing.

[AD(J)]

Not to rain on the parade or anything, but I'm really curious because I've struggled with this in the past...

Is the whole making CDs thing legal?

Fred, you're the resident guru on this kind of thing. Is it?

Hmmm.. yeah, somebody tackle this one.

I've had this thought myself, but then, how would you get around this? Make team members go out and by CD's?

EDIT: Let's just start a new thread. This is fairly important, I think.

[Mike Darley]

Hello,

Because we are a small church and resources are really limited we have asked musicians/singers to be on the team who really were not technically ready. If I could start over I would always ask the person to audition and determine if there skills were where we needed. If you have beginner players it can really be a distraction in worship and one of our goals is to eliminate all distraction. Gina Salyer

Yeah, I made that mistake myself. Now I'm suffering the consequences. Flat singing, and two impending "talks." If you're trying to grow your team make sure you select members who are qualified both spiritually and musically.

[russhutto]

Personally, I think it's better to present an excellent offering with what you've got, then to try and force a mediocre one just for the sake of having a bigger team. Not that that's what you're up to, but if for some reason the musicians just aren't available, or the ones that are just aren't up to par, it'd be better for the WHOLE to work with them (train and equip/developing their talents) then to focus on making the PART bigger just by numbers.

I led musical worship in a church for a season where it was just me on the piano/vocals and a guy on djembe/congas. The church was at almost 100 members, so maybe we SHOULD have had a few more musicians available, but during that season, we just didn't. So we made do with what we had, and people still comment on how "intimate" and "precious" those times of worship were.

[AD(J)]

I want to reiterate my initinal intention for growing the team's size.

I'm not all about 'bigger is better.' First off, this fall, we may be adding another service pair for the mornings, so that will make the time committment for these players a lot more intense. (Is that the right word; intense?)

Right now we get together at 4 to set up and rehearse for services at 5 and 7, with a connection time between services at 6:15. If we add a service or two for the morning, a lot of my current members would not be able to make it.

In essence, it's like I'm trying to recruit for a second team, an AM team. I could do it by myself for mornings, but it would be nice to have someone else there.



The long-term vision of the church is not to grow bigger, but to break off as the church reaches critical mass, and eventually have a Corner Church (vis a vis, Corner Coffee) within walking distance of everyone in downtown MNPLS. That's probably 12-15 locations, in the longrun.

These will all be community oriented churches and the different roles will be filled by members of that church. We're actually already scouting a second location for this time next year.

So by developing another team, we would hopefully be able to have that team, or some members of each team, ready and willing to make the move to a new location.

This is a probably poorly summed up, but that's the main reason for seeking growth. It's to train up more leaders for the future of the church as we move forward and continue to grow and eventually develop our next location.

[russhutto]

That makes the picture a bit clearer!

In that case, then you definitely need to be equipping all that you can get your hands on. I still wouldn't try and utilize team members who weren't ready yet. I guess the biggest ting would be to pray and ask God to provide for that need and then do what you can to fulfill your part in that!

[fmckinnon]

Not to rain on the parade or anything, but I'm really curious because I've struggled with this in the past...

Is the whole making CDs thing legal?

Fred, you're the resident guru on this kind of thing. Is it?

Hey Ben ...
no way, it's not legal .. at least, in most cases - but I've replied on the other thread (http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=642) about this, so we'll keep that discussion here (http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=642).

[El Ben]

Thanks, O great crusher of dreams. :) Seriouslly, though. Thanks. I think I'll take your advice about the iTunes thing.

[BillyChia]

Tony,
It has been cool to read about the story of your church here. I really admire the fact that you donate your time.

What's your day job?

[AD(J)]

Tony,
It has been cool to read about the story of your church here. I really admire the fact that you donate your time.

What's your day job?

Day job?

Travel Agent. (http://www.rivertrav.com) There's a thread (http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3570#post3570) in the advertising section where I mispelled the name of the agency in the thread title, even.

Cuz Im a grate speler.