Worship Excellence vs Worship Ministry – Which One Are You?

Since basically the introduction of contemporary music to the Church some fifty years ago, the worship team has become a central part of how the church goes about its ministry. Pastors all over the world aspire to have people in their congregations participating in powerful worship that attracts new people, and yet ministers to the faithful on a deep and meaningful level week in and week out. In an effort to help accomplish this goal, many churches have made the shift towards having a “worship leader” on their payroll. Unfortunately, the worship leader is only one person – which makes for a pretty lame worship team – after all, there is no ‘I’ in team. Because the worship leader is only one person, most churches have opted to have volunteers from the congregation join the “worship team,” and have created an entire department of people who volunteer and help serve the church. The “Worship & Arts” department has become a revolution. The mantra of recruitment for serving in the worship team is basically, “if you have a passion for music and/or service, there is a spot for you!” Every worship leader has a need for sound guys, drummers, PowerPoint-button-pushers, vocalists and even cymbal players to join the army of musicians! This, however, is where ‘the problem’ arises.

In my experience, there really are two major camps out there on philosophy of worship ministry: in the left corner we have what I call the “Excellence Side” and then over on the right we find the “Ministry Side.” I have been a part of worship teams for over 10 years and have found that this applies to both youth worship teams as well as adult ones. It has been my experience to be blessed with time on both sides of the worship continuum described above: some teams I have been on have held tryouts, needed applications, code of conduct contracts to sign, and practice standards on a weekly basis that were prerequisites for serving. I have also served on teams that show up on “game day” (my term for the actual service in front of the congregation), plug in the sound system, skip prayer before practice because the line at Starbucks made them late, and just “let it rip.”

I want to describe characteristics of the two sides before I tip my hand on where I think one should fall on the continuum. I won’t say whether or not any of these characteristics are positives or negative ideals, but I will comment on what I think should make up the ideal leader by taking a little of column A and a little from column B to make a meta-styled worship leader. If you are impatient, skip to the end – but the process of identifying traits of the excellence side and the ministry side could be beneficial for examining yourself and placing yourself on the continuum of what a worship leader tendencies towards.

The Ministry Side

1. Prayer and/or team devotion time kicks off every practice. This includes taking prayer requests of band members, holding hands in a circle, and praying for each other. Oh, and if you are the band leader, you don’t forget to actually pray for the requests. Just because your primary mode of leadership is always done to a melody does not mean you get to skip praying for your team. You understand that.

2. The emphasis is not on the music. The leader of this team often puts less time into preparing for their set because of this, instead the emphasis is on ministering to those in the band and then having them minister to the congregation out of that. This person may spend their extra hour a week having Starbucks with one of their back-up bass players instead of charting the flow of the latest Chris Tomlin song.

3. You blur the line on who can participate. You ARE willing to allow a person who is not living a life modeling Christian leadership to participate in the worship team because you realize that playing their instrument every Wednesday night for youth group or every Sunday for the hip new video venue, might be their only exposure to Christ. Without that role in the group, you believe this person will probably check out from the Church as a whole. At the same time, you work hard to remove people who have become cancerous to your team in some way. They are compromising the ministry as a whole in your eyes.

4. You flex on start time, and don’t get on the case of people who are late to practice. Hey, Jesus called us to love, right? Plus, you yourself role in a few minutes late too every once in a while. Rigidity is for the rigid.

5. Your band is playing different songs all the time because you introduce a new song to them every time you run into a great new song on K-Love. You think that the song that speaks to you and gets you fired up on your drive home from work will do the same for your band. And you want to play it in the same key that Leeland recorded it in. (Watch that video from 3:40 to 5:00 minutes – yikes!) Transpose everything for congregational singing.

6. You are leading on a guitar that is either second hand, borrowed, or less than $500 retail; and you do this because of the “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog” mentality that says “as long as I have an instrument in my hand I can bring God glory in worship leading.” You understand the risks of not having the greatest gear, but every time you see an upgrade, you talk yourself out of it because, hey, you’ve already got gear!

7. Objectively, you probably don’t take the greatest care of your church’s equipment. This is usually because you haven’t trained your band in how to set up and tear down their own equipment, and so you therefore are cleaning up after all the members of your team have gone home. If you have ever been in that position, or led a rocking 5 song worship set, you know that you are sweaty and dog tired at the end of worship. Laying your heart out and unashamed worship is draining. Wrapping a cable properly is the last thing on your radar.

8. The sound and mix is not quite the quality it deserves to be. It’s sad, but often true. This is usually because sound people need to be recruited and trained, and also loved very much. But instead, since it’s not hard to join your worship team (ministry first, right!?!?!), you have 9 guitar players – none of which want to play bass, 1 overextended drummer, and that one kid who insists that he needs more distortion on his knock-off Strat. All of the people you have plugged in to your “ministry” volunteered when you put the sign up in fellowship hall to start the worship team. You didn’t have to recruit anybody!

9. You play at least one “golden-oldie” every week. This usually happens because you can’t let go of those songs from 8-12 years ago that really moved you that one weekend up in the snow where you somehow found yourself crying and on your knees. Either that, or you learned to play guitar so you could lead campfire worship. We all know that the Holy Spirit moves hardcore around a good ‘ole weenie roast! And for as much sarcasm as I may have wanted to put into that last sentence, we all – to some extent – know it to be true.

10. You are building relationships and friendships with those in your band that last your time as worship leader at your church, while also developing in those you lead a love for service in ministry and worship through music at the same time.

The Excellence Side

1. You have an application to join the band. Hey, you can’t just take anybody off the street. You need to make sure that your students’ parents are committed to getting your student there a few hours early every week. You need to make sure your students don’t compromise their grades and studies to make practice. Or if you lead adults, you want to make sure you don’t have Jerry Springer playing the Mighty to Save lick every week.

2. Your first day with a new band member goes over stuff: how to set up and tear down their equipment, how to wrap a cord the proper way, etc. It does NOT include physically playing with the band. You like to have prospective worship team members come and watch practice for a few weeks to get a feel for how the team works together before you throw in an unknown commodity. I recently got the pleasure of spending time with Paul Baloche at the Thriving Musicians Summit in Sacramento, and one of the great points he made was that, “It’s far easier to add slowly than subtract quickly when it comes to people joining the band.”

3. Your sound tech is the first one there and the last to leave, except for you of course. We all know sound guys are the least appreciated people in the church! Go take your sound guy out for a Jamba Juice and tell him how much you love him. The reason I said ‘guy’ is because I’m not sure I have ever met a female front of house sound technician. You spend lots of time walking through set up and the “how-to’s” of tuning a sound system and monitor mix in. After all, you could have Lincoln Brewster ripping on lead guitar, but if the channel is muted or the EQ stinks, who cares how incredible his tone and gear is.

4. You have a dress code. Simply put, every worship leader needs to understand that what is up-front really matters. The actual aesthetics of your stage matter – but most of us get that. Dress code though? Seriously? Yes. Decide what your service warrants: if you play on Sundays and there are people in the audience wearing ties, you should never show up in shorts, open toed shoes, and anything less than a polo shirt. The last thing you want is for somebody in the congregation to feel overdressed – good luck getting them to come back. If you lead a youth service, don’t wear your business casual attire: flip flops and shorts are appropriate (and encouraged). Obviously ladies shorts need to be long enough, skirts above the knees are almost never appropriate (this is church, after all!), and low cut tops, spaghetti straps, and white shirts with bright colored bras are off limits. You don’t need a 14 year old boy staring at your lead female singer all night instead of concentrating on Jesus. You also don’t need your 54 year old drummer skipping beats because your female singer’s pants are so tight they look painted on. Don’t be offended. It’s legit.

5. You spent way too much on your gear, and you know it. Ok, honestly, you could have dug a well in Africa and saved a village. But you know that you need reliable gear and backup gear at every performance. If you disagree, you have obviously never broken a string on stage, or had a grounding issue with your XLR in the middle of a set that made your rendition of “How Great is Our God” sound like a bumble bee was stuck in your microphone head.

6. The A-Team Tendency. You have a “rotation” of like twenty people who play in the band, but somehow, the same five play all the really, really, important weeks where the pastor is kicking off the new series, all the worship nights the church has, and somehow they always seem to get Easter Sunday too! Let’s face it; if you have a big enough team, you get to the A-Team level, B-Team, and even C-Team sometimes. Worship goes smoother with the A-Team, creates less stress, and there are less distractions when everybody on stage knows what they are doing. It’s not your fault some people are better than others.

7. You have a solid set list of twenty songs that you play for worship, never introduce more than one new song in a week and always do this bi-weekly at a minimum. You almost never play a golden-oldie (unless it fits perfect with the message, or you have a mutiny on your hands!). You probably also have binders for every person in the band with sheet music, chord charts, highlighted sections, harmony notes, and whatever else you could think of. You burned CD’s for them, or even gave them jump drives with MP3′s on it of every song. Some of you are even hard core enough to put road maps on your sheet music. In some instances, I’ve even seen worship leaders record their own version of a song acoustically to illustrate transitions, builds, breaks, and other characteristics of songs. “Prepare now to produce later,” is your mantra.

8a. Practice is important. You have sets picked at least a week in advance so people can practice at home, even though we all know they never do.

8b. Practice is important. You require people to practice a week in advance at home.

9. Musical bliss is a regular occurrence. Your band loves playing with you because they know they sound great. Your church loves your band because they rock, and they feel proud and comfortable inviting their friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc, because they know every Sunday is going to feel like a free local concert every time they come.

10. Your band might think you are Captain Death sometimes because you won’t settle for mediocre instrumentation or sound. This means lots of starts and stops, pencils on every music stand during practice, and often times even a “no-fun” approach to running the band. People will quit, and you might want to also.

Al this to say, so what? There has to be a middle ground, right? I’ve worked for Captain Death, and I’ve also played in a band so loose I didn’t have a monitor for myself. By the way, in that band I played keyboard, so I literally could not hear a single note of what I was playing.

Characteristics of the Perfect Worship Leader

1. Standards: Set a standard or two that every person who plays on your team must be able to meet: if you don’t think non-Christians should be in leadership roles, than that’s your prerogative. However, I am a firm believer in the, “you can’t lead people to where you are not” mentality. Since we are leading a congregation towards Jesus as an act of worship, it would only make sense that every member of your band has a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Create a form with two simple questions that every person must fill out before they can join the team: “How did you become a Christian?” and “Why do you want to join the worship team?” That should get you all the evidence you need on why or if that person wants to serve. Start there and elaborate as time goes by if you need to. Also, the dress code thing is for real. That falls under this point too.

2. Gear: Invest in good gear, and then don’t play musical chairs with it. You don’t need to upgrade your stuff every time you see a great deal on Ebay or Craigslist. Save up some money and invest in gear that will last you a long time. Get a backup guitar too. Have a stage guitar that you only play on stage so it doesn’t get worn down. Your stage guitar should not go beach camping at your family reunion, or make an appearance at Church in the Park. You’ll go to plug it in next week after having it sit in the sun for three hours and have big problems, almost guaranteed. And cabling is important. Invest in your own monster cables for your own instruments and don’t leave them at church where others can use them. You need to know that your stuff works on game day before you plug it in. And whatever you do, don’t go in to debt for gear. Stewardship is more important than this almost always.

3. Sound: Get a reliable sound tech or two. Love them, train them, and encourage them. Include them in all team retreats, prayer times, emails, etc., for the team. They are quite possibly a bigger part of your team than you are. After all, you can’t lead worship if you are muted. Get them professional training as well if you are not qualified to teach them properly. A few thousand bucks for some audio classes at the local community college is a small price to pay for a super-qualified volunteer.

4. Song Selection: If you are new (under two years) at your church in worship leadership, learn the songs your church wants you to learn first, then introduce your own preferences in music once you have earned some relational equity. You have to give to get in this area my experience tells me. If you need to phase out a golden-oldie, don’t just drop the axe on it one week. People have attachments to certain songs. Whether that is a good thing or not, you need to honor this.

5. Rotation means rotation. Don’t show favoritism to musicians as best you can. Try and pair your good drummer with a weaker band: we all know rhythm is usually the problem at the foundation of a band not playing tight. Eventually this may help to fix that. Also, for people who are struggling a bit extra, you can always whip out the metronome, slow the song down, and have them get it right at a slow speed before you speed it up. That’s how people learn and gain confidence.

6. Acceptance: Never say no when a person asks to get involved. Even for a non-Christian who comes to church one Sunday in a bandana and biker jacket reeking like cigarettes: if this person shows interest, you have a teaching moment where there is a chance to shepherd that person towards being a part of community, serving, and ultimately worshipping. Treat each individual as an opportunity to help them grow towards Christian maturity.

7. Practice: Come prepared to practice. You can’t short change your own preparation if you want your band to sound good. If the band needs to set up their gear, and practice starts at 8am, you need to tell them to get there early enough to set up their stuff to be ready to pray and drop the first note at 8am sharp. A vocalist doesn’t need to get there twenty minutes early to put batteries in their own wireless microphone; but your drummer may need forty-five minutes to put together and mic a drum set. Oh, and you can’t be late either. If a person from the band gets there at 7:30 to set up, you need to be there already. Remember, we can’t lead people to where we are not. Setting the standard is an important part of leadership that often gets distorted into being a burden of leadership. There are only two groups of people that get to work on Sundays, church leaders and football players. And you are not Peyton Manning. To that end, number eight applies directly.

8. Glean from the Spirit: Set up your gear way early on game day and run through your set for the morning plugged in and live before any other team members arrive. This way when they have a question on a transition or something about the music, you have a preconceived idea of where you are going and why because you have already played the song in the last hour or so. I did this religiously when I was leading worship regularly and it did two critical things for me: I knew the music better because it was fresh in my mind and I was essentially practicing twice before the actual service, and the second was that my heart was focused on God by the time the first person showed up to practice because I had spent the thirty minutes prior in worship personally. It may mean you are getting to church at 5am, but it’s worth it. Is it better to be sleep deprived or God deprived?

9. Planning: Give people minimum a full week’s notice that they are playing and tell them what songs they are playing. Most people don’t practice midweek – especially students. But the ones who do practice are the ones who know they need it. You knowing somebody needs to practice at home, and them knowing this truth is an entirely different thing. However, this will also help you to stay organized and ahead of the curve. As a rule of thumb, the more notice you give for who is playing a particular week, the more organized you will be. I played on a team that had the rotation schedule done three to five months in advance every season. This way, I could plan vacation, work, etc, around my ministry. I was a volunteer in this particular ministry, and felt extremely valued: that they would want ME on this particular Sunday nine weeks away. Create a pattern of valuing volunteers and you will never have a hard time finding volunteers, no matter how small your church is. People always want to serve where they know they will be valued.

10. Praise in Public, Pounce in Private: Never get frustrated at a band member in front of their peers – especially a student if you lead youth worship. It’s already wicked-scary for little Timmy to play his violin in the band and risk getting made fun of. Don’t add to that fear. It’s equally difficult for an adult to sing in front of their peers. It’s even harder to sing when you don’t have confidence in what you are singing. Your un-assured vocalist WILL get that nasty head voice and it will drive you nuts. We all know that singers need to sing with authority, especially when they are proclaiming God’s Word through song.

11. Care for your band as if it were a small group – not a workforce. Harvest relationships built on trust as well as you modeling what you want from them in terms of living like Christ and also being involved in the ministry. Keep communication lines open. Memorize Ephesians 4:25-27. Then, when they need you, be available for them – even at 2am. You are a pastor who happens to carry an instrument. Act like one.

12. Live a life of integrity. If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it’s that you need to be who you are up front also behind the scenes and in private. I’m not saying we all don’t make mistakes. I’m just saying it shouldn’t sit right with you singing “Give Us Clean Hands” if you struggle in the purity department. Talk to your pastor or accountability partner and get some help. You won’t regret it. It doesn’t make you scum; it makes you normal. The only person to live the perfect Christian life in a leadership role is Jesus himself. See Romans 3:23 for details. Leading worship is too intimate of an activity to do in constant hypocrisy of not just physical sin, but sin in general. Eventually you will burn out from living two lives. Get help.