When Your Worship Team is Small (Really Small)

In my post “Four Types of Worship Teams“, I advocated that worship leaders seek to model their worship teams after the picture of the body that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12. This way we avoid the traps/pitfalls/discouragements that come from teams whose members are just filling slots on a schedule, or being in a band for the sake of being in a band, or always trying to get to the top so they can be seen as contributing something important.

But what about when your worship team is really small? You’re scraping by from week to week with a kind gentlemen who knows three guitar chords, a fifth grader who wants to be able to play the drums, your pastor’s wife who can sing soprano, and a high school junior who’s an excellent french horn player.

You don’t look or sound like any of the worship teams you see online or hear on albums. An electric guitar has never crossed the threshold of your sanctuary. The newest song you sing was written in 2001 (and that’s pushing it!). You would be thrilled to add more musicians to the team. You would love to have the problem of having so many musicians that they’re all clamoring to play on Sundays. You wish you had a plethora of people to fill different musical slots.

But those aren’t problems you’re in any danger of dealing with really soon. Right now, you’re discouraged and your team is small. Really small.  Your main problem is trying to keep things afloat, and trying to bring together the limited amount of resources at your disposal to present something relatively cohesive from week to week. It’s not easy.

Remember these truths, oh worship leader with a small (really small) team:

God arranges the members of a body
To draw again from Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:18, don’t forget that “…God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose“. God doles out gifts and arranges members as he sees fit. Make as many invitations to musicians in your congregation to step forward, to audition, and to explore using their gifts in your team. Maybe you’ll get an overwhelming response. Maybe you’ll just get one 60-year-old who can play piano. See who God has placed in your midst. If he hasn’t given you what you want or need yet, then keep praying.

Newness and youth is an overrated idol
So your sound system hasn’t been updated since the 70s, the average age of your worship team is 70, the most people your church has ever had in attendance is 70, and the ideal era of worship songs for most people in your church is 1870. Don’t waste your time trying to be the man or woman who modernizes everything about your church. Focus first on faithfulness, listen well to the hearts of your people, and once your motives are to edify your church, move forward one step at a time. I think worship leaders worry way too much about newness and freshness and contemporariness. Of course we want our church and our ministries to be alive and vibrant, not dead and dormant, but don’t eschew rootedness for the futile pursuit of relevance.

Small worship teams can be incredibly fruitful
Maybe it’s just you on the platform with an old piano that your church can’t afford to tune. Or maybe there are four of you, and if you try to play anything faster than “Shout to the Lord”, the wheels fall off. Your ministry – and the ministry of a small worship team of just a few musicians – can be incredibly fruitful. Fruitfulness doesn’t come from numbers. Fruitfulness is a gift of the Spirit! And when God-empowered, Spirit-manifested, Jesus-centered gifts come together, regardless of the size, then beautiful and fruitful things can happen.

The people who sit in a small church meeting in a high school cafeteria need the same thing as the people sitting in padded seats in a megachurch. They need Jesus. There is absolutely no reason why a small worship team, even if it’s just one person singing along to worship songs off of YouTube, can’t very effectively and fruitfully exalt Jesus in his or congregation’s eyes. Don’t be discouraged if your team is small.

Finally, a practical encouragement:

Keep inviting
One of the most recent additions to the worship team at my church was at our church for about six months before he finally stepped forward. And I’m glad he did! He plays acoustic and bass guitar, and is a wonderfully gifted worship leader. He had heard my pleas for musicians, had read my blurbs in the church newsletter, and finally after hearing me invite people enough, he stepped forward. Never stop inviting those musicians-in-hiding in your church to step forward and explore using their gifts.

One last thing.

Even when you’re just trying to keep things afloat, or fill the slots on a schedule with a fairly small pool of resources, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re doing it in a vacuum, or that you’re the only worship leader who deals with these problems. The even greater news of 1 Corinthians 12 (verses 4-6) for Christians is that even though there are varieties of gifts, varieties of service, and varieties of activities, we’re all filled with the same Spirit, following the same Lord, and empowered by the same God, even as spread out and different-looking (and sounding) as we are.

Large teams and small teams (even when they’re really small) are all part of God’s grand design for his Body, the Church. This is good and encouraging news.