Author: Jamie Brown

Advertising for Worship Team Members


Every three or four months I’ll put a little blurb in my church’s weekly bulletin in an attempt to let church members know that if they’d like to sing or play an instrument on the worship team, I’m the person to contact. We have enough new members joining, and old members who are waiting for a nudge, that this will usually yield a couple of emails or phone calls.

I’ve learned that how I word these little advertisements is important.

If they’re too long, no one will read them.
This isn’t the place for outlining the values and goals of the worship team. A church website or some other publication might be better suited for a lengthy ministry overview. An advertisement for worship team members in a weekly bulletin doesn’t need to be very long.

Don’t sound desperate
A desperately worded blurb communicates two things to two different groups. First, to your current volunteers, you are not good enough, and second, to your prospective volunteers, I really need you. You don’t want your current volunteers to feel undervalued, and you don’t want people joining your team thinking that they are a more important member of the body than anyone else. That’s not how the body works, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:21-27.

Use a cautious tone with cautious buzzwords
If your advertisement says: “If you want to be on the worship team, please contact ___”, then if I read that ad, I’m thinking that all I need to do is email you and then, once you show me where to sign, I’m on the team! It’s just that easy!

But if you say (and this is how I say it, by the way): “If you’re interested in exploring using your musical gifts to serve the congregation, please contact ____”, then if I read that ad, I’m thinking that this is the beginning of a process of expressing my interest, and exploring an opportunity. There isn’t a dotted line yet. Make the process intentionally slow, and err on the side of caution. These are leadership positions at your church and should not be taken lightly.

Make it about serving, not about music
I use the phrase “…using your musical gifts to serve the congregation” to set the tone from the very beginning to prospective worship team applicants that my priority is building a team of people interested in serving the body of Christ, not just playing music.

Very few members of the worship team at my church just approached me out of the blue. They either thought I didn’t need any more volunteers, or wasn’t interested, and were happy to remain in the pews. But when they saw a little blurb in the bulletin one week they decided to email me.

Regularly, and carefully, making members of your church aware of opportunities to serve will result in a stream (even if it’s one person per year) of musicians eager to serve. We should be eager to integrate them.

Getting Experience Makes You Experienced

Every worship leader has to start somewhere: as a beginner. There’s no secret fast track to become seasoned, no easy way to learn hard lessons, and no short cuts through the long process of maturity. Every worship leader, at some point, is at square one. How does a beginner worship leader become experienced? By getting experience.

The process of becoming an “experienced” worship leader never ends. I do not claim to have “arrived” at some sort of final point of maturity or expertise as a worship leader. Have I grown in the last fourteen years? Yes. Do I still have room to grow? Oh yes.

To a beginner, just-starting-out worship leader who wants to grow but doesn’t know how, I would suggest two simple things:

First, say yes to every single opportunity
If someone asks you to lead music for a vacation bible school, some songs for a small group meeting in a basement, a time of singing at a student ministry bar-b-q by the lake, a senior’s ministry breakfast at IHOP, or a song at the bedside of a dying woman in the hospital, say yes.

It might be the most awkward experience of your life. Maybe no one will sing. Maybe you’ll fail miserably. It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn so many more lessons from leading worship in as many different settings as you can, then you ever will by reading a blog or going to a conference. Seek out as many possible venues, settings, age groups, traditions, and occasions as you can.

The worst thing that can happen is you’ll learn a lesson. That’s called becoming experienced.

Second, have mentors
I remember the time I left a service so frustrated by the congregation’s lack of participation, enthusiasm, and physical expressiveness. That afternoon I shared my discouragement (and how it was all spiritual warfare!) with one of my mentors, a pastor friend who had been in the service the morning. He listened and said to me: “let’s go to Starbucks”.

He then proceeded to, gently but firmly, tell me that I was developing some bad habits as a worship leader that were beginning to grate on people. I was going on for too long, talking too much, demanding certain physical responses, and being more of a “presence” than I needed to be.

Gulp.

I asked him “have I caused real damage?”, and he responded “no… but you might if you keep it up for much longer.” He then encouraged me about things I was doing well, and ways I was displaying maturity and humility. He wasn’t harsh, but he was honest.

If you want grow as a worship leader, you need people who you trust, and who love you, who can be honest with you. They’re not just expressing an opinion or criticizing you for the fun of it. They have your growth and development in mind, and they have been given the freedom to give input into your life.

Seek out two or three people, preferably older than you, and regularly ask them for an hour or two of their time.

These two things: regular hands-on worship leading experience, and honest and loving critique, will, by God’s grace, result in steady growth and maturity.  

Something Doesn’t Sound Right

I was browsing a popular worship music resource website a week ago when I noticed this advertisement, front and center, with the text swooping in and out in order to grab my attention.

It did.

“You lead worship every week”.

Is this ad talking to me? How does it know? Amazing!

“You may not have all the musicians you need”.

Well, I guess that might be true. So what’s your point?

“But you don’t have to sound like it.”

You have GOT to be kidding me. Is this a joke?

No, unfortunately, it’s not a joke.

Don’t have a drummer in your congregation? No problem. Just download an audio file of a drummer playing a particular song, and then play along to that file during your service. Problem solved! Now you’ll sound like you really have a drummer!

No electric guitarist? Don’t bother trying to raise one up. With a few clicks of the mouse, your searching can be over. You’ll finally sound like the CDs sound!

Can’t find a 6-piece brass section? You guessed it… Congregation: prepare to be wowed!

This is a bad idea on many, many levels.

First, it buys into the lie that you NEED particular instruments to be an effective worship leader. You don’t need any instruments at all.

Second, it plays into our sinful desire to impress people. So I don’t have a bass player. So someone might notice. So what?

Third, it’s lazy. If you really need a particular kind of musician on your team, pray and recruit until you find them. And until you find them, go without.

Fourth, it encourages fakeness. Instead of a local congregation being served and edified by the gifts from within that congregation, it is now being augmented and entertained by distant and invisible studio musicians.

Fifth, it makes it all about how you sound. The ad says even though you may not have all the musicians you “need”, “you don’t have to sound like it”. Yes, how we sound does matter. But it’s not a matter of first importance. No where in scripture are we commanded to sound anything other than skillful (Psalm 33:3). And this skill is not commanded so that we can sound good!

Worship leaders: lead worship with the musicians you have. Not the musicians you want or the musicians you can download. It doesn’t matter if you don’t sound like the CD, and it doesn’t matter if you do. Ignore the temptation to always want more, the marketing campaigns designed to convince you that what you want is what you need, and the sinful slide to envy what others have.

Be encouraged: even if “you lead worship every week”, and “you may not have all the musicians you need”, all you need to do is what you can with what you have. Be a faithful steward of the gifts God has given you, all for his glory.

Handling Awkward Moments – A Medical Emergency

This past Sunday at my church, I was sitting in the congregation and listening to the sermon, when I noticed an individual stand up and walk towards the back of the room. I thought it was an odd time for this person to leave since the sermon was almost over, and I also thought it wasn’t very discreet since they were sitting directly in front of the preacher!

About 15 seconds later, a huge gasp arose from the back of the room as this person proceeded to faint, fall onto the laps of a couple people, and end up lying on the floor.

Thankfully, we have several doctors and nurses who attend our church, two of whom were sitting within arm’s reach of where the individual fainted. We’ve also prepared for this kind of incident by installing emergency 911 buttons at our sound desk, and training our ushers how to respond. This person was taken to a hospital within minutes and released that afternoon, but it was still a huge disruption to the service.

It’s impossible to know when a service might be interrupted by a medical emergency. But it’s good to think through how you should respond. Bill Haley, one of our associate pastors who was preaching, handled it like a pro. Here’s what he did:

Don’t pretend it’s not happening!
Bill recognized he has lost the attention of the room, and that someone needed help. To continue with his sermon would have been futile and foolish. He could pick up his sermon later, but he had to address the emergency first.

Ask if there are any doctors in the room
Bill was in mid-sentence when the person fainted. After hearing the loud gasp and seeing that someone had fainted, he immediately said: “are there any doctor’s in the room?” Seconds later, an ER doctor and a handful of nursed were at the person’s side. Bill had the advantage of a microphone, and he used it well.

Pray
Once this individual had medical attention and 911 had been called, Bill said: “let’s pray”. He led the congregation in praying for the person until they were being carried out of the room.

Slowly get back to where you were
After this person was taken out to the lobby, he reassured people that he would update us on their status at the end of the service, encouraged us to keep praying for her, reminded us that God was in control, and slowly transitioned back into his sermon.

Recognize that the dynamic in the room has changed
I had planned to follow Bill’s sermon with Enfield’s arrangement of “Crown Him with Many Crowns”. Knowing that people were still shaken up and distracted, we changed the arrangement on the fly to be a bit more laid back and less aggressive. To follow a medical emergency with a rock version of a hymn could have been perceived as insensitive and jarring.

One thing that Bill did that ended up adding to some of the confusion was to ask intercessory prayer team members to go lay hands on the person who had fainted. This resulted in too many people being around, and required the doctor and nurses to tell people to go back to their seats. Next time, I’d ask people to extend a hand towards the person from their seat, but to leave room for the professionals to do their job.

I may never have to deal with this particular scenario again, and you may never face this kind of “awkward moment” in one of your services. But when you’re dealing with a group of people standing up and singing for long periods of time, a variety of ages, 52 Sundays a year, and just plain old odds, it’s most likely going to happen someday.