Tag: Ministry

Advertising One Service By Insulting Another

I’m always amazed when I visit a church in person or check out a church’s website and see that they advertise certain services by insulting other ones. Maybe a church is starting an evening service and trying to market it. Or maybe across campus in the gym the church offers a contemporary service and they need to advertise it. Sometimes in a quest to describe what one service is like, they end up insulting another service at the same church.

These aren’t exact quotes – but I think you’ll be able to think of some churches (maybe your own) who use similar phrasing:

Come to the 7:00pm Sunday evening service and experience relevant preaching and Spirit-led worship.

Does this mean the 10:30am service’s preaching isn’t relevant and the worship isn’t Spirit-led?

Sunday mornings at 10:00am in the Fellowship Hall: a place to encounter God without all the formality.

In other words: you can’t encounter God in the Sanctuary where it’s more formal.

Our Saturday service features a message you can relate to and music the kids will enjoy.

So I can’t relate to the message on Sunday mornings and the music is terrible?

You get the point. In our quest to describe services in our church’s brochures and write pithy little blurbs on the website we often run the risk of, intentionally or unintentionally, insulting other services at our church. We imply that they aren’t as good, you might want to try this other one instead, and the people who go to those services are missing out.

One obvious way to display that “…in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13) is to go out of our way to honor one another. It’s dishonoring to insult other services, worship styles, liturgies, or approaches to corporate worship. And it’s really tacky to put those insults in writing for the whole world to see. Listing the time, place, and general flavor of the service is enough. Be careful not to add in commentary while you’re at it.

Spreading the Honor Around

As a worship leader, you are one of the most visible people at your church. The administrative assistant to children’s ministry might have been there longer, get paid less, and do more work, but because you get up on platform each week, you get more recognition, you get more thanks, and you get more credit than you deserve.

Your church might not have a very large staff at all. Most churches don’t. I happen to serve at church with 40+ full-time staff, and 15 or 20 more who are part-time, but this isn’t the norm. Regardless of how large the staff is at your church, the principle is the same: you get more attention than the other people who care about and work for the church just as much as you do.

You have to be really careful as a worship leader not to buy into the notion that your work is more important than the secretary’s, or the nursery worker’s, or the outreach coordinator’s, or the youth pastor’s. And if you’re smart, you’ll make a point of honoring those people in less visible positions than yours.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are one body with many members. That body stays healthy as long as the different parts don’t start thinking they’re more or less important than other parts of the body. In verse 25 we’re told that all the members of the body should “have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together“.

You are just one part of the body. You have a unique role – but you’re not any more important than any one else. You’re not the big kahuna. You’re one of the fish.

You probably know this (although we can always use a reminder). The point is that your fellow staff members, volunteers, or behind-the-scenes coworkers might not feel like you act like it. There’s a good chance you don’t. Think about it.

Because you are one of the most visible people at your church, you need to go out of your way to show honor to the people who are not as visible. Write a note, say thank you to the person who empties your trash can, tell the nursery worker what an amazing job they do and how grateful you are for them, and don’t expect any compliments in return.

Sure, we get a good dose of criticism because we’re up front. But we also get more than our fair share of compliments. Pass some of that around to your fellow body-members, and they’ll all operate just a bit more healthily because of it.

Title Trivia

How concerned are you with what people call you?

Worship Leader. Worship Pastor. Worship Director. Music Coordinator. Worship and Music Director. Director of Worship and Music and Arts. Lead Worshipper. Assistant Worship Director. Associate Director of Worship and Music. Executive Director of Worship and Associate Director of Music and Assistant Director of Arts.

The list could go on.

I used to be really concerned with my title. It mattered to me – a lot – what it said on the bottom of my email signature. I felt more important when I was promoted from a part time worship leader to a “coordinator of contemporary music”. Then a couple years later I felt slighted when the title “associate” was given to someone else who I didn’t think deserved it.

What a stupid thing to be concerned about.

One day I was brushing my teeth and God spoke these words to me (by the way, God often speaks to me when I’m brushing my teeth. Don’t ask me why): “Would you be just as faithful in your ministry if your title was ‘custodian’?” I was convicted. I had to honestly answer him, no. But I wanted to be. I wanted to be just as passionate about my job regardless of whether or not my title is grandiose. Then God spoke these words of assurance to me: “Jamie, my name for you never changes”.

Wow. Here I was, a just-out-of-college part-time worship leader, and the sovereign God of all creation is calling me out on my petty and prideful obsession over what title goes on my business card.

If the Apostle Paul had an email signature, his title might read “Paul. Chief of Sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15). Or maybe “Paul. Servant of Christ.” (Romans 1:1). His identity was completely wrapped up in his position in Christ. Sadly, too often our identity as worship leaders is more wrapped up in our position on a staff chart.

To help keep me from getting too carried away about my title, I’ve purposely started referring to myself as “one of the music guys”. Sometimes I’ll say “I lead some of the music at my church”. I don’t have my title on my email signature. I don’t have business cards. I try to do everything I can not to get wrapped up in whatever title is given to me by the church.

Sure, titles matter. They signify what role your church has designated and authorized you to fill. They back you up. They help on a resume’. They tell people what you do and what you don’t do.

But they just don’t matter that much. First, they certainly don’t matter to God. Secondly, they don’t matter to your congregation. I bet 99% of the people in your congregation don’t know and don’t care what your title is. Third, they don’t matter to you. God calls and equips you, then he sovereignty places you in the exact place he wants to you serve for his glory. That’s what matters.

Don’t concern yourself with what people call you. Concern yourself with who has called you. The High King of Heaven has called you. Serve him, work for his glory, and let your titles come and go as they may.

A Worship Leader’s Job Description and Pay

I recently received an email from a pastor who asked me this question:

I need some general insight as we start looking for a worship leader for our church plant. What price range should I ask for from my finance/leadership team as I seek to hire a worship leader? Assuming less than 5 years experience leading in a church… If the person is full time? What range of salary is the norm starting out? What if he is part time? And if you only had one service per week – and an odd evening event (good Friday; Christmas Eve) – how many hours a week would you need if it is part time? 15 hours? 20 hours? 25 hours? Thanks.

I wrote him back and thought it might be helpful to post here:

Here’s the best way I know how to lay something like this out. Listed in order of priority:

– Weekend worship leading: 3 hours for 1 Sunday service. 5 hours for 2 services. Additional 2 hours per service.
– Rehearsal leading: 3 hours.

Stopping here, you have a 6 – 10 hour worship leader. You can pay this person a weekly stipend of somewhere in the range of $250. He’s pretty much leading songs.

– Basic administrative duties: PowerPoint presentations (1 hour), service outlines (.5 hour), chord charts (1 hour), making copies (.5 hour), scheduling worship team members (.5 hour), equipment set up (1 hour), emails /phone calls (2 hours).

Now your worship leader is 15 hours a week and you’re looking at paying him hourly. $20 – 25 per hour, I guess. He’s leading songs and doing some admin.

– Ministry development: Recruit, audition musicians. Have monthly worship team gatherings. Spend time listening to new music. Read up on theology, music/worship theology and goings-on, etc. This can all average out to 5 hours a week.

Now your worship leader is 20 hours a week and you can still pay him hourly but you’ll probably have to throw in benefits.

The next steps take your worship leader closer to full-time and needing a salary.

– 5 hours: worship service planning. He’s reading the passages, reading your transcript, taking time to intentionally pray and mull over what songs are going to feed people most effectively and help them respond to God’s word and presence. This might not take this long some weeks. It might take more other weeks. A more full-time worship leader has the “luxury” of devoting more time to getting the set-list “right” – not just pick from a bank of songs.

– 5 hours: participate in weekly staff/pastoral/service debrief/service planning meetings.

– 5 hours: Music-centric work such as arranging, writing, practicing, recording, using the art-area of his brain. This will keep him sane, keep things creative, and benefit your gatherings.

– 5 hours: Ministry-centric work such as preparing teachings for worship team, meeting with worship team members for lunch/coffee, long-term planning and calendar management, and working in whatever area he is skilled in (this depends on the person and his passion).

– Misc. hours: Other administrative and time-eating exercises such as: more emails, finance/budget management, overseeing the AV aspects, managing liturgical aspects, special services, assignments given by the pastor, etc.

With less than 5 years worship leading experience, this person should expect to be paid $30 – 45,000, depending on the area of the country, church size, his gifting level, experience, musical skill, education, etc. If he’s good, and if the church starts growing, and he has any sort of family, that will need to get close to $45 – 60,000 really quickly, again, hugely depending on the median income of where the church is located, eventually going over.

If I can be any help to you, or your church as you think through how to structure a worship leader’s position, please feel free to contact me through this blog (contact me).

Breaking Out of Worship Leader Prison – Pt. 4

“Guilty people make people feel guilty. Free people make people feel free.” This is one of the first things Dr. Steve Brown shared at a class he taught last week, before he shared the twelve prisons that entrap Christians and that are deadly to pastors.

I’ve shared nine of these prisons (part one, part two, and part three), and the underlying issues. Today I’d like to share the last three.

10. Rules
Believe it or not, people will try to manipulate you. They might not even realize they’re doing it, but they are. Don’t be manipulated by the rules people try to set for you. If you want to stay out of the prison of these other-people-imposed rules, you’ll need to set boundaries.

You might recognize some of these:
– Jerry needs a worship leader for his Tuesday night men’s ministry meeting. He asks you. If you say no he won’t have anyone. So you say yes even though it means you’ll be away from home for a fourth straight evening.
– Your bass player refuses to use the online rehearsal resource that the rest of your worship team uses. So you print out chord charts and mail him a CD and spend an extra two hours just on him.
– Amy Amison, a woman who has always sung solos at your church, wants to sing “O Holy Night” this Christmas Eve. She’s not very good. But she’s always sung. You’d rather not have her sing, but you hear from several people that you don’t really have a choice.

So rules get imposed on you. You have to lead worship for the men’s ministry meeting. You have to cater to your uncooperative bass player. You have to let Amy Amison sing.

Why? Because you have to.

No you don’t. You’ve been manipulated.

Being a Christian, and being a worship leader, doesn’t mean you lose your right to set boundaries, to say “no”, to go against unhelpful traditions, and to ruffle feathers. You will burn out more quickly than you can imagine if you allow the prison of rules to keep you locked up.

11. Religion
Leading people in magnifying and exalting the greatness of God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is exciting. Leading musicians in using their gifts to passionately, skillfully, and humbly lead the congregation in singing praise to God is a joy.

But presenting people with a safe, predictable, and polite collection of songs is robotic. Playing chords and melodies to please the ear and manipulate emotions is dangerous.

In the first example we have a picture of the church gathering to celebrate the glory of God. In the second example we have a picture of a religious institution that wants nice music.

When people get really excited about Christianity as an institution, then they’re in prison. The same principle applies to worship leaders. When they get more excited about presenting a polite collection of impressive songs than they do helping people encounter and exalt God’s greatness, they’re (no pun intended), behind bars.

If you find yourself dreading leading worship or coming into the church office to prepare for services and rehearsals, that might be a red flag that you’re in a prison of religion and need to be refreshed and amazed again by the freedom of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

Jesus elicits our worship. Religion elicits our duty. If you’re duty-bound, then you really are bound. Worship Jesus, not the institution.

12. Gurus
The last prison that entraps worship leaders is the prison of gurus.

There is no shortage of worship gurus out there. To learn from them, be mentored by them, and follow their example is a good and healthy thing (depending on the guru). To worship at their altar is not healthy. In fact, it’s idolatry.

We all have people we put on a pedestal. We think that by emulating them and following them we’ll be more sanctified. But we’re not. We’re less so. We’re fake and in bondage.

There really is incredible bondage in worshipping other worship leaders. There is freedom in worshipping Jesus. Be intentional in seeking out good role models. But be careful not to cross the blurry line into idolizing them.

My prayer for myself, and any worship leader who reads this blog, is that God would continue to break the chains of bondage that seek to hinder our effectiveness in ministry, and that we would be set free, by his grace, more and more every day.