I came to the ministry from a background in radio—for many years I played the hits. Lo and behold, Rockin' Randy winds up pastoring and forming worship bands in two different Presbyterian churches. God has a sense of humor.

It would take an entire issue of Leadership to detail the lame-brained mistakes I have made. Here's a distillation of what I have learned about worship team development.

What sound are you after?

Don't start putting a team together until you have a vision and "feel" for the sort of service you are going to develop. The first time I attempted the worship team enterprise, I was in a large, very traditional Presbyterian church. Our vision was to gently move the church toward new ways of worshiping. We wanted more singing than in a typical service and a wider range of songs, not just hymns.

We wanted a montage of songs strung together for an experiential worship event, not with a rock beat, a smoother sound like the music of Mariah Carey or Michael Bolton. The team we ...