Leader of the Band

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 assembled was very “soft rock,” keyboard driven, and pretty inviting to traditional church goers.

Several years later, I found myself planting a church in the heart of the arts community, in the city that birthed Jimi Hendrix, Heart, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. Seattle’s rock isn’t for wimps!

In this setting our vision was to be much more “edgy.” We wanted a lot of beat, a lot of drive, and pretty high volume. We desired 15 to 20 minutes of non-stop singing that ranged from the nearly-frenetic to the sublime. We wanted to include hymns, choruses, and praise music delivered by a guitar-driven band.

Get a vision. You need a predominant sound. Are you pop, hard rock, alternative, folk, R&B? You pick. But do pick. You can’t do it all.

Players: some assembly required

With patience, you can assemble a team. Unless you live in Hollywood or Nashville, though, you’ll have to pay, but you can do well with a team of “stipended” musicians ($25-$100 per week). Many musicians subsist by piecing together small gigs. Playing for free can be next to impossible. And I find that people with artistic temperaments are much easier to direct when they are paid than when they are not.

Musicians emit some strange hormonal scent that only they can pick up from each other

Advertise for talent in church bulletins, local music magazines, or newspapers. Here’s a typical ad: Innovative Protestant church forming a worship team. Must read charts. Need guitar, bass, keys, drums, vocals. Experience is good, passion and willingness to be a team player is better. Call Randy @ ________.

Get applications and begin interviewing. I look for those who are spiritually open, will take direction, and can play by ear and transpose on the fly. A band member must be a quick study.

Tall order? You bet. It takes time to build a team like this, but these criteria are essential, as you’ll see. Now you’re probably saying, “How do I know where they’re at spiritually?”

My answer: “You won’t right away. Relax.” In a four to six-person band, you need at least one member with church experience and three who are committed Christians. If you have up to three who are non-converted but at least spiritually open, don’t panic. Think of it as a relational evangelism opportunity.

Develop a rhythm for the life of the band. It’s important as a service grows that you try to have enough players at each instrument that no one plays more than three times per month. Without the week off, musicians get stale, feisty, and will eventually quit.

Establish the work pattern

Determine when to rehearse the band. This is harder than you might think, but notice I said “when” not “if” you rehearse. Our worship team is very good musically, but they still have to rehearse. If your Sunday service is at 9 a.m., when does the worship team rehearse?

Professional musicians who can deliver what you need don’t like rehearsing for free or booking rehearsals on weeknights when they might have a paying gig. Plus, you still need a set up, equipment check, and run-through on Sunday morning.

We decided to mail charts and cassette tapes to each player early in the week and ask them to learn their parts well. Then we gather Sunday morning at 7 a.m., pray, plug-in, and rehearse the service start to finish. We adjust on the fly. We change keys if something is not easily sung, and we work on delivering the music sensitive to the context of that week’s theme. We rehearse about six worship songs, a version of the Doxology, and a couple of special music pieces each week. Normally we can be ready by 8:45. It works, but pulling it off takes strong leadership.

We organize our band so that there is an overall band leader who coordinates everything. A musical director calls the shots on musical technicalities. An administrator makes tapes, charts, selects each week’s worship songs, and keeps records. And the worship leader actually leads the congregation in worship. We do all this, with outstanding musicians, for about what you budget for a full-time music minister.

Prepare the "worship leader"

The worship leader will connect the band and the congregation with the music being offered to God as worship. This is a key role. The person must be a leader and passionate about worship. And it doesn’t hurt, though not essential, if the person is musically talented.

Start your team with one leader and several backup singers and then, as time goes by, develop one or more of the backup singers into a skilled worship leader.

Here’s what a worship leader needs to know:

It’s not about you, it’s about God. Be strong, but don’t let your ego, your personality, or your presence up front distract people from connecting with God.
Help people know where the music is going. Give visual and verbal cues.
Stay on the melody and make it easy for folks to sing. Keep the band accountable to deliver songs that the average 40-year-old male can sing. These are the most musically challenged attenders, and we must not lose them.
Don’t preach. I, Mr. Pastor, will be preaching later. Worship leaders lead worship; pastors preach. I make this clear to my leaders by threatening to sing!
Be non-directive. Let the music talk and the Spirit speak. Don’t do the “let’s all lift our hands and tell him we love him” bit. Let God do his work in individual hearts.

Be prepared for …

As you assemble your team, realize that several things are going to happen.

1. Some people you pick are going to turn out to be a bad fit personality-wise, flaky in their work habits, or simply not able to grow in skill level with the worship team. If you are afraid to let people go, don’t form a worship team.

2. Musicians emit some strange hormonal scent that only they can pick up from each other. If you start doing a particular music style, musicians will flock to your church.

3. You will find that many musicians have been hurt by the church because their music was viewed as evil somewhere else. One guy who sings in a famous punk band in Seattle did a special song in our church. Afterwards, he came up to me crying, hugged me and said, “I have been in music since I was a teenager, and this is the first time any pastor ever let me do any music in church.”

4. Musical excellence will increase weekly. Be patient and let it happen. Good things take time. Bands and music are “organic,” not mechanical. They take a growing season.

From band to a community

Musicians desire community. Our band meets about once a month outside of Sunday morning to do a Bible Study, pray, share needs, cover schedules and band business, and rehearse new music.

Our band also has an annual overnight retreat to build community, do some planning, and jam. We have an annual Christmas dinner with members’ families or significant others, and several spontaneous dinners at players’ houses.

What commitments do we expect? A covenant or job description is helpful. Our band covenant talks about the commitment to be team players, to show up on time for band meetings and rehearsals for worship services. The church covenants to listen to band members’ concerns, review their performances annually, and pay them in a fair and timely fashion.

Some closing tips. Don’t be cowed by the artistic temperament. The pastor is in charge of worship. At the same time, love and cherish your pioneer band members. Be patient with mistakes without lowering expectations for continuous quality improvement.

And finally, wear out the knees in your pants praying that God will guide your leadership, and that he will use the ragtag bunch of players you assemble to enable your congregation to offer him the worship he is due.

Randy L. Rowland is pastor of Church at the Center 100 Harrison Seattle WA 98119 Rrowland@interserv.com