Worship leading is a far more complicated role than most worship leaders realize! They start off thinking that all they need to do is sing and the rest will follow, but over the years I have learned many things about worship leading and managing my musicians and singers. In making and working with different worship teams I have made made hundreds of mistakes, most if which I don't need you to make when you are
http://www.worship-leading.com/worshipleading/. I want to share with you a few things I've been taught, in the hope that you will be in a position to avoid these tiny bumps along your own journey.
Worship leading needs to be a labor of love for the worship leader, but for many of your musicians and singers, you may be dejected to find that they are not as dedicated as you when it comes to your worship leading!
We must not forget the members of the worship teams are volunteers. I know there are some churches that have paid musicians and vocalists but ninety percent of us have volunteers. In that we must remember that while we must have a collection of basic rules of our groups, we shouldn't be hard set in our worship leading policies. Here is what I mean by that. If your rules are too stern and or they are too controlling you will have trouble keeping volunteers. This is a mistake that I made early on and soon found out really quickly that a volunteers heart is to serve not be restricted by a handful of rules. As I recall scripture has something to say about rules that are too strict.
True leaders lead by motivation, not by overbearing orders and rules. If you want the best from your team, become a worship leader of the highest order, and inspire the allegiance and devotion of those you lead in your
http://www.worship-leading.com/worshipleading/ministry.
Another aspect to remember is that we have got to be open to adapting to the needs of the team. And part of that job needs him to take some night classes. He wants to be on the team but his classes happen to be on the scheduled rehearsal nights. He knows that he must rehearse to be on the team. What do you do? Simply ask the rest of the team if there's another night or time that they could meet. Almost all of the time you will be ready to work something out. I have done this for many alternative scenarios. Whether it's childcare or job related or what ever. The point is this is a
http://www.worship-leading.com/worshipleading/ministry. Adapt to the needs of the people as long as it will not hinder or affect the team in a negative way.
Another frequent mistake many worship leaders is making rehearsals too structured. Yes you need the band to be musically tight. And you have new songs you want to work on. Occasionally you simply need to jam together on a good chord progression. As an interesting point I suspect these jam sessions make the musicians tighter.
Again this is first and most important a
http://www.worship-leading.com/worshipleading/ministry. We must not forget that. Get together for more than just rehearsals and the service. Don't simply rehearse and serve together, play together. Go on picnics. This is a way to get to know each other and to build friendships and trust.
Remember, all work and no play will make the volunteers stay away.
For more training on all aspects of
http://www.worship-leading.com/worshipleading/, including how to effectively manage your people, check out our worship leading website.