Building a Worship Team - part 3

Now that you and your Senior Pastor have had a great lunch and gotten a good start on the commitment thing, where to from here? First of all, know that your commitment guidelines will change as your church and ministry grows. That's a good thing! We need to be constantly reviewing our goals and expectations, especially in times of growth. Look at what other churches in your area are doing. As you do, look at churches that are similar in size to where you are, and the next size up from where you are. Always keep an eye toward growth!

As for building the people part of your team...once they know what to expect,

1. START WITH WHAT YOU HAVE!

• What instrumentalists' do you have?
• What vocals (parts and lead) do you have?
• What is the skill level of those people?

Have a night where you just come together and 'work' a worship song or two. Start with something simple, something basic. For some of the more experienced people, this may seem redundant. However, you need to remember you are building a TEAM not an 'act'.

• Teams need exposure to one another, which means they spend time together.
• Teams aren't teams until they can master the basic mechanics of playing together.
  
• Teams require working together as one unit.

Get everyone together and play through a familiar, fairly simple song (Amazing Grace).

• Start with instrumentation. Who will play what? When? How much? Make sure every instrumentalist understands what you expect of them. Not everyone has to play at the same time. (Keyboard players in a band setting: LESS IS BETTER!)
  
• Then add vocals. Who will sing lead? What parts will be sung? When will you sing in unison and when will you have parts? NOT ALL SONGS NEED TO BE SUNG IN 3 or 4 PART HARMONY! Try only adding one part. Instead of singing the 3rd, try adding a harmony sung in the 2nd or 4th range of the scale. You never know until you try!
  
• Now, do it all TOGETHER.
  
• Do it again....and again...and again. Spending time going over a song together also helps you, leader, see where the ability level is of each of your people. Use that to encourage and educate your team.

2. GET YOUR TEAM RESOURCES TO LEARN FROM!

There are a bunch of good resources out there to help build a team. Let me recommend what I think is one of, if not the best resources out there. Paul Baloche has put together a series of GREAT training DVDs for praise and worship teams.
Start by going to his website and picking up "Worship Band Workshop". This is a great resource for your team to see what a team playing together looks and sounds like. DON'T TRY TO COPY THEM! Learn from them and apply what you can to your situation. Topics include "band dynamics and tempo", "creating an atmosphere of worship", "mapping out a song", and more. All done in a very basic, easy to learn setting.
For your vocalists, let me recommend that you also pick up the "Worship Vocal Workshop" from Paul's' site. They cover "modern blending", "proper warm-ups", "harmonizing" and more. Great lessons on singing as a team. This also includes some time with microphone basics that is invaluable.

• Find resources and get them into the hands of your people as often as you can.
• Get your team to conferences when you can. Getting them exposed to other teams and leaders will help them understand where you really want to go with them. Check out Integrity Musics Seminars4Worship.
  
• Find people who will come to you and teach. You'd be surprised at how many artists will come and do workshops for you and other churches. Some just ask you to provide a hotel and charge a fee for their workshop. Guitar, keyboards, even some vocal teaching is available this way. You just have to do some research. Email me and I'll share with you the folks we've had come and the impact they have had. (karl@fbcpoky.com)

Playing together as a team and resource sharing are the two keys to our success here at FBC, Poky. If you were to ask some of our folks they would tell you that it sometimes gets old working over a song the way we do. But when we take our place on Sundays, when it's time to lead God's church in musical worship, the distractions of timing, tempo, pitch, parts, etc. aren't there because the music has been internalized and now is coming out as worship.

Good luck in this part of the process. Be patient...look toward what you're hoping to accomplish in the end, not the junk in the front. It will be worth it!

Continue later this week with the next steps...