If you’ve been a musician for any length of time you’ve been a part of rehearsals that you wish you could leave.
Maybe the leader wasn’t prepared and there was no plan.
Maybe the band was simply terrible and it was impossible to get any chemistry going.
Maybe it just seemed to go on and on with no end in sight.
The goal of rehearsal isn’t just to get stuff done. It’s to form musicians into Jesus following, church loving, kingdom minded disciples (Tweet that?)
When you adopt this mindset, you begin to invest in people and not just your task list. You have more longevity with your team members. You have more fun. God blesses your efforts because it’s in line with what He already loves.
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What You’ll Learn in this Episode
4 Rehearsal Values
Remember:
“The goal of rehearsal isn’t just to get stuff done. It’s to form musicians into Jesus following, church loving, kingdom minded disciples” (Tweet That)
- Vision – For WHO you are, WHAT you do, and WHY you do it
- Worship – Don’t sing songs. Don’t perform songs. Get songs in you.
- Productivity – For growing in our chemistry, skill, and excellence as a team
- Fun – Think “How can I exceed expectations?”
Blueprint for Better Worship Team Rehearsals
- Organized Jam Session (5 minutes)
- Band Teaching (10 minutes)
- Prayer/Devo (15 minutes)
- Main Goal (20 minutes)
- Transitions (5 minutes)
- Run Through (20 minutes)
- Worship Session (15 minutes)
TOTAL TIME: 1.5 Hours
Resources Mentioned in this Post
- Blog Post: Are You Making Disciples or Abusing Volunteers?
- Ebook: Beyond Sunday: A Step by Step Guide for Creating and Sustaining a Vision
- David’s Worship Leader Newsletter: Subscribe
- Podcast: How to Create and Sustain a Vision for Your Worship Team
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Question: How do you structure your rehearsals? What strategies have you put in place or desire to put into place after listening to this episode? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
Fantastic podcast. Very practical plan. The only element I would add is to have some kind of dedicated time in the plan for building relationships. For my choir rehearsals, we usually start with a very concise group conversation – we’ll debrief the last service, share prayer requests, and mention any important logistical or schedule items. This takes about 15 minutes but helps everyone feel more connected.
Great point, Rob. I do a lot of this in our Sunday morning devo time, but definitely needs to happen at some point. When you debrief service, how does that go? Is it typically a positive or negative conversation?
Great question. Typically I want to affirm what was good so that we do more of that.
BTW, I wrote a blog series on debriefing and evaluating services, http://www.robstill.com/guidelines-to-evaluate-your-worship-service-overview-part-1/
I appreciated what you said about respecting the musician’s time. But it appears to me that the 1.5 hour rehearsal and respecting time is hinged upon having folks prepared. So how do have a volunteer group come to rehearsal prepared? It has been my experience that there is very little extrinsic pressure on the folks in the band to put the time in and where there is no external motivation, the internal motivation kind of dies on the vine.
This is a great point, Lod, and may be deserving of its own blog post. My opinion is that you can hold volunteers to high standards if they believe in the vision of what you do. My team members respect me and respect what we’re trying to do. I think for them it’s a privilege to be a part so they take it seriously. My advice would be to start creating that culture of excellence. Over time, your team appreciates how they’re becoming better and how you’re able to accomplish more as a team when you’re in unity, showing up prepared together. Make sense?
I agree with holding members to a high standard. But I think to get them to that standard they need to be challenged and unfortunately, some players are not able to be challenged due to whatever conditions exist in their lives e.g. jobs, family, time constraints, etc and others cannot see over the molehill of the technical challenge of learning the music that exists in front of them because they were never taught how break down a song. –Sorry a bit of a rant—
My heart is to see great artists again inhabiting the church and bringing their very best to worship and I am frustrated with cowboy chord, changing every 4, strumming my way to paradise, cookie cutter nice, 2.5 minutes is too long, worship songs.
I agree with the vision thing. But the vision must (must must must) be married to action. I zone out when I hear a vision statement but I get excited when I see how a group is moving in that direction because I have been around groups that have had a lofty vision statement but no one moved in that direction other than to give it lip service. The last organization I led, I told the group our sole purpose was to facilitate congregational worship and we became very predictable in our methods because we had a vision that was married to action.
Well, I should be off to tilt at more windmills.
Grace and peace.
Totally, man. I’ve found that those who aren’t able to be challenged eventually step down from playing. It’s just tough to be in our worship team if you’re not growing, developing, and working on your songs in some way. As for teaching people how to break down a song, I do that on occasion in our monthly worship team meetings. I pass out charts and we do a listening exercise on the spot. It’s been very helpful for people. Thanks for sharing your thoughts man!
David–
As always, fantastic ideas!
I would love to follow a plan like this… if I had a mid-week rehearsal.
As it is now, we meet at 6:30 on Sunday mornings, pray, run through three songs and an opener (usually a song we’ve never done before or haven’t done in months.) We take a break (me and two other guys in the band are over 50– the break is essential– you’ll understand in 20 years!)
We eat a bite & fellowship for a few minutes, then polish everything and work transitions and light and video cues and have to be done before 8:15. Then we do three services– 8:30, 10:00 and 11:30.
I never have the exact same band two weeks in a row– one guitarist works every other weekend, my drummer works every night except Wednesday when we have youth at the building… the early morning thing is the only one I’ve been able to make work, but unfortunately, it doesn’t leave much time for doing anything other than the music.
Any ideas?
Hey Mark – great point. I know a lot of worship teams that do this. Matter of fact, my setup is to rehearse on Saturday afternoon before our Saturday night service. With multiple services on Sunday, could you do a worship team prayer/devo time during the message portion of one of the services? As for doing a training/band exercise, I still usually fit that into my preservice rehearsal, even if it has to be shorter some weeks.
David,
Thanks for this great post. It is very timely for me. My team will have the next month off and I have been brainstorming ways to improve our rehearsal time when we come back from break.
I’m curious what strategies you employ to allow your singers to come prepared. Our team’s lead singer/worship leader is a woman so pretty much any song with a tenor male lead is going to get dropped 2-3 steps. So, while listening to an artist recording is great for our singers to learn the lyrics and timing of the song. It is not as helpful for getting any vocal memory in the range we will be doing the song.
In general our singers are also the members of the team with the least amount formal training.[Read almost none =) ] So they tend not to be able to play through my charts with a guitar or piano.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks again!!
Dustin, great point. I’d love to hear what others here may have to say about this. My main concern is that singers know the lyrics and come ready to worship. I’ll then give them tips in rehearsal for when to sing/not to sing and when to sing melody or harmony. But to a fault sometimes, I spend more time with the band than I do with vocalists. But as long as they know the lyrics and melody, that’s what I require from a preparation standpoint.
I am not affiliated but I have used The Amazing Slow Downer in my preparation because it is a good app for adjusting pitch and speed (to pick up difficult or intricate parts). Historically the app was available for both the iphone and PC.
I hope that helps a bit.
Nice!
Anytune Pro app works well for our team.
You can change the MP3 song up or down any number of semitones. You can also speed or slow down the audio.
Great for on the spot audio transposition for singers
Dustin, for our team / vocalists, I record each song in the key we’re doing it for Sunday and attach it to the planning center plan. This gives them the song structure as we’re doing it, my vocal timing / inflections, and dynamic. Sometimes, if the harmony is tricky to find, I’ll record a harmony track as well. When they show up to rehearsal we do a vocal rehearsal for a 1/2 hour before the band arrives and I tell people where / what they should sing. Then we jump up on stage after devotional time and hope it goes well. 🙂 Usually it’s pretty close. Hope that helps.
Alex,
The recording on planning center is a really good idea, especially for when you do the male/female lead voice exchange.
Thanks,
Lod
Cool idea, Alex. How long does this take you each week?
If none of the songs have recordings yet, it can take an hour or two. If it’s just a song or two that needs a new recording, then 15 to 30 minutes
Loved the podcast again. I look forward to it every week since a friend recommended it to me. As for this podcast topic, we’ve revamped our rehearsals to reflect a small group/community group setting. The band used to rehearse in a space we rented each week since we do not have a building and meet in a school. It was not a very conducive environment for what we needed. About 4 months ago we transitioned to meet in my home. We spend time focusing on new material and possibly running through new arrangements of familiar songs and transitions. Whoever is scheduled for the week is encouraged (expected) to attend but we leave the option for anyone on the team to join us that week. It helps build relationships between members who may never serve together (two bass players, etc). It also allows those not playing to begin to get familiar with newer tunes. Another benefit is that it enables us to invite new people to a “musician’s community” where they meet fellow artists and musicians. We spend time praying and sharing and occasionally share a meal. I try to keep the time to around 75 minutes give or take depending on the week. It is still a work in progress but I find the benefits of this style of rehearsal to be wonderful and fruitful.
Hey Brian, that is awesome. I love how you’re being creative and adapting to your situation. I know there are lots of churches in a similar boat – no rehearsal space. Do you actually set up your instruments at the house or just “talk” it through?
We actually do a basic set up but in the round so that we can all face each other. It helps us connect. It also enables me to see who may be uncomfortable with their part (vocally and instrumentally) or transition by their facial expressions. We do our best to balance the practical time of rehearsal along with being intentional that we, as a team, are spending time in worship ourselves while we play.
Love it. A circular band setup is one of my favorites. There’s a powerful chemistry that happens when we face each other.
Great post.
We have 3 services. One Sat. Night (5:15p), Two Sunday Morning (9:15a & 11a). Generally 5 songs per service, 7 on Communion Weekends. We use the same band through the whole weekend. Our people serve on an as-available rotation. We rehearse Sat. afternoon from 2:30-4:40p, before the Saturday Night Service. Brush-up Sunday Morning 8-8:40a. It is a major time commitment for our folks but we have fun. I’m blessed with a budget where, occasionally, if there’s time Sunday morning, we make a mad scramble to a nearby coffee house where I “buy a round for the band and techs”. For us, it has been the best way to keep the worship unified and provide an effective context to bring up younger musicians as they mature.
Joel, thanks for sharing. Your setup is close to identical to ours with some slight differences in service time. How does your team handle the big time commitment?
David,
I haven’t had any complaints about the time commitment, I kind of inherited it. We’re extremely blessed, there are enough talented folks (but not too many) to rotate in and keep people from burnout. If anything, I’m the one looking to trim up the time! I agree, 90minutes is a good line. Some of our younger musicians think that if you tack on another hour of rehearsal it will solve all the problems of the world! I’m constantly looking for ways to be more effective and more efficient. Your podcast caught my attention because I want to shepherd our WT folks and help them steward their time well. I also agree that it sounds like the way you do things and the way we do things are very similar, even down to the way we use Planning Center. Happy Easter!
Kindred spirits 🙂 Thanks Joel and have an incredible Easter weekend!
Thanks David, for your awesome resources and heart for equipping worship leaders! This was a great episode and helped me take a look at what we’re currently doing and ask if there’s anything we can do to make it better. I know it’d probably be very impractical for you, but it’d be fascinating to see a video of your entire rehearsal with your team, to watch how this plays out in real life.
As for having team members show up prepared, how exactly do you do that? I send my song sets / chord charts out to my team members a week in advance…for the most part they show up knowing their chords, but as for individual parts and arrangements, we usually end up tweaking / figuring out / solidifying things during our first run through of the songs (we do two run throughs at rehearsal). With different musicians and different instruments each week, it just never stays the same. The only way I could see this working is if you had a set / standard / radio version of a song and you told your musicians to learn their parts exactly as it is on the CD. Is that what you do? Could you please flesh out how this works for you?
Thanks brother!
Hey Alex! Thanks for the encouragement. Recording a video – good idea. I’ll file that way and see if I can make it happen at some point and post it on the blog. Preparation for us is all about Planning Center. I plan our songs 6 weeks out, uploading charts and mp3s to planning center. This gives people enough time to prepare. Most of our songs are identical to the recorded arrangements, but we also arrange our own on occasion and flow quite a bit. As long as most of the songs are pre-recorded arrangements, our rehearsal goes great as everyone can prepare. Does that make sense?
Thanks David…that makes sense. Having a set standard (“you play this part exactly as recorded”) let’s people know exactly what they need to learn so they can come prepared. I think my problem is that we take more of a creative approach to arrangements, where I let people come up with their own parts to songs, or I give ideas and let them go from there. But that’s messy because it doesn’t give people a clear target to aim for and know if they’re hitting. I’ll prayerfully consider making them learn the parts exactly as the recorded version. I just don’t want to stifle creativity.
Thanks again for the great resources.
You bring up a great point, Alex. There’s a value in encouraging creativity. But in my opinion, that needs to be earned. A musician needs to develop the discipline of playing someone else’s part before they just improv their own. The musicians I trust the most, I allow (and welcome) their creativity.
Touché 🙂
One more thanks is in order to you for bringing this topic up in a podcast, then to all the others who commented on this. Thank you, all for helping us flesh this out! I’ve read every reply.
Question for you: on your Saturday rehearsals, do you do a full run-through of the set including fully running through the songs and transitions? What does that look like for your team?
For us, we are about to transition our worship/Sunday school times and in doing so, it will only allow us 20-25 min to do a quick soundcheck and maybe run through one of the “weaker” songs or transitions. We currently have 45 minutes to do so now. Our Friday practice usually runs about 2 hours. I would love to implement a rehearsal closer to what you all are doing, but have already gotten some “push-back” for shortening the team’s Sunday rehearsal time (this was not my doing, btw). I think (hope/pray) that this whole change will cause the team to rise to the challenge, and that we will be fine. But I am curious to hear from you, and anyone else who would like to share, what the time before your service looks like. Thanks so much for your reply!
Craig,
I have a situation very similar to yours. Our church has a “traditional” service that ends at 9:00 and then our team has till 9:30 to switch over for a “modern worship” service. Like you said there is really only time to run a song or two for a sound check. Our solution has been to meet in our chapel or anywhere else with a piano 45 minutes ahead of time. We run down the whole set with transitions on piano and guitars. It’s not exactly the same, but it does help to get everyone warmed up and in the right frame of mind.
Thanks for this suggestion, Dustin! We are about to do some “trial runs” by reducing our Sunday rehearsal times before we officially make the change to our service schedule. I think in doing so, we will be able to see how this feels and still provide a time “net” to fall into if we need it.
Currently the time before our service is spent running through the entire set and prayer time. We may or may not play all of the songs all the way through but if possible we will. We set up in a school so every minute counts. However we only have one service and we play about six songs.
At a previous church some years ago we ran four services. Band showed up early and ran through the planned list. The vocalists would show up 30 minutes later for another run through. We then prayed as a group and spent the remainder of the time connecting with people. I find that especially with new people or visitors having the band be a real part of everything takes away the “people on the platform” distance. We worship with them on the platform and in the seats.
I came from a church that met in a school, and fondly remember those days. God bless you in that!
I have been leaning more recently towards playing some recorded music (CD) after the benediction instead of having the band do the usual “outro” music in order to encourage the worship team to connect with the congregation. I also want to remove the “people on the platform” distance. Thanks!
Craig, before our service we definitely rehearse transitions, but we don’t always get to a full run-through. It kind of depends how things go. Usually we do, but sometimes we just rehearse the intros, outros, & transitions.
This helps out a great deal. Thanks, David!
Figured this was a question worth asking for more than just me to see:
How do you plan songs so far in advance (6 weeks)? What’s the process for choosing songs? Do you meet with the pastors/creative team that far in advance or just fine tune it as you get closer?
Thanks Pastor!
John
Lys Soleia sounds like it will be popular. I like the AAs though I do28&#n17;t own any as yet. May I join the chorus of those happy that you are now reunited with your summer staple? Although V’s quote did make me smile!