[This post is part of a series on Leading Your Team & Congregation Through Worship Tensions. Check out the rest here.]
We’ve all been in the situation once or twice. Actually you may be stuck there right now.
You have a passion for Jesus. You long for your congregation to experience God. You want the glory of God to fill your church.
But your band doesn’t look like they agree.
Actually, they look depressed, exhausted, and barely awake. They can seem to talk for passionate hours on gear and new music, but when it comes time to showing some enthusiasm for worship, all you get is silence.
Blank stares.
Is it possible to have excellent musicians who worship with passion?
How do we raise the passion level of our musicians? We’ve all tried the “Look alive! Get excited for Jesus!” speeches. Eh.
This may be tough to do if you allow non-christians on your worship team, as Vicky Beeching tackled on her blog. I suppose this is one of the strengths of having a team of Christians.
But even so, sometimes Christian musicians are more into what they’re playing than who they’re worshiping.
So how can we teach our musicians to be expressive worshipers and skilled musicians? What are some practical steps you can take today?
1. Tell them a story
Actually, tell them your story. It’s common for leaders to resort to “do this” speeches – to just spit out the facts. Stories are more enchanting. Tell them about your experience with God. Tell them about what God is doing in your life. Not only will this inspire them, it keeps you living out a “today” faith rather than resorting to your “glory day” stories.
2. Worship together
Nothing can take the place of worshiping with your team. Visibly expressive, heartfelt, worshiping musicians don’t appear out of thin air. It needs to be practiced and developed off stage. This is a good heart check. If you are spending most, if not all of your time in musical rehearsal, it may be time to reevaluate and bring your team together to worship.
3. Challenge them
Sometimes our musicians don’t grow as worshipers because we don’t challenge them. Trust me, they are waiting to be challenged. Be a spiritual leader. Organize a simple spiritual growth challenge you can focus on together. Fast a meal once a week. Read through a book of the Bible. Challenge each other to worship during the week apart from music. Disciplines like this will raise the spiritual temperature of your team and encourage them to show up on Sunday with greater expectancy.
4. Build Momentum
To build a vibrant team, you need momentum. You need to meet goals with your team. You need quick wins. You need to climb a mountain together and overcome. Not literally, unless you want to, of course 🙂 The worst thing you can do for your team is just coast through routines all year long. Your band will disengage. There won’t be visible passion on stage. Introduce change. Shake things up a bit. Introduce a new discipleship plan. Take a trip together. Do an outreach. Write songs together. This will help create a team of excited, engaged people.
5. Model It
As scary as it sounds, you will reproduce who you are and what you’re passionate about. Your musicians will be inspired by what you stand for. If you are insanely passionate about gear, they’ll grow in their love for gear. If you’re insanely passionate about music, they’ll grow as musicians. If you are insanely passionate about Jesus and His presence, they’ll grow in their own passion. It’s healthy to be passionate about all these things but if your excitement for gear and music or anything else far outweighs your passion for Jesus, you’ll have an unbalanced team. Love Jesus and live it boldly.
Guard your fire for Jesus. This stuff is definitely more caught than taught.
Question: What have you tried to develop a team of musicians who worship? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Btw, if you thought this post was helpful, consider sharing it with your social network via the sharing icons below. I would really appreciate it! You’re awesome..
Totally off topic, BUT if you were to repeat your header background, it would flow much better. The white on either side is a bit off.
Thanks for the suggestion, Matt. What do you mean by repeat the header background? Sorry, this isn’t my expertise 🙂
It seems like all your posts are directed towards me lately! 🙂 Everthing you say is exactly what is in my youth worship band. I feel like right now things are just average. Of course I want it to excel musically, but I really want it to excel spiritually. Right now, I feel as if we are playing songs and worshipping God blandly (if that is how you can describe it). I don’t feel like we are all letting loose and letting God take control.
I try to set the example and act excited and passionate about everthing…we pray before each set…I have been doing everything God has been leading me to do, but we still don’t have the team that is truly passionate about everything.
What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear any advice you might could give…
Just keep doing what you’re doing, Brandon. Try some of the things I’ve outlined above. I think it takes months to see radical change. Be a leader they respect and they’ll follow your passion.
Thanks for the tips! I have learned a lot from reading this blog!
Sometimes i feel its not the gear they are excited about but just the music and not the worship like you said…
It’s about playing the solo good…look at me, look at me and this guitar riff I made up kinda feel….
Thats when it gets frustrating….but these tips are great!!!
Thanks david…
No problem, Arny. Let me know how your team progresses!
I’d suggest exposing your team to inspiring models, like Jesus Culture or the IHOP One Thing conferences. Either watch the videos or attend an event.
(Now I expose my ancient dinosaur-ness) Many, ..hmmm, moons ago I was at an event led by Kent Henry (he is super awesome) and it changed my life. I saw somebody setting an example and modeling wholehearted worship in a context that related to mine. It ignited the imagination.
Sometimes the guys n gals needs a flesh & blood vision, not an abstract mission statement.
Good tips, Rob. As leaders we definitely need to set an example of wholehearted worship for our teams.
David – All really good ideas. “Model it” was a little too close to home. Have you ever video recorded your worship team? I’ve had mixed results with that.
Do you mean recording the team leading worship and then watching it together? We record our services but we’ve never critiqued it. Might be worth a try.
I spend the first 30 minutes of each rehearsal doing a devotional of sorts with my team. This ranges from what I’m reading in scripture or a book to some great posts on this or any other worship blog. I’ve also found that sharing something from my life helps remind my team that I’m just as much a sinner and a failure as anyone. It demonstrates the power and grace of God to take each of us in our weaknesses and make something beautiful. We also make time every week to share any praise reports that may have happened in any of their lives. Then we take prayer requests and spend about 15 minutes praying for each other’s needs.
I’ve found that this first 30-45 minutes of our rehearsal time is the most important, and it’s the part that my team members appreciate the most. It literally allows us to share in each other’s burdens, to weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice. The spiritual unity that is established directly translates to a musical chemistry that goes way beyond where natural talent and ability could ever take us.
Recently a team members’ father passed away. It was a very difficult time for this person, and we could all sense the sorrow and grief he was feeling. That following Thursday night at rehearsal, I experienced the most amazing worship team experience of my life when the other 9 of us gathered around this individual and held him and wept with him for a solid 20 minutes. What happened that night made for the most Spirit-filled rehearsal of our lives.
Making time for this at the beginning of our practices has transformed our team, and when we take time during our practices to simply worship and be spontaneous, it feels so natural. It establishes a momentum for us that carries into Sunday.
Bro, that’s awesome. Chemistry will improve as you journey with each other through life. Inspiring story!
“As scary as it sounds, you will reproduce who you are and what you’re passionate about.” — That’s the hardest thing to abide in. I get so immersed in picking songs, mashing them up, planning how they should fit with Scripture or the sermon or prayers or needs of the church or strengths of the musicians and singers — that I lose my GOD-focus.
As I’ve heard Paul Baloche say at a couple of conferences “You can’t lead anyone somewhere you haven’t been yourself” If I don’t hop out of the (planning) car on the trip and experience the vista, then I sure won’t just haphazardly point towards God on Sunday.
As for the response “It’s about playing the solo good…look at me, look at me and this guitar riff I made up kinda feel…” — We should take pride (lower case p)and pleasure in using our God-given gifts in His service. Yeah, He could do it all Himself, but I think he puts our pictures we’ve colored up on his fridge. I loved the line in “Chariots of Fire” where Eric has been asked why he runs and replies “When I run, I feel the pleasure of God”. We should feel His pleasure and His favor and thank Him for the gifts we are enjoying when we create music.
C.S. Lewis said (and I paraphrase) we should take as much pride in what we’ve done as when done by anybody else, no more and no less. I’m working to foster that approach on our team and to celebrate the collaboration, the coming together as our part of the Body in worship.