PRAISE TEAM DEVELOPMENT
These roles can be filled by the same individual or multiple individuals.
Director
- Selects songs, provides overall vision
Vocal leader
- The voice that the congregation and the musicians follow
Instrumental leader
- Plays the music, providing the rhythmic foundation (timing)
Arranger
- Directs the flow of the song (repeats, etc) directs the musicians, when needed, on when and how to play/sing to present a skillful sacrifice of praise
Audio technician
- Ensures the arrangement and work of the praise team is clearly heard.
Visual Technician
- Works the projected Lyric displays for the congregation to follow
How important are these roles? Is one role any more or less important than another? Can a team do without?
Vocal Leader
Being that it is possible to lead a congregation in song with only a Vocal Leader, this may be the most important role. That being said, if the Vocal Leader cannot be heard, the Audio Technician shares the position of “most important”.
Instrumental Leader
"The only thing worse for your praise team than not having a drummer, is having a drummer who can’t keep time"
This sentiment about drummers also applies to lead instruments, whether piano or guitar. If they cannot keep time, they may throw everyone off and interfere with worship. Pressing these players into a leadership role is fraught with danger. They need more time to develop their skills in a set-up-for-sucess environment, perhaps in secondary roles along side a stronger player.
Arranger
The role of Arranger is often unnoticed in a team of highly skilled musicians, as they will self-arrange using their experience, balancing their playing with the others. When the team has members with less experience or skill the Arranger role becomes more important, providing direction / training to keep the team cohesive. A strong arranger can find a place for an inexperienced player in a team, facilitating their musical development without sacrificing the cohesion or effectiveness of the team.
Director
A skilled Director will:
- Select songs base on a theme
- Integrate the theme with other elements of the service
- Select songs considering the relative skills of the musicians
- Provide leadership and vision for the music ministry
Scheduling Team Members to fufill the Necessary Elements of a Praise Team
A skills inventory of musicians is helpful when scheduling Team Members to ensure the necessary elements are fufilled. A missing element may lead to either a bad experience for the Team Member (and discourage developing their gift) or a bad experience for the congregation (unable to sing along, impeding worship), or both.
The skills inventory needs be sufficiently granular to address the necessary elements. If not, a team may not be properly enabled to lead worship.
Sample Inventory One
Bob: guitar, vocals, worship leader
Jim: piano, vocals
Julie: vocals, worship leader
Joan: guitar, vocals
Anne: vocals
Using the inventory above, the following team could be assembled:
Julie: vocals, worship leader
Jim: piano, vocals
Joan: guitar, vocals
According to Sample Inventory One, we have a complete worship team. But suppose the music goes poorly on at the Service? The congregation wasn’t sure when to start singing, the music was hard to follow?
Sample Inventory Two
Bob: lead guitar, lead vocals, arranger, vocal leader
Jim : basic piano, basic vocals (melody only)
Julie: vocal leader, director
Anne: basic vocals (alto harmony by ear, no sight reading)
Using Sample Inventory Two, we can evaluation the troubled team as follows:
Vocal Leader: Julie
Instrumental Leader:
Director: Julie
Arranger:
Supplement Instrument: Jim (piano), Joan (guitar)
Supplemental Vocal: Jim, Joan
As you can see, there is a significant gap – the Instrumental Leader. Without the strong instrumental leader for the other instruments and vocals to follow, no one on the team (or congregation) is sure of timing and singing is disrupted.
Using Sample Inventory Two, the following Team covers the essentials:
Vocal Leader: Julie
Instrumental Leader: Bob (guitar)
Arranger: Bob
Director: Julie
Supplement Instrument: Jim (piano)
Supplemental Vocal: Jim, Bob
This team is not likely to have trouble leading worship. As Arranger, Bob is able to give direction to the developing instrumentalists (Jim), helping equip as his skills and experience grow.
Encouraging and Equiping
How can we encourage and equip those who want to serve in music ministry?
There is always a spectrum of skill amongst a group of volunteers. Think of the parable of the Talents. If the goal of the church is to encourage and equip the saints to exercise their gifting to the glory of God, how can that be done amongst such diversity?
“To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.” - Matthew 25:15
Provide opportunities commensurate with gifting
- The inexperienced and developing musicians need an opportunity to serve that does not exceed their gifting.
- The highly experienced and skilled musicians need an opportunity to serve that allows full expression of their gifting.
Inexperienced and Developing
Mentoring developing musicians is a power discipleship tool which results in a team of strong players. A strong team provides a safe place for the developing musician to grow in skill, including making mistakes and learning from them. In a strong team, making mistakes will neither throw off the other musicians or cause confuse for the congregation.
Placing a developing musician in a place of leadership is setting them up for failure. The congregation will suffer (can’t follow the music thereby disrupting worship) and the musician may suffer discouragement and quit.
Highly Experienced and Skilled
These musicians have a powerful role in equiping the saints, however, that is not their only role. The highly skilled also need opportunity to use their God-given gifting to its full potential. This usually cannot be done whilst in the Equipping role, as their abilities are harnessed for the benefit of those they mentor.
(Harnessed: the less skilled may only be able play a certain way. This may require the highly skilled musicians to play in what is, to them, a low level of musicianship to maintain cohension in the song)
Placing a highly skilled musician in a role where they rarely (ever?) get to use their gifting to the full is draining and discouraging. This will sometimes lead to giving a poor effort and sometimes they will quit altogether.
1 Chronicles 25
The Musicians
“David, together with the commanders of the army, set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals…
All these men were under the supervision of their father for the music of the temple of the Lord, with cymbals, lyres and harps, for the ministry at the house of God.
Asaph, Jeduthun and Heman were under the supervision of the king. Along with their relatives—all of them trained and skilled in music for the Lord—they numbered 288. Young and old alike, teacher as well as student, cast lots for their duties.”