So the practical leadership and team memberequipping content won ’ t stop with this article .
So speaking of …
I contemplated what I wanted to say in my last issue . Do I take a few parting shots at the ridiculousness I see in some churches to make worship hip , relevant , or entertaining ? ( For example , I was at a church recently that incorporated ceiling mounted bubble machines during Phil Wickham ’ s Living Hope . Yeah , that wasn ’ t distracting .)
But nobody wants to hear an aging GenX-er gripe about worship .
Instead , I think I ’ ll go out the same way I ’ ve been rolling all along : give some practical tactics that can help your upcoming Sundays , but also some long-term strategies that will help you make every Sunday exceptional — no matter who ’ s scheduled , and without burning out you or your team .
So here are my top seven pieces of advice that – if I was handing off my worship ministry now to a younger leader – I ’ d give her or him .
1 . EMBRACE EPH 4:11-12 MORE THAN MODERN MODELS OF CHURCH LEADERSHIP . At WTC , we call it E4 Leadership™ . E4 Leaders take seriously the ancient wisdom found in those two short , powerful verses . Leadership is meant to be shared . And the role of those leaders is to equip the people ( the worship team ) to do the work of ministry , not do it themselves .
This isn ’ t just about equipping your team members , but also growing them up into leaders . This is the only way to move towards being exceptional every Sunday AND not burning out yourself or your team . You can learn more about this process in my book , Exceptional Every Sunday .
2 . ROTATE FEWER SONGS MORE OFTEN . If you want one tactic that will get your church to engage more and help your team to prepare better within a few short weeks , this is it .
When you rotate songs the church knows — and schedule news songs often enough for people to learn them — they ’ ll sing from the heart and not from the screen . And bonus , your team will lead from the heart and not the screen .
You may have a lot of questions about this . Like , what happens when my team gets sick of the song ? Do we just do old songs forever ? What do we do when people suggest a new song every week ?
My book , The SongCycle , answers all those questions and more . But in case you rolled your eyes at me hawking another book , here ’ s an WM article I wrote on the topic ( see the second half of the article ). You can put the main gist of it into practice before you decide if it ’ s worth buying .
3 . DON ’ T WORK UNDER A TOXIC SENIOR PASTOR . You ’ ve probably noticed a few make the news over the last number of years . For every churchinternet famous bully pastor who gets exposed there are probably 100 ( likely more ) just like him spreading their toxic , dysfunctional leadership in churches of every size .
My team has worked with multiple clients who were stuck under unhealthy senior pastors and dysfunctional church boards . Some were so apparent we advised a few worship leaders to quit for their own emotional and spiritual health ( even though we knew we ’ d lose them as clients ).
June 2023 Subscribe for Free ... 31