In my last post I addressed what worship leaders should expect from their volunteer worship teams. Every person standing on the platform in your church is perceived as a leader and should be expected to act like one and take responsibility for leading people through the experience of worship we all share. This is first exemplified by the worship leader and “infects” the rest of the team in a way that should enhance the worship experience in our churches every weekend.
This time around, I’d like to address the responsibility of the volunteer worship team member. There is much that can be inferred from my previous post concerning the expectations of the band members. If you’re perceived as a leader, you should act like a leader. Don’t wait for your worship pastor to spur you on. There is nothing more refreshing for any pastor at any church than to see someone taking initiative in their spiritual walk and taking ownership of the worship experience in their church, regardless of the role you fill. Take the time necessary to prepare yourself for the weekend - not just musically but spiritually, as well.
As a worship pastor, I always wanted to walk on to the platform on Sunday feeling that I knew the music better than anyone on stage. But I also wanted to know that I spent the time needed in worship on my own during the week, getting myself outside of the words and chords and melodies in order to connect with the Holy Spirit through the song. My hope and prayer was that my band was doing the same. The more you’re attuned to the Spirit in your personal worship life, the easier it is to follow His leading in a corporate setting.
So, all those things your worship leader is expecting from you, you should expect the same, if not more, from yourself. But what should you expect from your worship leader? I mean, is that even okay to do? It’s a fact that there is no shortage of malcontents in our churches who are always eager to fire off an email on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning letting the leadership know which of their expectations were not met during the service on Sunday morning. Having worked in the local church for the past twelve years, take my word for it that the LAST thing your worship pastor needs is another voice in his or her ear shouting about what songs work, what songs don’t, how loud it was in the auditorium, or complaining about what “that girl” wore on the stage last weekend.
What I am encouraging is what I hope would be a spirit of collaboration. No man (or woman) is an island. All of us need people to come alongside us to encourage us, admonish us, and push us to be come better leaders, better ministers, better people. It has been my observation that lead pastors and worship pastors seem to isolate themselves the most, and I think that’s because of some of the examples I stated above. I know when I choose to isolate myself in ministry it is usually to insulate myself from the criticism and unsolicited advice that never seems to end. However, in doing so, I’ve also insulated myself from real community and amazing opportunities to grow as a leader and as a person. This is why I feel it is perfectly reasonable, as a worship team member, to expect your leader to allow you in to his or her life.
Now, I’m not asking you to go to your leaders and ask them to air all their dirty laundry in an hour over coffee. Hopefully, those who lead your church and your teams already have the support of a person or group of people who they can talk to about their deepest struggles. But there needs to be a level of openness, availability, and accountability among those of us who are in the trenches of worship week after week. Sure, I’ll follow someone I don’t know based simply on their credentials. But I’ll take a bullet for someone who has felt comfortable enough to share a part of their life with me. Just as volunteer worship team members accepting their role as leaders can enhance the worship experience, so can a leader’s transparency with his team.
Another expectation that I feel is fair for worship team members to place on their leaders is an expectation to grow - as musicians, as leaders, and as followers of Christ. The musical piece is usually pretty easy. Most of the worship pastors I know place this at the top of the list because it’s what we were trained to do. The passion for music was there before the passion to lead worship (at least in my case), and we want to feed that passion and become better musicians. The best way for you as a worship team member to make sure this expectation is met is to push yourself musically, as well. Like most musicians, we are pushed and challenged by the quality of the musicians we’re surrounded by.
Leadership and spiritual growth are a little more difficult to quantify. No one really wants to judge someone’s level of spiritual growth (nor should we). But spiritual growth should produce spiritual fruit. What kind of spiritual fruit are you seeing from you leaders? If they insist that it’s there but you’re not able to see it, perhaps you need to go back to the expectation of openness and start from there. If your worship pastor has been serving for 10 years and seems to be caught in a rut, it may be time to step in and say something to her. Hopefully, through your openness with each other, you’ll have the relational equity you need to breech such a subject. If you don’t feel you have that relational equity, you might need to start reevaluating your position on the team.
Whatever you do, don’t get caught in the trap of writing it off as “just they way she is.” It is certainly more comfortable to live and let live. But I believe that God is recreating us every day. When we enter in to His presence in worship, God’s Spirit changes us. To allow your leaders the latitude to maintain the status quo by not expecting them to change and grow spiritually because that’s just the way they are short-changes them, it short-changes your spiritual growth, and it can do tremendous damage to the Church in the long run. Once, a friend of mine (and member of my worship team) was complaining that he wished he had more time to spend studying scripture. He then joked, “I’m not like you - I don’t get paid to spend time reading my bible.” He was joking, but I took it seriously. Up to that point I don’t think I had seen spiritual growth as part of my “job”. But that comment spurred me on to re-prioritize my weekly schedule and to spend at least as much time in scripture, prayer, and personal worship as I did worrying about set lists and returning emails. I don’t think that is too much for you to expect from your worship leaders.
In my mind, one of the fruits of spiritual growth you will see is in the area of leadership growth. Anyone in church leadership knows that as culture changes (including church culture), your style of leadership much adapt to those changes. Good, adaptive leadership includes a lot of the elements I’ve already addressed - it expects growth from your followers and from yourself. Why do you think so many church leaders spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (perhaps millions?) attending conferences around the country? They’re looking for something fresh, something different, a new perspective on leadership. Unfortunately, many of them end up running back to the same old tricks they’ve always used. It’s easy. It’s comfortable. It’s potentially deadly. Again, all I can do is point to my own experience as an example. When I first started in ministry, I had a small team that played every Sunday. Relating to and leading them was relatively simple. As I grew into different positions, eventually leading a team of over 40 volunteer musicians and vocalists, my leadership had to adapt. The same techniques I used to lead a team of five would never work while trying to lead a team of fifty.
One must also expect their leaders to adapt for different seasons on ministry, not just the size of the team. The way your leaders lead through seasons of joy and growth must change and adapt during periods of tragedy and loss. The same “everything is awesome - steady on” attitude will come across as entirely inauthentic when your team is stuck in a rut or plodding through a season of criticism or necessary/difficult change. Without wanting to over-simplify, it really all boils down to the first expectation of authenticity. If you’re expecting and encouraging openness from your leaders, they’ll have their finger on the pulse of the team and know when and how to adapt their leadership style to the needs of those they’re leading.
So, I’ll ask you some closing questions. Is your worship leader challenging you to grow musically, spiritually, and as a leader? Is your leadership promoting an atmosphere of collaboration where they can be open with you? Are you seeing the fruit of growth in your leaders in the areas of musicianship, spirituality and leadership? Are you comfortable and have you developed the relational equity required to call your leaders out when you aren’t seeing the fruit of quality leadership, when your expectations aren’t met? Again, I believe the answers to these questions are vital to the health of our churches and the overall culture of worship throughout the Church.
No comments:
Post a Comment