Last week we posed the following Friday Facebook Question:<\/p>\n
Should you mix up your worship teams in terms of ability or is it unfair that the better musicians end up always having to work with out of time drummers and flat backing vocalists?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I decided today to write about a few different ways that I know of that churches organize their musicians with a few strengths and weaknesses of each. \u00a0For any of you other worship leaders out there, or any of my worship team musicians, I\u2019d like to hear if you know of others, or if I\u2019ve missed anything. \u00a0I know many churches don\u2019t have a choice of players and are thankful to have all the slots filled. \u00a0For medium sized churches like ours and especially the bigger ones, it gets more complicated.<\/div>\n1) Mix and Match Rotation<\/div>\nThis is the method we use here where we rotate around who gets to play depending on all sorts of factors including availability, skill, dedication to worship practice, seniority, chance to train up younger team, \u2026 and much more.<\/div>\n2) Dedicated Teams<\/div>\nOne month at a time, or 1st and 3rd Sundays or \u2026. Same band plays together all the time. \u00a0You can get a really tight team this way. \u00a0Definitely some advantages for depth of relationships as well. \u00a0Can be tricky to pull off with availability. \u00a0I am not quite organized enough for this one. \u00a0I just end up back at system 1). Sometimes you get clicks and fragmentation of some bands knowing some songs better than others, different styles can emerge, \u2026 competition can be an issue. \u00a0I think if you have multiple services that are split like Sat\/Sun evening services, that would be different, but we don\u2019t.<\/div>\n3) House Band with section leaders<\/div>\nI know of one church that has a house band with a key section leader for each instrument that is in charge of training all the players in the church including youth and children\u2019s worship. \u00a0The key bass player, for example, makes sure there is a solid bass player for every team every week. \u00a0Some cool mentoring aspects. \u00a0Puts a lot of responsibility on volunteers. \u00a0Can get tricky if volunteers aren\u2019t very good at scheduling. \u00a0That is why we don\u2019t do this, although we do quite a bit of mentoring\u2026<\/div>\n4) 3 Chair System<\/div>\nEvery position has 3 musicians who share. \u00a0Top chair plays twice a month. \u00a02nd and 3rd chair each play once a month. \u00a0The worship leader at that church even gave himself 2nd chair\u2026 so he only leads once a month, but he is in charge of the admin for everything and plays producer role quite a bit. \u00a0Very cool. \u00a0Not sure if it\u2019s always easy to decide who gets what chair. \u00a0Very big church so the reality is that most musicians will need to find outlets outside of the sunday service to play. \u00a0When you have thousands at your church, the bar can be pretty high, in this case very very high. I feel a real call to train younger musicians, and we aren\u2019t quite this big, so this one is a no go for us.<\/div>\nThat\u2019s all that I know of at the moment. \u00a0Do y\u2019all know of any others?<\/div>\nAny thoughts on which one is best? Any personal experience in the matter?<\/div>\nPlease do tell.<\/div>\nIts worth clicking through to the Facebook discussion<\/a> as there are lots of interesting responses. Organizing musicians is sometimes as challenging as herding cats, however, Jason Chollar, a worship leader who writes a great blog over at Cedarhome.org wrote a blog post in response. Here are his thoughts.<\/p>\n
I decided today to write about a few different ways that I know of that churches organize their musicians with a few strengths and weaknesses of each. \u00a0For any of you other worship leaders out there, or any of my worship team musicians, I\u2019d like to hear if you know of others, or if I\u2019ve missed anything. \u00a0I know many churches don\u2019t have a choice of players and are thankful to have all the slots filled. \u00a0For medium sized churches like ours and especially the bigger ones, it gets more complicated.<\/p>\n
1) Mix and Match Rotation<\/strong><\/p>\n
This is the method we use here where we rotate around who gets to play depending on all sorts of factors including availability, skill, dedication to worship practice, seniority, chance to train up younger team, \u2026 and much more.<\/p>\n
2) Dedicated Teams<\/strong><\/p>\n
One month at a time, or 1st and 3rd Sundays or \u2026. Same band plays together all the time. \u00a0You can get a really tight team this way. \u00a0Definitely some advantages for depth of relationships as well. \u00a0Can be tricky to pull off with availability. \u00a0I am not quite organized enough for this one. \u00a0I just end up back at system 1). Sometimes you get clicks and fragmentation of some bands knowing some songs better than others, different styles can emerge, \u2026 competition can be an issue. \u00a0I think if you have multiple services that are split like Sat\/Sun evening services, that would be different, but we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
3) House Band with Section Leaders<\/strong><\/p>\n
I know of one church that has a house band with a key section leader for each instrument that is in charge of training all the players in the church including youth and children\u2019s worship. \u00a0The key bass player, for example, makes sure there is a solid bass player for every team every week. \u00a0Some cool mentoring aspects. \u00a0Puts a lot of responsibility on volunteers. \u00a0Can get tricky if volunteers aren\u2019t very good at scheduling. \u00a0That is why we don\u2019t do this, although we do quite a bit of mentoring\u2026<\/p>\n
4) 3 Chair System<\/strong><\/p>\n
Every position has 3 musicians who share. \u00a0Top chair plays twice a month. \u00a02nd and 3rd chair each play once a month. \u00a0The worship leader at that church even gave himself 2nd chair\u2026 so he only leads once a month, but he is in charge of the admin for everything and plays producer role quite a bit. \u00a0Very cool. \u00a0Not sure if it\u2019s always easy to decide who gets what chair. \u00a0Very big church so the reality is that most musicians will need to find outlets outside of the sunday service to play. \u00a0When you have thousands at your church, the bar can be pretty high, in this case very very high. I feel a real call to train younger musicians, and we aren\u2019t quite this big, so this one is a no go for us.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all that I know of at the moment. \u00a0Do y\u2019all know of any others?<\/p>\n
Any thoughts on which one is best? Any personal experience in the matter?<\/p>\n
Please do tell.<\/p>\n
Other posts you might like:<\/strong><\/p>\n
The Conscious Competence Learning Model<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n