Worship Team Organization, Methods

Brian · Pit Bull Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 373

In the Cutting Loose This Weekend thread

malevolentsparkle · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject:

hi, i'm a worship co-ordinator for henderson baptist church in waitakere city, new zealand. in my experience, it would be stupid to not have pratices. in my church we have an hour and a half before every service where we set up, go over the songs we're gonna do, do sound check, and pray. we also have another practise on tuesday nights where we practice songs (especally new songs and songs we have problems with) in instrament groups and in band groups. we have been running the tuesday night paractises for a couple of months now and we and the congration have noticed the difference.

the thing you much remember is that you are not up on stage for you to worship (at least not in a traditional sense). if you can, then that is all good, but your primary goal is to help everyone else worship. your time to worship is when you are not playing (this is why it's important to have time off!) we still use paper music on stage, not nessercery because we dont know the songs well (some of them we have been playing for years!) but it is just to keep the quality up. if we forget a song a quick glance down refreshes out memory. your job is to play the best you can so the congragation is not distracted by mistakes and having music on stage is the best way to avoid mistakes. this is no excuse not to know a song well of course (which is a trap you can fall into).

remember, you are doing this for God! think of it more like your offering to God (which is still worship) than the usual sing songs kind of worship.

hope this helps some people. comments, sugestions, flames welcome!

PunkStar · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject:

I actually find it really hard to "worship" when I'm playing and singing. Mostly because I'm busy focusing on the playing and making sure I get the notes right. As a result, I feel there isn't a lot of heart in my music. Anyone got any advice for fixing that?

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 813 Location: Texas

Play it so many times that when you are violently awakened at 3am you are able to play it perfectly. Laughing

Brian · Pit Bull Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 373

malevolentsparkle · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:27 am Post subject:

hay, i was no way saying that you shouldnt worship while playing, but especially if your inexperienced, it can bring the whole service down if you are trying something you cant do.
all im saying is that there are other ways to worship while on stage that dont have this risk. make your playing the worship, put your love of God into every note, every strum, every crash of a cymbal. play for God, not as though playing is a distraction to your 'worship'.

we have a pretty good system going now, we have three bands and we simply rotate. I play guitar in to two of the bands so one month i might do three services and the next two months i only do two. we have found this system really good because it means i dont have to nut out a roster every month (which can get difficult!) and also it means that people get a fairer amount of nights off. before this i picked out every individual person for each night, and we didnt have constant bands so everything was a bit unpredictable and boring. now we have constant people in each band and we are starting to differentiate stylistically. for example one band is heading towards acoustic worship with piano, another rock with electric guitars blazing, and the third gets into to the old funky 'classics' (im probably talking 80's here, the stuff that was new when we were kids)

Brian · Pit Bull Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 373

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 813 Location: Texas

I resemble that remark Wink

PunkStar · Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject:

I don't.

jeff_osu · Tiger Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 838 Location: Oklahoma