The DS-11 Is Your Passport
I sat around the table with my worship leader friends and asked them this question. “What’s it like when you schedule training for your team?”
“When I schedule it, only the same 7 out of 30 team members show up.”
“It’s so hard!”
“Whole-team trainings are impossible. I can only get small sub-groups together.”
I asked the question because, as Ad Lib, we’ve had trouble getting teams to schedule training…even training the church has already paid for!
“Why do you think this is?” I asked.
You know the answer, just as I did.
“People are too busy with sports, screen time, both spouses working, extra-curriculars…”
“They don’t feel they need it.”
“Church isn’t the center, the priority. It has become a commodity - a product that is marketed and consumed - so it’s just another thing that captures our fancy and is disposed of when we’re done with it.”
“It’s just church…it’s good enough.”
“They are intimidated that if they try to grow, they’ll fail.”
Then it hit me.
What these worship teams need is a passport.
Why a passport, Dave?
They need to escape their bubble. They need to see the broader world, the global church. They need to drive on unconventional “roads,” eat strange food, and hear foreign languages. They need to worship and serve believers who have never sipped the American Dream booze.
They need an adventure with their teammates that stretches and unifies them like no other experience will.
They need to get a passport as a tiny step of faith that will take 165 one-dollar foot soldiers. That step will open their hearts to a bigger world, a more significant calling.
Wait, Dave, are you saying that the cure to getting my team to show up to my training nights is to get them to go on a worship team missions trip to Costa Rica?
YES! Now you’re seeing the brilliance of my plan!
Or are you? Do you think I’m crazy? (I question that myself sometimes, too.)
But you’re probably not ready (and likely neither is your team) to seriously consider bringing a team down. Not yet, anyway.
That’s why I’m only asking you to take the first step. This week at rehearsal and then on Sunday morning for the rest of your team, I want you to take copies of the DS-11 form. Hand them out and invite them to pray about filling them out. That’s it. Just pray about it.
Will you?
Here’s a link to the form: https://eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds11.pdf (or a handy link to fill one out online, but better to show up with the paper in hand)
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
The DS-11 Is Your Passport (Nº 373)
