Signs You May Need To Form A Leadership Team
Do you ask any of these questions?
“Why is it that all I can seem to get done is schedule teams to lead worship?”
“I’ve kept thinking about this issue/problem/opportunity, and it’s been months, but I can never tackle it.”
“I wish the ‘sound guys’ would get along better with the worship team.”
“My pastor keeps asking me to do these special songs (or dramas, or videos, or…), and I just don’t have time to get it all done!”
“Why does it feel like we’re not going anywhere as a worship ministry?”
“I feel like I’m all alone in my desire with the passion and energy I invest in the worship ministry.”
“Why isn’t the congregation more passionate and involved in worship?”
“Why is it so hard to make changes to the church’s worship culture?”
When is the right time to form a leadership team for your worship ministry? Any church with over 100 people (with potentially more than one worship band) needs a leadership team. Here’s why.
To meet the diverse demands of a growing ministry, the leader must begin to transition his or her role from the minister (doing ministry) to the leader (enabling others to do ministry). Leadership is getting things done through others; it’s influence. The worship pastor’s job is not to do everything. It is to find, encourage, and train other leaders who will do the same as they build their teams.
To grow, this is the direction you must invest the majority of your energy – building leaders (versus doing tasks). It is the only way you will survive and thrive in this role. As a leader, You will experience relief, but more importantly, NOT doing it will cap or stunt the growth of the ministry, lead to increasing frustrations, and could eventually force you to burn out or get fired. Dude!
Here are two paragraphs on leadership structure from Rick Warren’s article “Structuring to Grow, Not Plateau.”
You must change the primary role of the (worship) pastor from minister to leader. You can grow a church to 300 with pastoral skills or ministry skills, but building beyond 300 will require leadership skills. As a leader, you must learn to communicate your vision in extraordinarily personal and practical ways. You also must learn to inspire your ministry and understand that it’s easier to motivate a group than it is to motivate individuals. A leader also equips others for ministry. Otherwise, you’ll burn out, and the ministry won’t grow.
You must organize around the gifts of your people. The team God gives you will show you how to structure. (stop and think about that for a moment!) Organizing around the gifts of your people will allow the church to focus on ministry, not maintenance. A gifts-based ministry encourages teamwork. It also makes better use of the talent around you (and why do you think God brought this talent into your church?). Building your structure on the gifts and talents within the church promotes creativity and allows for spontaneous growth… And decision-making becomes more efficient while the structure grows more stable.
How do I form a worship ministry leadership team when worship ministry can seem vast and multifaceted? You must harness the power of your people and bring a group of people around you who:
Are willing to give leadership to parts of the ministry (you and your team are leaders of leaders)
Are committed to open, honest, trusting relationships
Know they have the right to express what they’re thinking and the RESPONSIBILITY to share it – that’s why they’re on the team!
Bring a variety of strengths to the table (preferably different from yours) and are diverse
Embrace the vision and values of your church (they all share the same definition of a “win”)
Love God and passionately pursue His purpose and glory
Are simply humble
Once you form the team:
Meet regularly. To keep things moving, you must invest in connecting often. Eat together. I’m serious. It changes things. Have a compelling agenda with new, essential items each time. Don’t get stuck in the pattern of agenda-less meetings. Otherwise, your team will feel like you wasted their time. Have each team member report on his or her area of responsibility.
Give power away (read: empower). The principle of “one can put a thousand, two can put ten thousand” works in leadership too. Find what your leaders’ passions are and begin to help them steward them. Help connect them with the resources they need (as a good parent wouldn’t send their ten-year-old to the corner store to buy bread without giving them the money they need). Nurture and release them. Equip and empower them. If you don’t know how to do it, have someone in who can. (like an Ad Lib Music coach)
Create and communicate with absolute clarity. If you don’t yet have a clear vision, set of values, and written goals, this would be a great time to create a document that distills what is in your heart (and what you expect) into common language you can begin intentionally shaping the culture.
Communicate all appropriate information to everyone involved in the worship and tech ministry immediately – dispense information freely and regularly. People will follow what they know, not what is vague or unspoken. As Bill Hybels says, “vision leaks.” This reality requires us to repeat and remind our teams of what’s going on and what’s important.
Enjoy the safety and camaraderie of a healthy team! Go on retreats together. Pray and worship together. Go out and have fun. Honor each other above yourselves. Truly love each other, don’t just pretend. Develop trust and guard each other’s backs. Then let that culture spread throughout the ministry.
Wahoo!
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
Signs You May Need To Form A Leadership Team (Nº 47)
