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5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders: Part 5 - Culture Of Excellence

In case you're just now finding this series of posts, CLICK HERE to go back and start from the beginning.

If you're serious about implementing any or all of the changes we've talked about over the last five days, then you are making a conscious decision to take your ministry to the next level. But to make it stick, to make it last, you need to make a commitment to having a culture of excellence. 

To constantly excel, there are several things you need to do:

1) Communicate - let your team and anyone else involved know right up front that this is the goal. Establish an expectation, let them know that it starts with you (walk the talk) and spell out clearly what excellence looks like, how it will be measured, etc...This includes the rest of your staff and especially the senior pastor. You need to make sure they understand the end game and have your back through the process of change. This of course is the easiest part. Implementation is the challenge.

2) Feedback - Feedback needs to become your friend. Doesn't matter if it's good, bad, encouraging, discouraging, whatever....you need to welcome it, encourage it, ask for it. Ideally you want to establish a go to group of 5-6 people who are consistently there, are objective, and have a good sense for what works and what doesn't. Get with them every week,  preferably all together in a group, and talk it out. How was last Sunday, what worked, what didn't work, why? How can we improve? If you have multiple services and time allows, I would encourage you to do this after the first service and make changes before the next one. Why repeat mistakes or continue to do things that don't work? Refine as you go and make it better ever time. 

3) Make the hard decisions - Remember, second only to the pastor and the messages, your team and what you do are the most visible things in the church. Therefore you've got to be willing to do whatever is necessary to make it the best it can possibly be. This may mean letting some people go, mixing up the roster, going through some growing pains, starting over. Sometimes you must be willing to make some people mad in the short term for long term success. If your culture has been anything but excellent, then most of these things are inevitable, but they are so worth it in the end. 

4) Have some playtime - along the way, remember the old saying about all work and no play.... Make sure and have fun as you go. You don't have to be a tyrant to get all this done. You can be firm and fun at the same time. And speking of fun, every once in a while get your team together and go have some. Get together for dinner. Take everyone to a concert. Go play putt-putt or something. These times make for great memories, build strong relationships, and let them know that they aren't just a means to an end, but that you value them as people and as friends. Make sure and put money in your budget to do something like this at least 3-4 times per year.

I hope this series of posts has been helpful and encouraging. And I would love to hear any additional thoughts and comments that could add value to any of these posts. Have a great weekend of worship!

 

 

5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders: Part 4 - The True Worship Leader

If you're just now joining us, CLICK HERE to back and check out the series from the beginning.

Even though you may have the title of worship pastor or worship leader, at the end of the day, you aren't the one leading worship. Ultimately the true worship leader of your church is - your pastor. 

I don't care how good you are at your job, you're people will rarely ever be more involved, more tuned in, more expressive than your pastor is. Whether consciously or not, all eyes are on him. So let's talk about some things your pastor - and you - can do to make the most of your shared responsibility in this area.

1) Be present - pastor, outside of some rare emergency, there's no good excuse for you not to be in the room during the entire worship set. Study should be done. Prayer should be finished. Admin stuff can wait until later. You need to be in the room, focused, and worshipping. If you're not in there, it's a distraction. If you're in there but not paying attention, it's a distraction. And if you think your church is too big and no one will notice, you're kidding yourself. Maybe everyone isn't noticing, but some are. Don't be a distraction, don't be a hindrance - be a leader.

2)  Be supportive - Don't take shots at your worship leader. Don't make jokes at his/her expense. Privately and publicly, you need to support, encourage and praise them. Also, you need to spend significant time together. The two of you are the most visible leaders in any church. Work together, plan together, pray together, lead together. If you're not already doing these things, you have no idea what you're missing out on.

3) Be proactive - As I've said many times before, people will do what you train them to do. This includes worship. At least once a year or so the pastor (and ideally both of you together) should be doing a message or message series on worship. Teach your people what it is all about, what it means, how to do it, etc... Unpack it for them. Most churches DO NOT do this and it always astounds me. Train them, model it for them, and give them plenty of opportunity to practice. 

Tune in tomorrow for Part 5 - Creating A Culture Of Excellence.

What are some things you and your pastor do to 'lead' together? 

 

5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders: Part 3 - Worship Isn't A Sunday Thing

If you're just now joining us, CLICK HERE to back to the beginning and check out the entire series.

Worship leaders, have you ever gone into a Sunday totally amped up and ready to go because you knew how great the songs were? It was all you could think about all week. Well guess what, know one was thinking about it but you. 

It's easy for us to forget that we're the only ones getting paid to think about worship on Sunday. We get so focused on it that we totally ignore the fact that everyone else has other things to focus on: jobs, families, bills, little league, etc.... It's the truest form of tunnel vision. And then we get to Sunday all jacked up and wonder why no one else shares our enthusiasm.

If only there were a way to stay in front of your people throughout the week :-)  Well of course, with the power of technology, this great bridge to your people is just a few keystrokes away. So what can you do? Using the power of Facebook, Twitter, blogs and e-mail you can:

1) Share song lists for the upcoming and previous Sundays. You can create playlists right in iTunes, create a link and send that link anywhere. People click on it, see the list, and they can purchase the songs right then and there, straight to their iPhone, iPad, iPod, computer, whatever. The more they hear the songs the more familiar they will be on Sundays. The learning curve can be drastically reduced. (HINT: as much as possible try to promote the same arrangements you'll be using on Sundays)

2) Share song stories - using your blog, share song stories of how songs were written, who wrote them and why. Share personal stories from yours and others lives about what a particular song means to you, how God spoke through it, etc.... Give people an outlet to share their stories with you. The more you do this, the more those stories will come. There are endless resources online to provide this type of information. Remember, Google is our friend. It's also great to incorporate these into your live sets every once in a while, or via video that can be used live or on your blog. 

3) Have a strong online presence - what I mean by this is that you, personally, as the worship leader need to make yourself known to your people. Share your life with them. Talk about your kids. The music you listen to, the movies you see. Share what God is doing in your life. The more human, the more normal they see that you are, the better. Break down those walls. Talk about your struggles. The more they relate to you the more they will engage with you. 

4) Promote Worship - none of this will do you any good if people don't know about it, so don't be shy, promote! Promote it on the slides before worship, in your announcements, from stage every chance you get, through the churchwide emails, in the bulletin, etc.... 

It's important to note that none of these things are overnight fixes. BUT, if you do them well and do them consistently, your Sunday mornings will begin to look and feel a lot different. 

Make sure and tune in tomorrow as we talk about who the real worship leader is in your church. Hint: it's not you.

What are some other ways you can extend worship throughout the entire week?

5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders: Part 2 - Break The 4th Wall

If you're just now joining us, make sure and go back to the beginning and check it all out. 

In case you're not familiar with this term/concept, it's an old theatre term used to describe the invisible wall between the stage and the audience. The stage has a back wall and two side walls, so this is the fourth wall. And no matter how invisible it is, it is very real. The question is, how do we break through it?

I'm glad you asked! The good news - there are a whole bunch of things you can do to break it down. The bad news - while these are all fairly simple, they are not easily accomplished. Likely to take a good bit of work on the part of you and your team. Getting out of the old comfort zone as it where. So here we go:

1) For crying out loud, SMILE - one of the biggest mistakes I see the vast majority of worship leaders - and especially their teams - make is that they don't seem happy to be there. I can't tell you how many times I've sat through a service and never seen anyone on stage smile, not even once. Amazing. If you guys don't seem happy to be there, then how can you expect anyone else to be? Little tip: without telling anyone, set up a simple video camera and tape a few services. Make sure it is close enough and clear enough to really see the faces of all your people on stage. Then - gulp - show it to them! Nothing will make the change faster than cold, hard evidence. BTW, make sure you are leading the way on this. Take a hard look at yourself too. You know many times we think we are smiling but we really aren't. 

2) Make eye contact - again, super simple, but most do a poor job here. No need to elaborate on the problem, go to the tape! Now what to do about it:

• Well for starters, get rid of those blasted music stands! There's no reason why any half way decent musician can't learn some simple worship songs by heart. And don't even get me started about the singers - they should NEVER use music stands. Back to musicians, you may be saying, 'no way, my guys aren't that good.' Well they may not be now, but they can learn. Push them. Baby steps if necessary. Simplify down to a one-sheet with keys and chord roadmaps. Then get rid of the stands and put the one-sheets on the floor. Then challenge them to use them less and less until they use them as reference only, or not at all. They will do what you train them to do. 
• Again, video it and show them what it looks like.
• If you are leading from piano and sitting, then try moving to a standup keyboard and face the audience. This can make a huge difference in energy and interaction. 

3) Physically break the wall by walking through it - This is no doubt the hardest thing to do, but by far one of the most effective.  In the 5-10 minutes before service starts, have your praise team and band get out into the crowd and talk to people, seek out guests, shake hands and engage. Encourage them to find people they don't know each week. Then in that last minute as they walk back up on stage, they are pulling those relationships with them. More and more people will feel 'connected' to those on stage and therefore are more likely to support, engage and participate. I can't over-emphasize what a huge difference this can make. But again, you as the leader have to set the tone, be right out there with them, etc... Otherwise it will fail. 

4) Don't be afraid to talk - this is where the 'leading' part comes in. Engage the crowd every once in a while with a personal anecdote, a joke, a challenge, a prayer. Ask them to respond, expect them to respond, give them time to respond, and guess what - they will respond! Now no doubt there is a fine balance here. We've all seen worship leaders who talk too much. But strike that right balance and see the connection between you and your crowd increase dramatically. 

Tune in tomorrow to find out how to extend worship beyond Sunday mornings.

What are some other things you have done to break the fourth wall? 

 

5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders: Part 1 - Keep It Fresh

If you're just now joining this series, CLICK HERE to start with the first post. 

If you're experiencing any of the challenges we covered in the intro post, then the first thing you need to do is to try and Keep It Fresh. 

Mix up your order, don't do it the same way every single Sunday. This may seem like the most obvious and simple thing, but for many of us it is the hardest thing to change. But we can't expect our people to act differently if we're not willing to act differently. 

If you want them to be on time, to be more excited and energized, then you've got to give them something worth being on time for.Wake them up. Demand their attention.

Put something awesome right at the top of the service. Open with the message and end with worship.Open with communion or a special musical element. Even more subtle changes are better than none. Break that routine so they have to pay attention. Mix up the overall order so they don't know what's coming next. Introduce some new elements. Take advantage of those video screens and put something interesting on them. Countdowns. Video elements to support the music or message. Video announcements. If these are things you can't do in-house, no worries. There are tons of extremely high quality and affordable solutions you can find on-line. Check out Sermonspice or WorshipHouse Media. Another incredible service is VideoAnnouncements.TV. 

Yes, the first few times you do something special or different, some will be unhappy and many will miss it because they were late, but they will hear about how great it was, and they will be more likely to be on time next Sunday. Do this enough and you'll see dramatic increase in people being on time and engaged.

Also, this may sound extreme, but close the doors when it starts and don't let anyone else in until there is a clear break. Maybe that's after the first song or two. Maybe it isn't until right before the message.People don't like to wait so this is another move that will make them think twice about being late. 

One final thought on this. If you're going to do something special at the beginning of a service, give them a heada up the week before. Let them know that 'next Sunday you do NOT want to be late because we'll be doing something very different'. And remember, don't just do weird stuff for the sake of doing it. Be intentional and strategic. Put some serious work into it. Create elements that not only mix it up, but that ADD VALUE to the worshippers experience. 

Do this enough and you'll start to see a change on the faces in your crowd. 

Make sure and check in tomorrow as we talk about Breaking The Fourth Wall.

We would love to hear from you. What are some things you do to keep your worship experiences fresh. 

 

5 Game-Changing Tips For Worship Leaders

Working with so many different churches, I often hear the same complaints from worship leaders over and over again:    

- When we start the service the place is half empty. Way too many people come in late.

- While there are always a few that are really into it, the majority half-heartedly follow along at best.

- It feels like there is an invisible wall between the stage and the congregation.

- Every once in a while we'll have a service that is everything it should be, everyone is into it, God moves, it's incredible. What made it that way and why is that so rare?

There are many factors that affect all of these things, and some of those you have no control over, but most of them you do. They call it worship 'leading' for a reason: you have to lead. Leading requires planning, strategy, being proactive and intentional. Talent alone isn't enough. I don't care how good of a musician/singer you are. That will only get you so far.

So what can you do? 

The fact is there is an endless list of things that you can do to overcome these issues. So over the next 5 days we're going to break these issues down and give you five very specific things you can do to flip this frustrating paradigm on it's head. Might even get a few bonuses thrown in for free. CLICK HERE for Part 1.

What Is Your Idea Worth?

What is your idea worth? Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. An idea alone is simply that, an idea. And trust me, everyone has them. The only thing that makes an idea valuable is work. Time doesn't do it. Thinking about it real hard doesn't do it. Talking about it endlessly doesn't do it. Only work adds value. 

Great books have to be written. Great inventions have to be built. Great songs have to be played. Great movies have to be produced. Great events have to be created. And while half a book, or part of a song is worth more than nothing, it's not by much. An idea really isn't worth anything until it is finished. Completed. Done. Until it actually exists. 

Found this interesting excerpt from Niven's Laws: 

18. No technique works if it isn't used. If that sounds simplistic, look at some specifics: Telling friends about your diet won't make you thin. Buying a diet cookbook won't either. Even reading the recipes won't do it. Knowing about Alcoholics Anonymous, looking up the phone number, even jotting it on real paper, won't make you sober. Buying weights doesn't give you muscles. Signing a piece of paper won't make missiles disappear, even if you make lots of copies and tell every anchorperson on earth. Endlessly studying designs for spacecraft won't put anything into orbit. And so forth. But you surely know someone who tried it that way, and maybe you're one yourself.

So stop talking. Stop daydreaming. Stop waiting. Get to work. Even if it's just an hour a day. Or every Saturday. Whatever, just work. The WORTH of an idea is equal to the WORK you put into it.