How To Foster Excellence Among Worship Team Volunteers

Excellence is important on every ministry team at your church, but for better or worse, it is even more critical when you have a volunteer worship team. Worship is one of the most noticeable aspects of your church to visitors and members alike, and an area where quality really can make a difference in everyone’s Sunday morning experience. But how do you ensure that your worship team is the absolute best it can be when it’s comprised of volunteers? Here are a few suggestions to help you foster excellence among worship team volunteers.

1. Demonstrate a commitment to excellence and improvement yourself.

The first thing you have to do is show by your example that improving your own skills as a worship leader is important to you. Whether you play the guitar or the piano or lead vocals only, practicing your art and working to constantly become better will show your volunteers that you take your role of leading your church in worship seriously. This is your job—if you can’t dedicate the time and effort to this, then you certainly can’t expect your volunteers to do it, either. Identify your own weaknesses (or have a colleague help you identify them if you’re not sure what they are) and commit to strengthening yourself in those areas.

2. Create opportunities for volunteers to work on their skills.

Your volunteers may be uncertain of exactly how to improve on their own, especially if they are self-taught musicians or singers with a natural, untrained gift. Workshops can be a great way to help your worship volunteers start the process of practicing and honing their own musical gifts. Bring in your own teachers or professionals you’ve met through networking and conferences to coach your team for a few hours in their specific role (vocals, music, drums). It will be helpful and it shows your volunteers that you care enough about building them up as leaders to commit resources to their development.

3. Give your volunteers tools to continue working on their skills individually.

Workshops are a wonderful way to motivate your team and show them what is possible for them as musicians and vocalists, but workshops can only happen occasionally. As you know, regular practice is necessary to see improvement. So give your team the tools to do the required work. Most of your volunteers probably can’t commit to regular, individual lessons, so one easy way to do this is to record yourself going through exercises you’d like your volunteers to do and give each one a copy. Encourage them to find a partner on the worship team to keep them accountable. Create a challenge to make practice more fun and engage their competitive natures. Empower them to find more lessons and exercises online on their own as they develop past the ones you’ve provided.

4. Create community.

A team worships better together when they have genuine relationships with each other. When you as the Worship Pastor know the people sharing the platform with you—know their stories and struggles and wins—you connect with them in a way that allows you to sing and play in a unified manner that can transform the way you lead your church community in worship. So create opportunities for those relationships to develop.

Have regular events for your worship team to gather for fellowship. These can be weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Just find something that works for your volunteers. If you have multiple campuses, provide time for each campus team to gather in a smaller setting as well as for your entire volunteer team to get together. It may not seem important when you already ask for volunteers’ time for rehearsals and serving during your church services, but you’ll be amazed at the difference it can make in the way you play and sing together.

What other ways can you foster excellence among your worship team volunteers?

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