How do you get more people involved in your worship team? Here are a few things you can do which will help.
1 Have a healthy team environment for new people to come into. Some symptoms of a healthy team are:
- Laughter and happiness- nobody volunteers to be made miserable or stressed out.
- A reasonable level of organization- disorganization can be very frustrating and de-motivating for people. But few people realize that too much structure, rule making, over-bearing leaders, and lots of paperwork can be just as de-motivating for creative people. There is no doubt that as a team grows the need for planning and organizing grows exponentially, but there is an art to making the administration serve the creativity, not the other way around.
- A sense of fairness- leaders playing favourites or allowing an “in-crowd” to develop are signs that all is not well. People don’t want to sow into something that may easily end in frustration and tears.
- Educate your team. Make sure they understand that you are actively seeking new team members. Tell them what to say to people who inquire about the team eg “Why not come to rehearsal this week and see if you like it? Get to know some people. We love visitors and new people. Rehearsal is at 7 30 on Thursday night in the auditorium. I’ll be looking for you”.
- Tell your team that having new people means they will not lose their place. Some team members are a little unsure about what having new people will do. Reassure them that many hands make light work, more people means more fun and that growing the team is what the Lord wants. He sends people to us because we need them but also because they need us.
- Use whatever means are at your disposal to get the word out. Church news sheets, magazines or videos, casual comments from the pulpit, a welcome card, Facebook, Craig's, List and so on. They all work!
3 Have a Strategy for Incorporating New People. So what happens when new people turn up?
- When new people turn up to your rehearsal, team night or whatever, make sure they are met and introduced around by your best people-person. Make it someone who is friendly, loves the team and knows what to do. It is important that they can quickly work out where new people are up to; experienced and skillful, new Christian, confused and overwhelmed etc, because you will handle them all differently.
- Give them a pack which might include a welcome message, copies of some current songs, some helpful phone numbers, a brief statement about the values and expectations of the team, any information about required auditions etc.
- Connect people; young people to young people, singles with singles, guitars player with guitar players…make them feel comfortable and welcome. Exchange phone numbers and keep the communication going
- Don’t put them on the spot about their musical skills. Be interested in them as a person before you find out what they can do for you.
- Have ways that make it easy for new people to be involved in making music quickly. Such things as choirs and vocal groups, multiple guitars and keyboards in the band, rehearsals where new drummers get to play with the band etc all help.
- Understand it can be very daunting for a singer or a musician to look at a list of 200 songs and wonder how on earth they will ever learn that many songs. You have to create pathways that make it easy for people to become fully part of what you are doing each week. Cull your song list. I suggest you have a Current Song list of about 30 songs. We can talk about this at length another time but for now just take your song list and pick the 30 songs you do the most often. Make this the list you normally work from. Even 30 songs can be overwhelming for a new musician or singer.
Well those are a few thoughts that I hope might help. Have fun growing the team!
