The No. 1 pain point worship leaders report in their ministries is leading a team, said Robbie Seay, executive vice president of Leader Development and Content at The Worship Initiative.
Seay joined Shane Everett of the duo Shane & Shane for an interview with ChurchLeaders to discuss how The Worship Initiative, which Everett and Shane Barnard cofounded, can benefit worshipers and worship leaders in churches of any size.
“What is your No. 1 pain point?” Seay asked a group of 70 worship leaders in Houston at the end of August. The worship leaders answered that their top pain point in worship ministry was “trying to lead a group of people.”
“It’s the same every time, and it still surprises me—it shouldn’t,” said Seay. “It’s leading a team. It’s coordinating volunteers. It’s investing in those volunteers. It’s keeping them happy.”
The Worship Initiative, which Barnard and Everett cofounded in 2014, offers resources for volunteers and worship leaders to hone their musical skills, grow as worshipers of God, and avoid unhealthy practices that lead to burnout. Everett explained that a primary concern of The Worship Initiative is building the body of Christ.
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Much as he, Barnard, and Seay are trying to help people sound musically excellent on Sunday mornings, Everett said that “we’re just as concerned and probably more concerned that people are serving each other well in efforts that the body of Christ will be built up.”
The Worship Initiative Promotes ‘Thriving, Worshiping Churches’
Shane Barnard and Shane Everett met in college at Texas A&M University, where they were both business majors, Everett explained. The two had “really no business doing music or ministry, honestly,” he said. After Everett got saved during his senior year, he and Barnard started singing together.
“We didn’t know what to sing, so we started singing God’s Word,” said Everett. “We did that for many, many years. Robbie was a part of those years.”
Eventually, Barnard and Everett were serving in a local church near a Christian college when they came up with the idea to hold a songwriting class. “As we were doing that,” said Everett, “we started to realize that even these students in ministry school, or school to become music ministers, a lot of them didn’t know the Word.”
“And we were like, man, that’s kind of interesting,” he said. “And even a few of them ended up getting saved through this songwriting class.”
God used that experience, said Everett, “to kind of spark something in Shane and I,” and the two were inspired to “try to create something that we can kind of maybe hook some people in to say, ‘Hey, learn this instrument, but ultimately, we want you to know the Word of God and we believe the Word of God changes hearts.’”
“The daily rhythm of singing, the daily rhythm of praying, the daily rhythm of being in the Word will change your life,” Shane Everett of Shane & Shane told ChurchLeaders.Click to Post
