3. Single worship team meeting – once every few weeks or monthly
If filling one good team, much less a whole bunch of them, seems like an enormous task, consider using one team, but spreading the worship team meetings out to once or twice a month. This third common model may be the most realistic model for small and mostly volunteer-based teams.
The overarching goal in this model is to set the creative direction for several services at one meeting. When teams come together, the view is like a lens kept on wide-angle. Worship team eetings are for brainstorming themes, metaphors, songs and other creative elements for upcoming services. Only devote an hour or so to each service, hopefully less. Using this model means that more creative decisions are made outside of the worship team meetings by individuals communicating via email, text and telephone.
As you put your team together or restructure your existing team, keep in mind the things that can deflate the team. One detractor to morale often comes from looking at the way other successful teams prepare. At most large church conferences, the official playbook reads: a) worship is the primary event of the congregation, so b) it is due the most resources, and c) if given adequate resources, it will produce a growing church. In other words, act like a big church in the approach to worship design, and eventually you’ll become a big church. This may or may not be true. Examples may be cited either way. Even if it is true, however, not every congregation seeks to become a clone of its most frequently modeled megachurch. Enjoy the freedom you have to discover your own indigenous structure for designing worship in a worship team meeting!
Agenda: How to Lead a Worship Team Meeting
Let’s be real: Agenda is not a very popular word with creative people. It usually ranks somewhere near the bottom of the list between handcuffs and sunrise. The word itself belies its intent. An agenda is simply a guide for how to meet. To make the most of our time, we need to establish a regular process for our worship team meetings. Successful sports teams don’t begin practice without a game plan in mind, so you shouldn’t either. As with frequency, various solutions exist according to the gifts and the needs of each individual team. Here’s one sample model for your worship team meetings:
1. Small Group Development/Prayer (10-45 minutes)
Focus your initial attention on nurturing and developing Christian community within your worship team meetings. The sense of safe space and “what is said here, stays here” is crucial to fostering creativity and modeling life as the body of Christ to the congregation.
If the meeting is held during a workday, this time may be limited to 10-15 minutes, with mutual sharing and prayer. If in the evening, the team may consider a longer small group time prior to worship planning. The less frequently the team sees one another outside of the meeting, the more critical this step is.
We have worked on some teams that took small group development seriously. Others assumed that because they met regularly and were all Christians, they’d automatically take on the nature of a small group. This is not necessarily the case.
One team Len worked with only met once a month. Since the team took the small group covenant seriously, they would spend 45 minutes to an hour over dinner, sharing personal life stories and struggles and prayer, before ever moving to the work of worship.
2. Debrief time (10-15 minutes)
Taking a few minutes to evaluate what has just happened in worship can be very instructive. This may entail comments from each team member regarding successes and failures from the previous Sunday or Sundays. It may also be a focused discussion on ways to improve a single aspect of the worship process.
