Meeting Unique Needs: Your Worship Leader

By Ken Godevenos, MBA, CCP, CHRP

The term “worship leader” refers to that position in your local church responsible for the design and development of the services in general, based on what the teaching pastor will be delivering at any given service. This, then, is the senior position which coordinates the congregational singing, guest vocalists, drama, orders of services, special audiovisual aspects and so forth. As a church grows, this position becomes known more commonly as a pastor of music or other similar title, and subordinate worship leaders are used for various services under his or her direction.

Over the years, I’ve observed that turnover — the rate at which employees leave an organization — has some unique character istics as it applies to local churches. Senior pastors generally stay the longest, followed by associate pastors and then youth pastors, but those with the greatest rates of turnover are worship leaders.

Why? Several reasons:

• He or she can’t deliver the style of worship the leadership wants;
• The worship leader is not given the freedom to design and deliver the worship he or she feels appropriate; and/or • Personality conflicts exist between the worship leader and one or more staff members.

It is important for local church leaders to realize that while sermon delivery training can be boiled down to a handful of approaches, worship delivery is not so constrained. First of all, worship leaders basically are artists — musicians, instrumentalists, vocalists and dramatists. As such, their training encouraged experiment and creation using their God-given talents.

Compare this with the approaches taken to train many (but not all) pastors who, for the most part, are assessed on how well they deliver the germane points of any given passage, how well they stick to the text, and whether or not their audiences understand the points they are trying to make. The range of what one can appreciate with respect to artistic elements is much broader than for sermon delivery.

Our church recently sought the services of a pastor of music, or senior worship leader. Almost everybody and their uncle wanted a say in what should be this person’s qualifications, preferences and abilities.

Ultimately, reason and market availability prevailed, and priority needs and abilities surfaced. What the candidate lacked could be supplemented by those volunteers he or she would bring onboard the worship team.

Special Needs

This person whom God brought to our church most recently clued me in to a host of qualities a candidate should possess to best fill the role of worship leader. These include:

A clear set of boundaries surrounding his or her job description. A worship leader must know what he or she cannot do, or what elements of the known marray of worship are inappropriate for your congregation at this time.

The opportunity to practice his or her own unique skills as an artist, both inside and outside the church. A worship pastor’s makeup includes the need to constantly express himself or herself in their unique craft and be challenged by new demands in varying environments, whether it be singing, playing an instrument or acting.

The opportunity to develop as an artist. Like most other associates, worship leaders desire to grow in their field and must be given opportunities for further study or higher certification, as well as exposure to other artists through attendance at concerts and shows. Sufficient funds should be budgeted for these purposes.

A support group of like-minded worship pastors. Most of us think of artists as prima donnas — and perhaps a few deserve the label. At the same time, good artists always seek the company of their own to gain new insights and exchange ideas.

An accountability partner. When a worship leader designs a service at which the pastor speaks, he or she must oversee musicians, vocalists, audio-visual people, stage crew, prop suppliers, office staff and so on. The hours add up quickly, and it can be very easy to ignore one’s own spiritual, social and even physical needs. Worship leaders’ families often suffer just as much as those of other pastoral staff. An accountability partner helps ensure that when he or she gets on the platform on Sunday, the result is not only what the worship leader wants but what God wants to convey through him or her.

A certain number of Sundays off per year. Giving worship leaders or pastors some weekends to worship elsewhere allows them to be spiritually refreshed and exposes them to how other churches are doing worship. Such weekends should be written into his or her contract.

Encourager(s) to help balance the North American market-driven, subjective response to music and the arts. Worship leaders need some fans among all the critics. A worship leader needs wise counsel and encouragement — the recognition among men and women of their need for the saving grace of Christ and then the discipleship of those individuals to becoming mature and reproductive Christians.

A small group to help him or her grow in spirit. Worship leaders need small groups where they can be rank-and-file Christians sharing their personal needs and feelings, praying for others, serving in ways outside their normal ministry, developing friendships and relationships that go beyond one’s realm of duty, and, above all, growing with others in the Word. Small groups also give each pastor — especially worship leaders — opportunities to read how those outside their immediate church circle view its general goings-on.

Flexible work hours. Given that a worship leader’s work involves volunteers who are primarily available in the evenings for programming and rehearsing, it is very impractical to expect him or her to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every weekday at 9 a.m. However, work arrangements should be such that the worship leader is required to be present for general staff meetings and other critical office events where he or she receives feedback on areas of responsibility and, likewise, has the chance to offer input.

With the exception of the senior pastor, worship leaders have the capacity to become most influential leaders in any church. They work with the greatest number of “up front,” or platform, individuals. Next to the teacher, they have the greatest exposure. And last but not least, their deliverables often make a big difference in why a good portion of congregants attend.

For the glory of God, try to understand their unique needs and learn how to best accommodate them.

Question of the Month

Dear Ken,
As a pastor, I’m often expected to work with numerous “para-church” organizations — for lack of a better word — and I’m not always comfortable doing so. My biggest struggle is knowing how to accept a partnership with some while denying others and, more importantly, doing so without upsetting any members who might be active in those groups. What advice can you offer pastors and leaders of parachurch organizations in this regard?

Dear Reader,
As someone who’s involved in both local church leadership and the leadership of a parachurch organization, I too sense the pastoral struggle you describe. For starters, I think we must consider its roots.

If we accomplish nothing else with this month’s question but to help organizations understand the true meaning of “para” as a prefix, your question will have served its purpose. Merriam-Webster assigns a handful of relevant definitions to “para” as a prefix: beside, alongside of, beyond, closely related to, involving substitution, associated in a subsidiary or accessory capacity, closely resembling, and almost.

For example, “paramedical?” signifies something that very closely resembles medicine or its practice but does not imply dominance over them. Unfortunately, the majority of Christian entities don’t seem to follow the cardinal rule of being a parachurch. In fact, instead of supplements to their local churches, some pastors view them as competitors which seek to use church volunteers and resources but accept very little input or suggestions from their benefactors.

Par-church leaders would do well to ask themselves two questions: How do we work with local churches? and What do we do for them? Whereas most approach pastors with a here’ show-you-can-help-us attitude, better results would be enjoyed if they instead asked, Pastor, how can we help you and your staff achieve your objectives in this community of believers? It might be with training or opportunities to get involved in service or something else, but whatever the solution, parachurch leaders must become true extensions of local churches if they want to succeed.

Pastors, on the other hand, have similar opportunities to ask parachurch organizations the same questions, but from their perspective: What can you do for my people? Organizations that can’t answer this question to a pastor’s satisfaction should not expect to work beside him or her.

What are the appropriate limitations regarding volunteers, funds, pastoral time and participation? What are the doctrinal statements required of an organization before a church gets involved with it? What are the administrative and accounting principals, or requirements, an organization must meet before a church lets it work beside it? The list goes on.

Finally, just because you’ve been working with an organization doesn’t mean you should continue to do so. From time to time, the relationship must be reviewed.