This story is the first of a series I’m calling, “Tales from the Worship Trenches: Fifty Years of Stories and Their Morals.” I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my 50 years of leading worship. There’ve been a lot of successes, and a lot of failures. We’ll learn from both.
The Story
When I arrived at the first church in which I served full-time, they had had a choir for several years. It was not an auditioned choir so I inherited about twenty singers of various abilities. As soon as I started working there (in the “off-season” of summer) I began hearing about an elderly couple in the choir who “could not sing to save their lives.” I thought surely they couldn’t be that bad or why would they even be in the choir? I approached the first rehearsal in the fall with a mixture of anxiety and amusement.
That rehearsal proved me wrong. As we were all gathering even the wife came up to me to tell me her husband “could not carry a tune in a bucket.” I was warned. As we went through that first rehearsal I realized everyone was right. As sweet as this couple was, and as much as everyone in the choir loved them, they could not sing at all. Now what was I to do?
After rehearsal I had a chance to sit down with this couple and ask them how it went. They were both pretty honest, “This may not be the right place for us to serve.” I actually felt awful, but I had to be honest. My reply was, “I think the choir is not the best use of the gifts God has given you, but how about if I help you figure out where is that place?” Their eyes lit up. “Would you help us find a place we can serve together?”
After talking a while I realized they were very warm and welcoming people, so down to earth with a good humor about them. They would be perfect for serving on our hosting team, what other churches call ushers. We had a team of greeters at the outside doors and another that handed out bulletins and welcomed people into the Worship Center. They started the next Sunday and were still there when I left the church fifteen years later.
The Moral
So many times people do not have a realistic view of their own gifts and abilities. We’ve probably all seen the American Idol audition episodes where horrible singers get in front of the judges. We can’t believe they actually think they are good singers. The worship team draws the lion’s share of these because people really want to be on stage in front of people (a warning sign right there!) whether they are gifted or not.
Lesson one is to have some sort of audition process for all your teams. You can determine how strict it will be, but a process serves several functions. First, you can determine why a person wants to join your team. Good answers involve an acknowledgment that God has gifted them, that they feel called to serve, that they love Jesus and want to bring glory to God. If they believe these then hopefully they will be open to redirection if they don’t audition well. Wrong answers will revolve around their talent, their ability, that they want to be on stage, that their friends/family told them they can sing/play. In the audition you’re not just assessing their ability or talent to sing or play. You’re also assessing their heart as a servant, their heart for the church.
Second, as worship pastors we must realize that everyone who is a follower of Christ has been given a gift to serve the body (Eph. 4:12, 16). If a person comes to us who is not honest or self-aware of their abilities, then we as shepherds must be lovingly honest with them and help them discover and use their gifts so that all can be fulfilled in the body of Christ. To allow someone to serve in an area for which they are not gifted deprives the body of someone who can serve better in a different ministry. To use Paul’s analogy, if someone wants to be a mouth but they are gifted to be a thumb, then the body will suffer by not having that thumb in the right place.
Third, rather than just saying “No” to someone who auditions for your team, offer to help them discover where they might be gifted to serve. Many churches use a spiritual gifts survey to help with this. If a person is committed to that church, they will put forth the effort to discover where they are best suited to serve. You win, they win, and the church wins.
To be perfectly honest, in my years of ministry this process has not always worked the way it did with the couple in my story. Unfortunately, many who are told they are not suited to be on stage leave the church. While I come away disappointed that I could not help them, their departure spoke volumes about their lack of commitment to the church and improper motivation for serving in the worship ministry.
Remember your role as a worship pastor is about giving the people in your ministry the tools they need to succeed in serving the Lord in your church, wherever that may be.
Worship in a New Era