How to Get Hired as a Full-Time Worship Leader – EXPERT ADVICE

Alex |

Welcome to the worship Ministry training podcast, a monthly podcast for worship leaders who are serious about growing in their craft and calling. My name is Alex, fellow worship leader. Super stoked you’re here. And if you’re a new listener, I’m going to encourage you to hit that subscribe button because every single month I’m going to give you helpful, practical guidance that you can immediately implement into your ministry. Hit that subscribe button and then go back through the past nine years of episodes and binge listen your way to a healthier ministry. If you’re someone who is really serious about growing as a worship leader, I’m going to point you to the worship Ministry Training Academy. What is the Academy? It’s an online training platform that will give you everything you need to build a thriving worship Ministry. You’ll get 10 in depth courses on topics like set building, team building, musical excellence, vocal technique, and more. You’ll get live monthly training workshops on topics that are relevant to you. You’ll get exclusive expert interviews with some of the best worship leaders in the world. You’ll get done for you Ministry admin systems and audition process, onboarding documents, team training materials, and even team discipleship materials.

 

Alex |

We will take care of you so you can focus on leading your team. If that sounds like something that would be of help to you, you can try the worship Ministry training academy for just one dollar by going to worshipministry training. Com. Sign up today for your one dollar trial and I hope to see you inside of the academy. Let’s get into today’s episode.

 

Alex |

Hello, beautiful worship ministry training family. Hope you are well today. Today we are talking about how to get hired as a worship leader. I’m excited to talk with my new friend Alex Patel from Fruit Group. Hello, Alex. How are you doing?

 

Alex Purtell |

Good. How are You, Alex?

 

Alex |

 i’m good, man. I think we should say each other’s names as much as possible during this interview.

 

Alex Purtell |

Yes. Nobody will be confused.

 

Alex |

At all. Right. Thanks, Alex. Great thought. You’re supposed to say you’re welcome, Alex.

 

Alex Purtell |

Oh, sorry. You’re welcome, Alex. Yes, there you go.

 

Alex |

That’s awesome. Just kidding. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to this awesome podcast conversation with Alex Patel from Fruit Group. Fruity Group is a company that helps churches find staffing. P articularly, they are really focused around worship leaders. Is that correct, or is it all staff?

 

Alex Purtell |

Yeah. W e have a niche in worship searches. We’re opening the door for some family ministry searches right now, but we are primarily worship.

 

Alex |

You have probably learned a ton in helping worship leaders get hired. I know people listening to this podcast, whether live or after the fact, are maybe considering a change in their life. Maybe they’re ready to go to a new season, a new ministry, a new church, or maybe they’re just still praying about it. Or maybe they have never been hired, but they want to get hired. One of the questions I get a lot, Alex, is people will say, Hey, how do I get hired as a worship leader? How did you become a worship leader? I know there’s probably no common path, but when someone comes to you and says, Hey, I really like leading worship. How do I get a job as a worship leader? What is your response usually?

 

Alex Purtell |

It all just depends a little bit on what they’re bringing to the table in their circumstance. For me, I get to serve as well at a church as a worship pastor. So if I had somebody that came to me, I think I’d just be thrilled. I’m always looking for opportunities to develop and disciple other leaders to reproduce myself. I think if you’re leading worship and you’re wondering what that would look like, go to your worship pastor. I think that’s probably the first thing that I would recommend people to do. Go to your worship pastor at your church, tell them a little bit about what you’ve been feeling with the Lord’s been leading in you, and ask them for an internship or short term residency or something like that. I think it’s really important for people that are looking to take that first step in becoming a worship leader to understand what the behind the scenes looks like. Ninety % of what we do as worship pastors are off stage. You need the experience off stage and behind the scenes, I think, before making a decision whether this is something you want to do long term.

 

Alex Purtell |

If you have that opportunity, go to your worship pastor, ask them to do that. And that may take some sacrifice on your end. It doesn’t necessarily need to be paid either. So do what you got to do to get your foot in the door. Now, while you’re doing that, start gathering videos of you leading. Whenever you get that opportunity in a post COVID world, everybody’s live streaming or recording or somehow. And so any opportunity that you have to lead that’s recorded, get that link and store it on your hard drive. Start building up that little database of you getting a chance to lead because you’re going to eventually need that when you want to take that step and become a paid worship leader on staff. Then work hard at it, too. You’re going to need a reference. That can speak into your worship leading abilities. So work hard, be there, go over the top. Your worship pastor is going to see that. And honestly, again, they’re going to be thrilled to have that opportunity to pour into you. So that’s really the first step that I recommend for people if they’re looking to take this step into becoming a worship leader.

 

Alex |

I love that, Alex. I think what you said is really press into it. Like, if the Lord is putting it on your heart, really begin to pursue it and actually express to people that have authority in your life, what the Lord is doing inside of you. Then what you said is just start doing it, start being faithful in the small things. When people come to me and ask me that question, I just say, be faithful where you’re at and try to prepare for the future. T hat’s what you’re saying is prepare yourself for the future. You start archiving all those videos, this and that, but also develop yourself musically and spiritually. Then keep showing up at your church and serving. Most worship leaders I know, I don’t know if you agree with this statement, but they get hired through a relational connection. It’s like they’re being faithful where they are. Somebody calls and says, Hey, do you know anybody? The worship pastor says, Actually, I’ve got this young kid right here and he’s awesome here. It’s like that. Or it’s like the kids being faithful, the worship leader steps out to another church or steps the way to something else.

 

Alex |

And then they asked the kid, they’re like, Hey, you’re next in line. And I remember I interviewed Alex Papas from Hillsong Young & Free. And he was like, I never planned to be… He was like, I never planned to be… I was a youth leader being faithful. And then they developed a youth band and they were like, Hey, you. And so that’s what I tell people when they ask me, How do you get hired? It’s like, Well, be faithful where you are and prepare yourself for the future. I love everything you shared. I think that’s such good advice.

 

Alex Purtell |

Exactly. I mean, if the Lord has given you these gifts and your desire is to give it back to him. He’s going to give you those opportunities. But your timing isn’t always the Lord’s timing. So you’re exactly right. Be patient, serve faithfully where you’re planted. God’s got you planted in that place for a reason. Don’t rip the roots out prematurely. You want to make sure that you’re staying there. You’re growing where he has you at and your time will come. Just be patient.

 

Alex |

Dang, that is such great advice. I wasn’t planning on saying any of this, but now that you went there, our timing is not God’s timing and our ways are not God’s ways. If you think about David, he was anointed king. First of all, he was minding his own business, being faithful with his sheep on the hillside. Then he’s anointed as a king. God puts this calling on his life. But what does he… I mean, he has to grow up. He has to kill Goliath. He has to wait for Solomon and be Sol’s in his army and his captain and this and that. Then pretty soon he has to be chased away by Sol. Then eventually, the kingship is handed to him because he’s ready for it. I just love that. Thank you for for saying. There is no fast track to this. It’s all about faithfulness.

 

Alex Purtell |

I think you and I could both look back on our experiences and definitely see the David like steps that we’ve had to take in order to get where we’re at now.

 

Alex |

Yeah, that’s so good. Okay, before we talk about what the hiring process looks like, I through this question at you last minute via email, I’m not even sure if you saw it, but I wanted to give you a heads up because I think it’s worth asking. What worship leaders are not ready to get hired? If someone comes to you and they’re like, I want a job as a worship leader, and you look at them, which are the worship leaders that are not ready to get hired? You can answer that in any way you want.

 

Alex Purtell |

I did not see that email, but it’s a great question. Again, going back to just that whole moving before you’re ready and uprooted before the Lord has you ready. It’s not always experience. It’s not always… Because there’s got to be a first step for everybody. There are many churches we talk to that are totally open to hiring somebody who’s pretty green, who hasn’t done this full time before. But man, I think if that’s going to be the case, you absolutely have to come prepared and have a sense of humility with you. I think the ones that aren’t ready are the ones that don’t have that sense of humility. If you’re not willing to take a back seat when it comes to, especially things when it comes to leadership, your pastor has been put in that position of leadership for a reason. While he may not be the music guy, he’s got the best in mind for his flock and his church. So making sure that you have a humility as a value is really important. I think that there are several worship leaders we talk to that we don’t get that sense. And until you’re ready to have a humble piece of pie, I just don’t…

 

Alex Purtell |

I think it’s probably the biggest thing. You can not have a lot of experience or there can be competencies that you need to grow in. But if you’re not willing to be humble in the position and the opportunities that you’re given, that’s going to be really difficult for anybody, especially a search firm, to be able to say, Hey, I think you’re ready to take this next step.

 

Alex |

That’s great. Humility is humongous. I was thinking about this question and I was going to say, if you have not forgiven any past church hurt, so if you left the church on bad terms and you haven’t processed through that and left it before the Lord and let yourself be healed and you’re going to carry all this bitterness and baggage and angst and anger into your new position, I would say you’re probably not ready to apply for a new church. So that would be the way I would answer that. Really great.

 

Alex Purtell |

We see that in relationships, too. And so, yeah, take care of yourself, your mental health, that’s important. But that forgiveness factor is, I think, the key to be able to take that next step and move on.

 

Alex |

For sure. Yeah, totally. Okay, great. Let’s say our worship leaders listening already, they’re like, I don’t have any of that anger or bitterness or whatever, and I feel musically competent and organized enough to run a Ministry, and I love people enough, I want to get a job at a church. So they come to you or they go to you online and they start searching for churches. What should a worship leader be looking for in a church? I know that’s a broad question, but give us some guidance.

 

Alex Purtell |

Well, first of all, there’s a lot of different ways to look, so that’s the good thing. And right now, I believe the candidates hold the cards when it comes to finding the right fit. There’s a lot more positions out there than there are hireable candidates. And so that’s good news for you. So many different ways you can look. Like you mentioned before, Alex, there’s a lot of candidates find the right position through their own networks, personal networks, usually the first place that pastors are going to look when they’re in need of a worship leader. So it’s definitely possible for… If enough people know what you do that somebody may reach out to you, that’s a good way to find a position. If not, there’s definitely job boards. So many, many different job boards that are out there. So Ministry jobs. Com, church staffing. Com, colleges and universities out there. And no, you don’t need to be an alum in order to reach out to those college job boards. And then search firms, of course. Search firms have jobs on their own page. But we also post on all the major job boards out there. So our positions are very easy to find.

 

Alex Purtell |

Social media also, you can use hashtags like Ministry jobs or hashtag Church jobs on Instagram or different worship groups on Facebook, often have churches or search firms that are posting in there. So like Ministry Connect, Worship Leaders Collective, Ministry Position, those kinds of things. The good news is there’s a lot of different ways that you can find a job. Now, to answer your question, what should a worship leader be looking for in a church? I always try to look at everything as if I were looking for a position. I always try to put it in that perspective. For me, ceiling is also the first thing that I look for in a church. O ftentimes, it’s very easy to judge a book by its cover. When we start researching different positions online, we can get a decent idea or start scrutinizing, but man, there’s always more that meets the eye. Trying to figure out where their ceiling is at and how far you’d be able to take them, I think it’s very important to be able to determine whether this could be a good fit or not. That’s the first thing I’d be looking at. Secondly is stylistic alignment.

 

Alex Purtell |

Churches are often looking for somebody new to come in and help them reach that next level in the worship ministry. That also means that the church needs to know what that next level looks like. This is actually something that we help our churches define. When we go and we start a new search for a church, a new partnership with them, we go and do a weekend visit. We spend a significant amount of time trying to identify their worship vision and then also help them articulate long and short term goals that they can be able to communicate to any candidate applying. Once you know where they’re at and also where they want to go as a worship ministry, you’ll need to be able to figure out whether or not you can not only meet the church in the ministry where they’re at now, but also take it to where the leadership desires for it to go. So all that’s encompassing in that stylistic alignment, making sure that what you believe you could bring to the table aligns with where the church is, where they’re at now and where they want to go. And then, of course, you want to make sure that d octrinally and theologically there’s alignment there.

 

Alex Purtell |

The type of denomination that they are could give a really good sense for where they stand. But you also don’t want to solely align on denomination. You can’t always decide. Actually, if you look at, for instance, the United Methodist church. Right now, it’s going through a lot of transition right now, and there’s about to be a large split in the denomination, and a lot of it’s based off of the differences and beliefs around homosexuality. So if you’re applying to a U MCAP Church, you’re not going to know immediately what particular church stance they’re at on that issue. But that’s really where continuing in that interview process, having conversations is a good place to be able to figure out where they’re at and how you might align with them.

 

Alex |

Yeah. And I think, and I don’t know if you agree with this, but not every single doctoral issue is necessary to have alignment on. It’s like if all the core things are there and maybe there’s one or two small minor differences that aren’t super central to theology, let it slide, let it slide. Because you’ll probably never find someone who agrees with you 100 %. You don’t even agree with you 100 % of the time. I don’t agree with myself 100 % of the time. And then one thing that I like to do if I’m scoping out a church is I like to go binge listen to 15 of the pastor’s most recent sermons. And that pretty much immediately gives me a sense of like, I get this guy, I like this guy, I like what he’s talking about. I like his vision, his heart, his style, his demeanor, his personality. I could see myself working with him. That to me is a really important piece of how I process that stuff.

 

Alex Purtell |

Yeah, absolutely. And i think you said it well. We say it like, you want a major on the majors and minor on the minors. Oftentimes, you’ll find fairly major differences, and maybe not major, but you’re going to find differences even amongst the staff that’s already there. And so making sure some of the key ones, whether it’s eternal security, salvation, baptism, those things, and those major stances are ones that you do want to make sure you’re aligned with and to be able to support that port, too. Think, if you’re out in the lobby on staff at this church and somebody comes up to you and asks you this question, are you going to be able to defend the church’s stance? And if you can’t say yes, then I might look somewhere else.

 

Alex |

Yeah, it’s great. So that is all stuff they should probably do even before they apply and click send, right? But now let’s talk about, and I think some of the worship leaders will be interested to hear your take on this, when they do apply, from the church’s perspective, because you work with both the worship leaders and the churches. From the church’s perspective, what are the traits or characteristics of the top candidates, the people who rise to the top and the churches are hungering over, they’re salivating over these candidates? What are the common traits that you see that churches are just drooling over?

 

Alex Purtell |

Whether this is right or wrong, first impressions matter. It’s a big deal at making sure that you put your best foot forward when applying and setting your stuff. Now more than ever, especially in a post COVID world, we need to make sure that the materials that we’re turning over to the church is creative and they stand out because think there’s multiple other candidates that are applying and you want to make sure that your stuff sticks out. That means that the videos, the worship leading videos that we’re submitting, they need to be crystal clear in audio and the visual. Our resumes need to stand out and we also need to go above and beyond and send follow up emails after we apply. Show how serious you are and how interested you are in that position. I think that really goes a long way in helping churches that are trying to figure out what candidate is going to be the best fit for us. That’s going to help them determine the ones that are standing out. Again, making sure that first impression is solid. It’s hard to change someone’s first impression. Again, whether it’s right or wrong, it happens.

 

Alex Purtell |

But that’s why when we go through in our process, we put together what we call a candidate profile. That profile goes a little bit more in depth than just a resume and a worship leading video. We have each of our candidates do an introduction video, talk a little bit about their families and those things. We have, of course, their worship leading video. We show their personality type, spiritual gifts assessments, their philosophy of worship, ask some different questions too. Probably the hardest question they have to answer is, what is my favorite song, worship song right now? Because that always changes. But the profiles we put together goes a little bit more in depth, and it is geared towards helping you as a worship leader put your best foot forward to these churches. And it also, because all the profiles are the same, as far as a look and how it’s being presented, it does even out that a little bit from candidate to candidate to help churches make a more objective decision that’s not just based off of how creative is the resume. But it still matters, and so we still want to do our best to make sure that that first impression is good.

 

Alex |

Okay. So first impressions, that’s one side. You have to get them to bite the hook. There’s got to be a nice wiggly worm on there, fresh and juicy, so that they bite. But beyond that initial bite, are there things where like, man, this guy is valuable, man, this girl is valuable. Are there traits or beyond just that esthetic, are there personality traits? Are there worker type traits? Are there educational things where they’re like, Wow, this guy or this girl is amazing. We got to get her? Anything like that?

 

Alex Purtell |

Yeah, I think it all depends. Obviously, different churches are looking for different types of candidates. You have churches that are looking for somebody to come in and completely overhaul the ministry and really need to build it from a ground up. So they’re looking for what we call a builder. There are other churches that are looking for candidates that are more execute what we have in place. Especially that’s a lot of what we see multi site campuses do is hiring somebody that’s just going to come in and execute. So it depends on a little bit about what the type of church you’re looking for. But, man, you want to communicate. I think a lot of worship leaders we see ourselves as Swiss Army Knights. So the more tools that you could put in your toolbox, I think the more valuable and attractive you would be when it comes to applying and churches looking at you. There are a ton of different softwares that we use every week as a worship leader. Now more than ever, Click tricks is just a thing that churches are using on the regular. So knowing Ableton, I mean, Prime and Playback, those different apps that some different track companies have put together.

 

Alex Purtell |

They’re fantastic. They’re super user friendly. But Ableton is the standard. Go out and learn it. That makes an impression, especially now, churches, I think a lot of more pastors are now realizing how important Ableton is. And so having that tool in your toolbox is going to, I think, allow you to stand out. All the other major softwares, ProPresenter7, planning center, and all those things. So from a tools and software standpoint, put as many different tools in your toolbox as you can and list those on your resume. And even above and beyond, some churches have the worship leader side of it. And then there’s other responsibilities that we’re going to have you do. And oftentimes they’ll dictate that to what you can bring to the table. So whether that’s graphics, some website, social media stuff, you want to list all that on your resume and show your work too. I think that goes a long way. But ultimately, what we vet for, and I think this is really what your question is, is we’re vetting for what we call the three Cs. So we have character, chemistry, and competency, and it’s in that order. So you need to be able to show your character throughout the interview process.

 

Alex Purtell |

That’s probably easier said than done. But whatever way that means to you that you could share that throughout that process is going to go a long way. And then the chemistry piece as well. I think that’s number two. Not every church is going to be the right chemistry fit for you. That’s part of the interview process. That’s why we want to spend time making sure that that is going to be a good fit between you and your lead pastor. But showing that, man, I want to be relational. I want to be a pastor, especially this is a pastoral position that the church is really hoping to get somebody relational in. Showing those characteristics throughout that process, I think it’s going to be really key.

 

Alex |

I want to touch on something you said just now, that relationship, that chemistry between the senior pastor and worship leader. Before we hit record, you started to talk about that with me. Do you want to just share about that right now?

 

Alex Purtell |

Yeah, so that chemistry piece goes a long way. B etween the worship leader and the lead pastor, you control 90 % of the stage time between the two of you guys. M aking sure your relationship is super solid and close is, I think, extremely important. When you’re going through this interview process, you want to make sure that you feel like you can get along with your pastor, I think, above and beyond just the work relationship, you want to have that chemistry with your pastor. Make sure your pastor is someone that has time to invest in you, that wants that close relationship with you and pour into you. Again, I personally believe that relationship is the most important relationship on staff. If you two are on the same page because of how much time you guys share on stage in front of your congregation, they’re going to be able to tell. At the same time, if you’re not on the same page, I think that’s hard to come up with a true worship journey within your service and seamless transitions and elements that you’re trying to put together. Again, that chemistry is so important. That probably is a key factor that gets overlooked in the interview process, more than the character side and more than the competency side.

 

Alex Purtell |

I think that chemistry is the number one thing that drives people to transition. We want to make sure that that is, again, that we pay a lot of attention to. That’s something that in our searches, we really want to focus on. We’ve been doing searches for… We’re going on eight years now, and of all the candidates we’ve placed, they are outlasting the average tenure of a worship leader in today’s church by years. Average tenure for a worship leader in today’s church is about two years. I think that our focus on making sure that chemistry fit is a really strong match has more than doubled, tripled their tenure. And so we want to make sure that that’s really touched on.

 

Alex |

Nice. Yeah, I think that’s huge. And as they are being interviewed, the worship leader is being interviewed. I think it’s also important that you, as a worship leader, are interviewing the church. It’s not just a one way thing. You’re not there like helpless, like, Please pick me. I’m so desperate for a job. No, you’re not. You’re called by God. You’re desperate for the right job. You’re desperate for the place he’s leading you to. And you please, worship leader, don’t be desperate. God will put you where he wants you. The question is, is it a match? It’s like getting married. You really want to make sure that as they’re interviewing you, you’re asking them questions. And if it’s the right thing, it will be clear to everyone. Don’t try to bend and squish yourself into something that you’re not to please them. That’s the wrong way to go about this. It’s a conversation. It’s an exploration to get together and you’re co interviewing each other. And if God wants you there, he will put you there. So please just don’t be desperate.

 

Alex Purtell |

And honestly, that’s actually a lot of the reason why my co founder and I, we started Free Group. So a little back story. So we got started. I was still in college. I went to Cedarville University, got my degree in worship, and was wrapping this up. And I started noticing some really just sickening trends. And it was a graduated classes that were ahead of mine were lasting for maybe a year, two years before transitioning. And for a couple of them, that happened a few times, and then they decided to completely get out of ministry altogether because of a few bad experiences, and partially, I think it’s part of it is they took the first job that offered it to them and not really realizing the type of situations they were getting themselves into. And like I said before earlier is, you guys, as candidates, it may not feel like this all the time, but you hold a lot of the cards. There are less of you and more positions that are available. So take your time, making sure that you find the right fit. But honestly, that’s a huge value for us. Transparency, I think, is the key on both sides to making the right fit.

 

Alex Purtell |

We know the Lord honors transparency. I know every church I talk to, they have that desire. They’re like, We want to know what we’re stepping into. It’s a risk for us. This is the number two most visible position on our staff. But it’s also a risk for you as a candidate, too. Oftentimes, you can be moving your family cross country, getting into a position that you have no idea about and no community. Your community you’re going to start building with is going to be with the staff and your worship team and your small group. And so that’s where that’s going to begin. And so you want to make sure that, again, that chemistry piece is there. And looking back at my college experience, I believe three graduating classes ahead of mine, not a single worship major that graduated is still in ministry anymore. Wow. And that absolutely broke my heart. And that’s a lot of the motivation of why we do what we do. We want to offer transparency in every conversation we have. We strive for that. We want our candidates to be transparent with us because when both sides lay their cards face up on the table, we know the Lord is going to honor that and you’re going to be able to make a much better decision on whether this is the right fit for you.

 

Alex |

Yeah. And you brought up a piece we haven’t touched on yet, which is family. I think if any worship leaders are listening that do have a family, you need to consider, will this be a good match for my family? Will my wife buy fine community here? Is there a good program for my kids? Can we plug into this community? So definitely everybody consider that as well. And it’s jogging in my memory, I think a long, long, long time ago on the podcast, I released a solo episode where I just shared 10 things or something about how to get hired as a worship leader or something like that. So if anybody wants more of this similar conversation, go scroll through the archive feed and look for other words about hired as a worship leader, and you’ll find that episode. Or I’ll link it in the show notes. I should probably do that because that would be helpful. But let’s talk a little bit about, first of all, just quickly, does education matter anymore? Do people care about that?

 

Alex Purtell |

It does. It matters. I don’t think it matters as much as it used to. So in my opinion, experience trumps education in just about every candidate presentation we’ve done. We’ve probably presented over 500 candidates to churches over the past several years, and we find this to be the case just about every single time. Now, I think a bachelor’s degree is fantastic to have on your resume. I think that can show a lot of churches that, hey, this person is willing to stick through something to achieve something. And there’s a lot of just life lessons that you’re going to be able to learn from that, but it is not the end all be all. Please don’t go and get a degree just because you feel like that’s the only key for you to get a position in worship. Now, when it comes to Masters, in my opinion, please don’t get a Masters just for your resume. If you want to go that route, do it because it’s a personal value to you that you value that education and how that will make you a better worship pastor. But the ROI does not typically work out. Honestly, you’re not always going to see an increase of salary.

 

Alex Purtell |

Get it for the right reasons, especially if you’re at a church already that offers that. A lot of times churches will pay quite a bit for your masters and continued education. It is not something that is required to get a position. It’s honestly not even a major driving factor that churches look at. It’s always, always, always education. I keep saying that. It’s always experience.

 

Alex |

I guess I would agree with you, but one thing that I would say is if worship leaders are just going to be worship leaders and sing songs, yeah, you don’t need an education. But if you are going to be a shepherd in God’s church. I would say, not necessarily traditional education, but you must be a student of the word of God. You have to know theology. You have to know Ecclesiology, fancy way of saying about what the church is and the purpose of the church. We have to know all of these things if we’re going to be good shepherds. I think the one big issue we’re running into today is too many worship leaders are simply song leaders or artists or singers, but they’re not shepherds. I think we need more shepherds. In order to be a shepherd, you must study to show yourself approved in the Word of God. That would be my one little caveat there.

 

Alex Purtell |

Totally agree. I think that in the sense of education, we are thinking the private or public education there, you still need to be a learner. You need to be somebody that absorbs knowledge. That goes a little bit hand in hand with the humility factor of, Hey, I don’t have all the answers. Yes, I think that goes without saying too, especially if you’re holding the title pastor. You need to be able to teach what worship is, connect the theology that’s in your lyrics to the big picture. I totally agree. There’s a lot of song leaders, and that’s not something… We talked about what churches are looking at and what candidates might allow them to stand out. Those pastoral moments and speaking moments within your service, they go such a long way in being able to show, Man, I can care and pastor people within a corporate setting, but that just doesn’t happen naturally. You have to have that education and just the time studied in Scripture to be able to pastor people through those moments. Alex, I totally 100 % agree with you there, especially if you’re going to… Again, I went to a private college and it was not cheap.

 

Alex Purtell |

And that isn’t always the only way for you to take this step in this career.

 

Alex |

Yeah, I’d love to wrap it up before we move into our academy Q&A. I’d like to talk about salary and negotiations. Is negotiating a salary a no, no? You just take what they offer. How do you advise worship leaders deal with that sticky subject?

 

Alex Purtell |

Yeah. No, not at all. I think it’s very healthy. That’s one benefit in working with a search firm is we can actually have the salary conversation on day one. That is always the biggest thing that just goes looming over our heads is we live in a culture where it’s inappropriate, and I would agree, it’s inappropriate to ask that on day one. But yet you also, that’s a major factor in you saying yes or not. So you want to know what that range is up front. And there’s actually states now that are passing laws, like Colorado has a law, it’s a salary transparency law. So you need to know they have to disclose the range ahead of time. That may or may not become more popular. I’m not quite sure. There’s, I think, a little bit more than 10 states that are doing that right now. But oftentimes what I’m seeing with even with that, the range is very, very, very broad. So you still don’t have a really solid idea on what they’re able to offer. But again, with a search firm, we’re able to have that conversation on day one just to make sure that you’re within the range that the church has to offer.

 

Alex Purtell |

So how I do it, I don’t ever disclose exactly where the church is at, but we have those conversations to make sure that what the candidate is thinking of is within that range that the church has to offer. Now, when it comes to negotiating, I personally believe anywhere within $5,000 is a healthy range to negotiate in. But there’s also other benefits in a compensation package that you can negotiate as well. Honestly, nobody negotiates for vacation days. And oftentimes that’s a very easy throw in because it doesn’t necessarily cost the church anything else because as worship leaders, if we’re going to take a week off for vacation, we still have to make sure Sunday happens. So we’re not necessarily taking that week off. We’re just working ahead to make sure that that week still is able to happen, and then we’re able to take it off. So negotiate your vacation days, PTO, negotiate those things. And then you can negotiate moving expenses too. What does that look like to help me and my family get to the church that we’re going to be accepting the position at. Those are often things that you’re able to negotiate.

 

Alex Purtell |

And again, I personally like the church to present their best offer in the beginning. That doesn’t always happen, but I like to try to make that happen. And again, going with a search term like us, we’re able to limit the stress of what that salary negotiation happens to where hopefully they make the offer. It’s the best offer on the table. It’s well within what you’re hoping for. And then that’s not a sore point in the process because that usually happens at the very end. You’ve invested so much time and energy into it, it usually happens at the end.

 

Alex |

Horrible. Alex, obviously, worship leaders listening who are like, I want to explore getting hired or changing my job, and they want to reach out to you and fruit group and see if you can help them find a good fit. How does that work? They just go to your website. So tell us about that. Does the church pay for your services or do the worship leaders have to pay anything? I don’t think so, but I don’t want to speak.

 

Alex Purtell |

For you. Yeah, sure. Now, it is a totally free service for candidates, so we can’t do this without you guys. And this is really, I think for us, that makes it so much more of a Ministry for us, too. Getting to have conversations with people that are in transition is not always easy, but oftentimes we’re able to pray with people. We’re able to give them advice and counsel, just another ear for them to speak, maybe frustrations into their current situation or just speaking life into that. That’s a lot of what we do. But yeah, you guys can find us at fruitg group. Com, fr o ood T group. Com. Then go to our leaders page. So put in the website leaders. And the first step in the process is for you to fill out our form and just ask some general questions to get the basic information with you. Then you can look at our job board if there’s any positions that are on our current job page that you’re interested in. You can go through that, let us know which positions you’re interested in having conversations with, and we can make that happen. Typically, what the process looks like from that is you’ll have a conversation with our staffing team, and then you’ll have a conversation with a search coach.

 

Alex Purtell |

That’s the role that I sit in with a couple of other guys to talk specifically about the church. There’s a few conversations you’d have to have to go through our process. But beyond that, we gather your information, vet you, make sure that we feel you’d be a good fit for the church that we’re talking to, and then present you as a candidate.

 

Alex |

Awesome. I’ll link all that in the show notes for you guys so it’s easy to get there. But I would highly encourage you, if you are looking for a church role, go with Fruit Group, go with Alex, and just let him lead you through this process. And it doesn’t cost you anything. It just helps you and benefits you and places you in a place where God wants you. That’s the last thing I’ll probably say before we move into our Academy Q&A session is that the King’s heart is like water in the hands of the Lord. He moves it wherever he pleases. Ultimately, that’s a proverb. Any decision that a pastor makes regarding your employment or non employment is from God. So we can rest and be assured that God is in this process and ultimately you can’t even throw dice and it lands where it lands without God having his hand over it. God is in control of all things, and whatever answer you receive from the King, so to speak, is actually from the Lord. So that would be my last thing there. And I think I froze on camera, but oh, well, oh, there I’m back.

 

Alex |

Great. Alex, thank you for your time. Guys, we’re going to move into our live academy Q&A session. What that means, if you’re listening after the fact, we have the worship and through training academy, and we would love for you to be inside because you’ll be able to join us live on these video interviews with our amazing guests like Alex, and you’ll be able to ask your own questions to Alex right after we record the episode. That’s what we’re going to do right now. Academy members, sit tight and for the rest of you guys, God bless and we’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope this episode encouraged you, helped you helped you and pushed you forward in your ministry? If it helped you, can you take a second and help us by sending it to just one person that you think needs to hear this? And if you’re feeling extra nice, leave us a nice, shiny five star review on Apple podcast or like this video if you’re watching it on YouTube. If you want to discuss this episode or ask questions, we do have a free section in our academy where you can post comments and questions and chat with other worship leaders just like you and also sample some of our courses.

 

Alex |

And you can go to worshipministrytraining. Com free to join us inside the free portion of the academy. If you’re looking for more, check out the Full Access Academy. You can get 15 days for just one dollar to start and try things out. Again, you can try all of it for 15 days for just one dollar by going to worshipministry training. Com. Hope to see you inside the academy, or else I’ll see you next month for another helpful episode.