How to “Offboard” A Worship Team Member Who’s Leaving

Alex |

Hey, friend, here is a short bonus episode for you this week that comes right from within the worship Ministry training Academy. Inside of the Academy, we have a questions section where students can submit their own personalized questions based on their unique challenges and the unique situation that they’re facing in that moment, and they can get personalized responses from me and some of the other coaches via video. And so the episode you’re about to hear is my response to one of the Academy students’ personalized question, and I hope it helps you. And if you would like to be in the Academy and get that personalized coaching and guidance and wisdom and support and encouragement, you can try the Academy for just $1 for the first 15 days and check everything out. All of our courses, all of our resources, all of our docs, and a great, supportive community, plus these personalized responses to your questions. So check it out, worship Ministrytraining. Com. Sign up for your $1 trial. Also, before we get into this episode, I started a second podcast. Yes, you heard me right. I have a second podcast. If you search 1 Minute worship Tips in your podcast app of choice, you will find a brand new podcast from me with one minute worship tips, daily worship tips for a whole year.

Alex |

You will get practical advice in less than a minute every single day of the year. So go ahead, search for One Minute worship Tips podcast in your podcast app of choice and subscribe and enjoy those one minute tips every single day for the rest of the year. And now let’s get into our question and response episode. Timothy, this is a great question, and it’s a question I’ve never actually given a lot of dedicated thought to. So thanks for prompting me to think about how to off board a team member. So there are different ways to approach this. Like, if it’s a bad offboarding, like somebody is leaving because of sin issues or whatever, you would approach it a certain way. Or if you’re asking someone to step down because they’re not playing well with the team culturally or musically, you would approach it a different way. Now, what you’re asking specifically, and this is specifically what I’m going to answer, it’s basically a very amicable or ammeable, ammeacable, I don’t know how to say it, split where they’re going to a new church and you want to spend some time with them and find out what you could do better, what they thought of their experience on the team.

Alex |

So here’s how I would approach this. First of all, anytime you can celebrate someone, you should. And on our team at our church, anytime someone has a birthday or anytime someone graduates from school or college or something like that, or any big life event, we try to celebrate that. And it’s as simple as bringing a cup cake or two for them. Sometimes we would buy a whole cake, or several cup cakes, or a box of donuts. Sometimes it’s just we buy one cup cake and put a candle in it and sing to them and give them the cup cake because it gets expensive if you celebrate the team every week. But yeah, I would say definitely if this is someone that the whole team loves and appreciates and is grateful for, I would say publicly celebrating them at their final service or at their final rehearsal. I’m not saying you should do it in the service, but backstage in the back room, wherever you guys hang out as a worship team, just say, Hey guys, it’s so and so’s last day. We want to celebrate them. We want to pray for them. They’re going to be going off to this new adventure.

Alex |

They’re following the Lord’s leading. Make it very positive. Make it very uplifting and just celebrate them publicly with your team. That would be the first thing that I do. And I definitely recommend praying for them because just being sent off by a church feels like a huge blessing. When your whole team prays for the person and you put them in the middle, you lay hands on them and everybody prays some blessing over them. That is a huge blessing to the person and they’re going to remember that. And how they leave is how they’re going to remember their whole time there. Now, as for you specifically asking them questions, exit interview thing, that is also highly recommended and something that I could see myself doing. I think I have done this a couple of times because I did have one gal or a couple of girls leave during COVID. They went to a different Church. They had developed different theological views over the COVID season, and they left. And I sat down with them and I asked them several questions, just general questions about what was your time like on the team? What did you enjoy about being part of the team?

Alex |

Was there anything frustrating about being part of the team? Was there anything I was doing as a leader that was troublesome or frustrating or discouraging? How can I do better for the next people that come through? Just asking all those honest questions and making sure that they feel comfortable to tell you the truth. And they may or may not tell you the truth, but it’s invaluable if you can get one or two little nuggets from them and really get to know their experience as being part of the team because it’ll help you improve. And then if you feel led, sometimes you just realize, you know what? I’m going to let some things slide, let some things pass. It doesn’t matter now. But if you feel really strongly led that you should impart some wisdom that they need to take into their next season, say something along the lines at the end of the interview, like, Thank you for all the feedback. Are you open for me to give you one or two things to think about as you go into your next season? And if they say yes, then say, Great. So you were an amazing team member and speak all these amazing things over them if it’s true.

Alex |

And then come back after that and say, And one thing that I think would benefit you is making sure that you show up on time to your rehearsals. So as you serve your next worship leader, one way you can bless them is by being on time because you did have a habit of being late here. I’m not mad about it. I’m not upset. But I just want you to know that it does help the team when you show up early or show up on time. So that’s one small piece of feedback I have for you as you go that hopefully will make you a stronger team member at your next church. I’m really excited for all that God is going to do and bless you as he… That’s how I would approach that conversation. So yeah, I hope this answer helps you. I think this is a really great question. There is a book, it’s not a Christian book, but it’s called The Power of Moments. And it talks about how important certain key moments are in a person’s life. And this exit is a pretty important moment. And if you can do something memorable around that, you’ll make it really special and impactful for them.

Alex |

I love that you’re thinking about this. I hope these thoughts help you and God bless you, brother. All right. I hope this response helped you and encouraged you. And again, if you want to get your own questions answered by me and some of our other coaches, go to to worshipministrytraining. Com, sign up for your $1 15 trial and I would love to see you inside of the academy and meet you. I actually love getting to know the students in the academy. God bless you guys. I’ll see you in the next episode and keep serving the Lord faithfully.