Q&A – How do you unify your tech team and worship team?

Alex |

How do we unify the tech and the worship team into one team with no division? That is one of the questions that I’m answering in today’s Q and A session with Mike Halverson from Bloom Church. He is one of the academy members, and we did a one on one private coaching call, which is optional for the academy members and would love to have you guys joined us in the academy. You can go to worship ministrytraining.com and try 15 days for just one full access. All the courses, all the resources, all the live trainings, all the live podcast, interviews, and Q and A sessions for $1.15 days. Worship ministrytraining.com. Before we get into the Q and A session, I wanted to read this awesome review from Acetopet, who left us a five star review on Apple podcast. I’m thankful to God for your ministry. It has helped so many of us keep up the good work. Thank you, Acetopet. I will keep going because I believe God is calling me to this. So thank you guys for tuning in. I’m looking forward to getting into this Q and A session, and I’ll talk to you at the end.

Alex |

I’d love to move to some growth questions, if you’re okay with that, Alex.

Alex |

Sure.

Alex |

Jessica wants to know, what is something that you wish you knew earlier on in your worship leading that you think others should know?

Alex |

People. It’s all about people. Don’t put perfection or production over people. It really, really doesn’t matter if we execute, especially if we don’t love our people in the process of executing. I was grumpy and angry a lot of the time at some of the production stuff going on at our church and can’t they get it together or whatever. I was never grumpy or angry at my team because they’re my team, but it’s like, those people over there, why can’t they? But it’s not worth it. And I’ve never verbally accosted. I maybe was short with people a couple of times, but I was never yelling at people, so I don’t want to give the impression of that. But still, even still, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. We are not putting on a show like, yes, we should bring the Lord our best, but we shouldn’t bring the Lord our best at the expense of treating people poorly. So that’s the biggest thing that I can give. Awesome.

Alex |

Amazing. Britney Crainer’s got a question here, and she wants to know, what advice would you give to someone who wants to go deeper? And they’re anointing as a worship leader, and do you have any resources that have worked well for you and that.

Alex |

Well, number one thing is get in the word. Okay? So get in the word. Number one, get good at your craft. Number two. And I think get in the word number one is number one because it is the source of everything that we’re doing. And, like, worship leaders. We must worship God in spirit and in truth. We should be deep, thoughtful, theologically accurate. Our prayers should be filled with scripture. That’s one way that you because what happens is it’s like, oh, you’re good at singing or you’re good at guitar, and your knowledge of the word is only surface level because the only thing you’ve ever done is just kind of been around church and heard sermons your whole life, but you never have dug in and studied yourself. And so when you get up on stage, you know the basic Christian ease of what to say and what to pray, but it’s just surface level. But that’s like, I don’t know, we should be deeper than that, right? And one of the best things that I ever did, and I’m not saying everybody can do this, is I went to Bible college, I went to Moody Bible Institute.

Alex |

I got a bachelor’s in Biblical studies. And that has just shaped my understanding of ministry, of God, of worship, of the church, ecclesiology, all that stuff. And it’s like when you have that depth, it comes out in your leadership, it comes out in your prayers, it comes out in how you choose songs. You’re not just picking what’s trendy or cool like you’re picking what’s good for the people’s souls. So I’d say get into the Word and study it or read some theology books. A couple of resources that have been helpful to me were like Bob Coughlin’s Worship Matters book. I like, AW toes their knowledge of the holy, which is like a really easy to understand and profoundly beautiful theology book, which is very short. And you can get through all the chapters, like one a week would be really beneficial to your understanding of God and would give you a deeper because the deeper that you can appreciate God and who he is and have a bigger view of God, the more powerful your worship of God will be, and the more powerful you can lead people to see that same thing that you see.

Alex |

So it’s like our eyes are almost like the thing that limits everybody else’s eyes. So if we can see God bigger, we can help other people see God bigger. And I’m not saying I got it all figured out, but I would say start there and then work on your craft because you really have to be able to do the thing well. Like, you want to be non distracting, and you want to be able to pull out emotion and nuance and beauty from the music, whether it’s with your voice or your instrument. So those two things are really important. And I think the word anointing. I think I did an interview with Jeremy Riddle a while ago, and we talked about how anointing never comes before consecration. So consecration simply means being fully set apart for the Lord, like truly. Like, Lord, my life is completely yours. And I’m going to actively work at killing sin and being set apart and holy unto you. And then anointing comes. And anointing comes when you just love God with your whole heart and your whole mind, and you love people as yourself. And then when you’re on stage, it’s not about you at all.

Alex |

It’s about the people and God and having this experience of God together. And then you’re invisible. And then people see right through you, and they see God because you’re not up there trying to get accolades for yourself or, like, be cool or be impressive. And then when you do that, people have profound encounters with God. And that’s what anointing is. Right.

Alex |

Well, besides spiritually, besides Jesus, what should teams be focusing on? What should worship leaders be focusing on? What should production team members be focused on besides Jesus?

Alex |

Yeah. Nothing. No, I’m just kidding. Hey, that’s a good answer. Yeah, you don’t want to say anything besides Jesus. Right? But I do think a couple of things that are important are unity, focusing on keeping the team unity, which means we actively have to endeavor to be together and to keep the unity of the bond of peace. And also we have to actively fight the desire to gossip or talk bad about people or say, can you believe she did that? Or did you see that? Or did you see what she was wearing? And talk about people instead of talking to people. So that’s a huge one to focus on, because the Psalms say that how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together. It says, for there the Lord commands his blessing, even life evermore. So God’s blessing is given when there’s unity among the brethren or sisterin. And so unity, love, care for each other and just, like, championing each other in our walks, like, how’s it going in your walk? Like, let’s keep going, you know, spur one another on towards loving good deeds and then prayer. So, yeah, those are some really important things to focus on.

Alex |

Love that. Angie has a question, and I know why she asked this question, because, Angie, I know you’re watching. I asked you to step into a role and a better step into your role that took you out of your comfort zone. And so what she wants to know is, what is the role that you took that took you out of your comfort zone, and what tips would you give for someone who’s now in that position?

Alex |

I’m going to answer two different ways. One is I’m currently in a role that is out of my comfort zone at my church, because for the last six years, I was worshiped pastor, large church, 10,000 people on the stage, leading every week, leading people, leading teams. And we have a new senior pastor. He saw my more administrative giftings of executive strategy, creating growth systems and whatever, and he’s like, I need you here. But I didn’t choose to be here. I didn’t even pray about you. Just so it’s very hard for me. For the last six months, I’m still involved in worship every week, almost, whether playing bass, drums or filling in to lead, but I’m not the worship pastor anymore and it feels so weird to say that. I’m going to answer just from my own perspective, which is, one, God doesn’t make mistakes, and two, he put you right where he wants you because he doesn’t make mistakes. And three, the discomfort is good for you and it will make you grow and it will make you trust God and rely on God more than you ever have. And so embrace that God has sovereignly placed you where he has placed you and say, Lord, here I am.

Alex |

I am your servant, I am a willing vessel, do with me whatever you wish. And that’s one thing that I’ve just learned, is like, Lord, I’m not the master of my own life, you are and I belong to you now. We do have the choice. You could be like, you know what, Mike? I’m not going to do that. I’m out of here. I’m going to different church. But to me, that wreaks a little bit of immaturity, even though I felt that in my own heart over the last six months. But I have chosen to remain and to abide and be steadfast. That’s how I would answer the first part. Let me tell the story from 16 year old Alex being pushed into worship leader Alex, as opposed to drummer or electric guitar player Alex. So I was pushed into worship leading at 16 for the youth group and it was like, what am I doing? I have no idea what I’m doing. So I would say advice for you, if you have been pushed to a position of leadership, that you’re stepping out of your comfort zones and abilities is one, be okay with failing to learn as much as you possibly can.

Alex |

Read, watch, listen to podcasts, go to worship, ministry, training, whatever, all that. Practice as much as possible, ask for feedback and actually be open to it. Record yourself and watch yourself religiously regularly and just keep trying to do better next time. And then ultimately just trust God that he put you there and do your best.

Alex |

I think we all need to be stretched. We all need to be get out of our comfort zone because then we could just sit and be fat and be happy for a long time. And I think that’s an amazing question, Angie. So I really do appreciate it. Well, Alex, man, I’ve only got one more for you and I know our time is coming close, but Leah, she wants to know, how do you promote community between worship and production and between those who are not scheduled together? How do you just be unified with everybody? How do you be unified with all the departments in your church?

Alex |

Sure. In regards to production and worship. I would say the best way to create unity is to treat both teams as one team and just say, we are one worship team. We all lead worship. We do the stuff on the stage. You help us do the stuff on the stage. We need you, you need us. We are one team and we are all worship leaders. And you just begin to talk about it that way. Now, that means that the worship leader and the production director have to love each other and get on board and treat each other. And there might be an.org chart of top and bottom, but to treat each other as peers and coasters of this big flock of people, even if the big flock of people ends up being 200 people total, it’s okay. And what that means is that you involve both teams in as much as possible together. Now, you still will have certain communication for the production that the worship team doesn’t need to hear and certain information for the worship that the production team doesn’t need to hear. You will still need to communicate to both teams in their specific roles, but as a whole, you want to include both of those groups as one group and do as many things as possible.

Alex |

For example, pre service prayer, both teams are there. Or at the production service walk through, both teams are there. Why? Because the guy who hits the little electric drum pad needs to know that he’s starting the service and so does the camera guy who’s supposed to film him. So have both groups at the pre service run through, have both groups receiving your weekly or biweekly email devotional chains that you send out. I’m just assuming that you do something like that, right? So they’re both getting the same video encouragements that you send out instead of one team or the other team. And you could have the production guy and the worship guy alternating on sending those out or whatever, or the production girl or whatever. I would say do as much as possible together and then have your potlucks together and have your picnic, summer picnics together and any other team building activities that you do, do them as one whole united team, your team DeVos whatever together. So yeah, I would say that in regards to production and worship as one. And then the other thing on, how do you keep the whole team together when they’re not constantly serving together?

Alex |

Well, if you schedule your teams on a rotation and it’s not like team one, team Two, team three, always the same people in each team, and you actually just mix up your teams every week, eventually everyone is going to spend time serving together and playing together and they’re going to cross. And it’s okay for people to have differing levels of connections to other people on the team. That’s okay. That’s normal life, right? Like you’re not equally close to everyone in your sphere either. Neither am I. But then when you do those big team events, that’s when you get everybody together all in the same room, and you make gingerbread houses and you judge who made the best or worst one.

Alex |

Chile took off and there’s like 15 different chilies. And who made the best chili. What incredible wisdom. Alex, thank you so much, man, for spending some time with us today, man. I can’t thank you enough for taking this time to spend with us.

Alex |

Thanks for having me, and God bless you guys. Everybody, what you do matters. It’s discipleship. You’re actually discipling your church in who God is, and you’re discipling them on what worship is and how to worship God with our whole heart and mind and strength. And you are all leaders. Even if you’re on the base, in the back, in the dark, like I usually am, you are still a leader, and people look up to you that way. So let’s make sure that our lives offstage reflect what we present on stage, right?

Alex |

Thank you, Alex. I appreciate it.

Alex |

Thank you. Thank you, guys. All right. Well, I hope these answers that I shared with Mike and his team are helpful and applicable to your team keeping improving your ministry. What you do matters. You are making an eternal difference. Don’t grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time, you will reap a harvest of righteousness. My name is Alexand. God bless you guys. I’ll see you in the next episode. Like follow subscribe share spread this out to the interwebs so that more and more worship leaders can be strengthened in their ministry. God bless you guys. Check out worshipministrytin.com for more resources.