Systems and Routines That Lead to Healthy Ministries w/ Highlands Worship

ALEX

Today’s episode is sponsored by our Worship Leader Training Course Bundle, which you can check out for free at Worship Ministry Training. Com. Our course bundle covers all the major topics that you need to excel as a God, honoring people loving worship leader. And so if that sounds like something that would be helpful to you, you can check out a free sample of all of the lessons right there on our Homepage Worship Ministry Training.

 

Speaker 3

Com.

 

ALEX

And if you’d like to purchase the bundle, you can get 25% off by typing in the promo code. Wmt Podcast WMT Podcast at Check Out I hope it helps you and helps you serve your Church better. Again, check out the free sample at Worship Ministry Training.Com.

 

ALEX

All right, let’s get into today’s episode. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Worship Ministry Training Podcast, the monthly podcast for worship leaders and worship team members. My name is Alex and begin your host, and I’m so thankful that you are tuning in and investing in your leadership and in your Ministry and in your Church. By growing and learning and developing yourself as a leader, God is pleased with you because you are stewarding your role properly. So good job. Good on you. This month, I have the privilege of talking with Tyler and Chris from Highlands Worship, which is a part of Church of the Highlands, a gigantic 60,000 person Church out in Alabama and Church of the Highlands is known for its administrative systems.

 

ALEX

It’s a systems driven Church. That’s why it’s been able to grow and scale so big, and I know musicians and creatives can back and even shirk and hide from systems. We like to be more spontaneous and creative, but but very important, you cannot have a healthy worship Ministry without good, reliable systems and processes and habits and routines. Everything in life boils down to to the habits that you have your health or unhealth your church’s health or unhealth your family’s health or unhealth stem from the routine habits and rituals and repeated tasks that you do on a regular basis.

 

ALEX

They drive the results that you’re getting. And so if you want better results in your Ministry or in your family or in your personal health, you need to look at what you’re repeatedly doing. And so in this month’s episode, I talk with Chris and Tyler about what are the routine habits and processes that they have in place for recruiting and onboarding team members for developing and training those people, and then for discipling and encouraging those people. So whether you’re at a big Church or a small Church, I want you to think about how can you improve the repeated systems and processes at your current Ministry because it will be the thing that makes you excellent or doesn’t.

 

ALEX

And so enjoy this episode and I will catch you on the back end. Hey, everybody, I am here with Chris and and Tyler from Highlands Worship, which is the worship Ministry of Church of the Highlands out in Alabama. Hello, guys. How are you doing?

 

TYLER

Hello, Alex. How’s it going?

 

Speaker 1

It’s good to be with you. And just before we get any further, maybe Chris and Tyler, I haven’t even asked you your roles. What do you guys do at Church of the Highlands?

 

Speaker 3

Tyler, you going to take it.

 

Speaker 2

Yeah. So I actually work for Chris during the week and we work together yet. Work?

 

Speaker 1

I like that, Chris. Yes, I like that.

 

Speaker 2

Well, I work alongside Chris, and he provides oversight and we need it. We get to make the creative music that comes out of the Church. So that’s kind of like the weekday job. It’s all working on music for specials, music for albums, music for services. And then on Sunday, I play Keys, and I am actually the central music director at the Church, which means that I’m at our broadcast campus music directing the band and helping that experience. Yeah.

 

Speaker 1

And, Chris, before you answer, just to ask about the central music director portion, do you also train and develop and oversee the other music directors all throughout all your campuses?

 

Speaker 2

That is kind of actually a goal. I haven’t been able to do that yet. We’re trying to figure out a digital way of doing that. So a way that it could be replicated and people can just go watch it on demand, right? That’s in the future of something our team will do.

 

Speaker 1

Awesome. And, Chris, what’s your role there? Yeah, sure.

 

Speaker 3

Hey, Alex, I’ll just follow up super quick on Tyler. He’s super humble. So we’re a large, multi site Church, 23 campuses. Tyler, is that the broadcast campus where our pastor, pastor, Chris Hodges, preaches out of? And Tyler is kind of the gold standard. And our teams, our worship teams, the Keys music director position is probably the most challenging, most responsibility. So he’s running tracks. We’ve all got in ears, and he’s calling the cues with the music director, Mike, that just goes to the musicians and the singers ears.

 

Speaker 3

So he’s kind of the air traffic controller. He’s looking at the pastor for Cues, is looking at the worship leader for Cues, and then he’s getting us through the service. Tyler is very active in that extremely confident and would kind of be the barometer for all the other campuses of that.

 

Speaker 1

Look at those props coming from your bank.

 

Speaker 3

I mean, you got to give them when they’re do, you know?

 

Speaker 1

Yeah. Now again, sorry. I’m going to stop to you before you tell us your old again, Chris, because now I want to hear Tyler, what is the worst botch music directing botch or fumble that you guys have had in your history there, if any, maybe higher is perfect. Anything that comes to mind.

 

Speaker 2

I’ve got a good one recently. We had to drop in another song because we were changing something in the sets, so I dropped it into Ableton for the playback of the tracks, and it messed up the tempo of the first song we did line in the Lamb at, like, snail speed, so that it’s like, oh, oh, no. Oh, but then we got it, and we got it back up to speed during the intro. But I’m just over there like, hey, all we’re gonna have to fix this.

 

Speaker 1

Oh, my Gosh.

 

Speaker 2

Pretty funny.

 

Speaker 1

Oh, my Gosh

 

Speaker 2

Everybody’s dying laughing.

 

Speaker 3

Some of the amazing new things with tech that’s happening. I mean, we are at Disneyland. We’re probably not relatable to the average Church on the tech end of things, but a lot of our campuses have got their own way to hear Tyler. Let’s say we do a merge on a Sunday coming out of a song. Let’s say we want the whole Church to sing along with a bridge and chorus of a song. Every other campus is actually hearing Tyler in real time in that campuses in their musicians ears, and all the entire Church is following along with Tyler as he’s leading us through the enters through the progression of the service that sets up the Ministry moment.

 

Speaker 3

So there’s just some amazing technology that’s come out in the last several years. It’s a lot of fun.

 

Speaker 1

That’s crazy.

 

 

Okay.

 

Speaker 1

Correct. Now, please tell us, who are you. What do you do at Highlight?

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, sure. Man. I have been at the Church nine years. I was hired starting in 2010 to help the Church arrange their Christmas music, and they were doing that for three years with me. They’d hire me in as a contractor. I’ve got a very background and a bunch of different stuff, play a bunch of stringed instruments and did that for three years. They’re trying to find a spot for me as a worship director at a campus. I’m a terrible singer. And so they were just trying to figure out where it was going to fit.

 

Speaker 3

And then finally, after the third year, they just made a job for me. And they made up a title called The Creative Worship Director. So it was just me. And now that’s morphed into I think we have 14 or 15 people on our team now. So any content that is music related that’s coming out of the Church, that could be be a content under video that could be content for events or conferences, that’s things like Christmas, Easter, the church’s original music, all that stuff is coming out of my team.

 

Speaker 3

We also handle the church’s music business. We have a music business attorney that’s on the team. We also have a video portion of our team now. So in house, we do everything except the mix and master. So we create all of our social media marketing asset. We create all the music videos. We do all the recording, we do all the prep for mix, and then the only thing that’s coming out of the house is we send it out for mix and me that’s amazing.

 

Speaker 1

That’s amazing that you guys have so many people. And just so our listeners have context. You kind of hinted at it a little bit. But Church of the Highlands is like maybe 60 plus thousand attendees, 25,000 dream team volunteer members or something like that crazy like that. Is that right?

 

Speaker 3

These are great precode the numbers that your property is up with. Yeah, of course.

 

Speaker 2

I totally.

 

Speaker 1

We were 10,000 at our Church, and I’m guessing now we’re probably four and a half five. That’s my guess.

 

Speaker 2

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

I look at all the Church averages, and it’s almost regardless of size. I think churches are running between 50 and 70% of their pre COVID kind of physical attender numbers. And that’s why I would say we’re around that that’s created all all kind of fun challenges with volunteers trying to pull off services, all the fun things. But, yes, it’s a large Church. We were founded in 2001, I think, and we’re known as a systems Church. We were one of the pioneers of the multisite campus that happened completely by happenstance.

 

Speaker 3

Pastor passed away at a local Church that was maybe 15 minutes drive from the one location that we had a he donated his Church for $1. He gave us his building, and that entered the multisite thing for us. Up until that point, we were just thinking, hey, you expand your broadcast campus location out and out and out. But then we decided, hey, this multi site thing is amazing. And it’s created all kind of fun tech things and just all the great things that come with it.

 

Speaker 2

So one of the funniest things about that is for years, they were recording it for the first service and then putting it on a DVD, and then you’d have people that would have to drive it to the location, and they’re breaking the law trying to get it there at the fastest speed, because I think they had to drive it from Birmingham to Auburn, which is about an hour and a half. So I had to book it as soon as it was over. They were leaving that’s insanity.

 

Speaker 1

That’s a pretty intense volunteer position. You kind of almost want a police officer to be that volunteer. You, like, turn their heads on.

 

Speaker 2

We have a race car driver, one not to live. Actually, that’s so funny.

 

Speaker 1

Well, so what I did want to talk with you guys about, specifically, is the systems that you guys have in place for your volunteers. So talk to us about. First of all, you mentioned COVID, and you mentioned how COVID really messed up your volunteer base and your Church attendants of and my experience has been the same. My volunteer base feels like it’s been decimated and all throughout all the ministries of our Church, we used to have women’s and men’s and marriage Ministry teams and all sorts of worship teams all throughout our Church.

 

Speaker 1

And now we’re just like, piecing stuff together, whatever we can even me now. It’s like I’m struggling to make sure Sunday has a great team every week because I’ve lost a few keyboard players or whatever. So how has Covet affected? And then we’ll get into the system stuff. But how has Covet affected? Did your volunteer base and what are you guys doing to kind of remedy that?

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, I would say we’re no different than any other Church. You name it. We’ve done it from. Hey, we used to have two electric guitar players. Now we have one. Hey, we don’t have a bass player. You’re driving people from other campuses, your frontline singers, maybe a lot less. You may not have a female singer that day. So you’re switching things to a guy key. There’s just a million different obstacles or challenges, but we’re relying on track. Yeah, relying on tracks. That kind of stuff. I mean, we are fortunate that we have a large musician base.

 

Speaker 3

And at one point, we were several people deep at the majority of our campuses, and we’re known as a systems Church. So we have a development program. We have all kind of feeder groups that we we’ve been raising up and trying to get people involved. And it’s a large Church. And so that helps. You’ve always got, hopefully, volunteers to draw from. But yeah, man, we’ve done everything under the sun to try to make sure that the Sunday experience goes off well, on the micro level, on the interpersonal level, we’re just trying to make sure that there is a quality touch point with that person with that volunteer it’s pick up the phone.

 

Speaker 3

How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in a Church for a while. Now. Notice, you haven’t been able to be scheduled on PCO. Just wanted to see how you’re doing. Are you comfortable as your family doing? Well, we really want to know. Are you good? We’d love to see you back at Church, and then we’re working it from there. But I think there’s a comfort level. Some people are really comfortable being around a lot of people, and some people are not. And so you just have to respect that and trust that the Lord is going to bring the right people at the right time.

 

Speaker 3

Any has.

 

Speaker 1

So, Tyler, anything to add?

 

Speaker 2

Yeah, I actually schedule grand smell other than like that’s our main campus. I scheduled it other than Sunday night, and yeah, you can see certain people, like specific guitar player. He was great. He was playing for a while and then COVID started to spike again, and he started pulling back because he’s protecting him and his wife. But, yeah, I mean, we deal with the same problems anybody else did? I got a text at 02:00 in the morning the other night about a bass player that got sick, and then I had to start scrambling at 230 in the morning.

 

Speaker 2

So I asked her.

 

Speaker 1

Why are you calling me?

 

Speaker 2

I set it all up and everything and just told people where to go in the morning and said, I’m like, if there’s any problems, just blame me, it’s like I will deal with it. So I mean, it’s the same problems as anybody else is having and going even more to the development side. It’s just having conversations with people once they’re getting more comfortable in the system. And like, playing here. It’s like constantly pushing them to get better. So maybe they’ve been doing great. But maybe there’s one thing they could do to be a better musician and no one.

 

Speaker 2

So hopefully it’s helping them out, like, personally in their musicianship and helping us out to get what we need.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah. And even just speaking about that developmental conversation about, hey, here’s one little thing I want you to work on. Nobody ever gets offended by that. I’ve never said something like that. Like, hey, Mr. Bass player. Hey, when you slide down from the neck, it’s too scratchy. You need to lighten up your grip. Whatever it is, the little small things that you want to help them grow in, they’re never offended. I don’t know. Have you guys had anybody be like, how could you ask me to sing?

 

Speaker 1

I don’t know. Maybe singers are a little bit more your actual voice.

 

Speaker 2

It’s like, is you a personal? Yeah.

 

Speaker 1

So let’s talk a little bit about your systems then, because you said I’ve heard Chris Hodges, the senior pastor, say he’s a systems guy. And Highlands is a systems Church. So let’s talk about your systems. I want to hit some different areas, like the recruiting process, the service preparation process, and then also, like, the discipleship. And you kind of have already touched on it. Some of it’s not necessarily a system. You just pick up the phone and call people. But I’d like to hear what you guys do to really spiritually develop your volunteers.

 

Speaker 1

So let’s start with the recruiting system. Like, what does it look like at Church of the Highlands to find audition and onboard your volunteers?

 

 

Sure.

 

Speaker 3

So we have a system called the Gross Track. And so we’ll just take it from the very beginning. You are a new member to the Church, and you’re going through the Church membership process. And then we have a system that helps you identify your interest. Let’s say you want to be a guitar player. So you would go through three Sunday night weeks. And at the third Sunday night week, you would say, hey, I’m a guitar player. I’d love to get involved in the team. And then we have kind of an audition process.

 

Speaker 3

If you are accepted into the audition process, we’re not looking for perfection. We’re just looking for aptitude. And so then we put you into what we call a development process that’s every Thursday night. And it’s basically a real band format. And we ask you to learn a couple of songs, and then you come up and every band position has its own coach. So the bass player has a base coach, the drum having a drum coach, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you play the song. And then the coach who’s standing right next to you will help you tweak your tone or tweak your sound.

 

Speaker 3

And then you’ll just play that again over and over and over again. And you do that every Thursday night. The average Dream team member is what we call our volunteers are in that development process for six months to a year, and then I graduate you out of the process. And then we start scheduling you for services. But what that really does is it helps the staff just kind of see where you’re at and everybody’s got different issues. And it may not just be your play. So there may be some hard issues or maybe some things going on where you’ve done something a certain way for a set number of years.

 

Speaker 3

And we’re just working those things out with the way in the process that we like to do things. And we always say that 10% of it is actually playing on the stage and 90% of it, you’re going to be backstage, you’re going to be hanging out with other people. And so we just want to make sure all those areas, we’re all on the same page. And so then we graduate you and we start scheduling you at various campuses via the PCO app. This is kind of the second phase of that.

 

Speaker 3

People ask us all the time why there’s a high level of consistency between our campuses and a lot of our response post graduation from the development program is that the layers of resourcing that we do on the PCO app, and we go next level with our resourcing. We have an in house guy that’s making videos for every guitar part, every base part, all the drum parts, every vocal part. We have voice memos. It’s saying, this is the soprano part for the bridge. This is the auto part for the chorus.

 

Speaker 3

And we also would take all the multi tracks, and we create what we call hot tracks for each instrument where you can listen to the song. But the acoustic guitar strum is turned up really loud, or you can hear the strum with just a click track. So on it a given song. You might have 35 or 40 individual resources that help you learn the song. And then our expectation our team is the rehearsal is not for learning the song. The rehearsal is really for the front of house people sound guys, and for transition moments.

 

Speaker 3

Each musician is expected to come with the resources that’s provided to them. They’re expected to come knowing the song and ready to play.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah, that’s really good. And your onboarding process or that six to twelve months training process reminds me a lot of a Church in Texas called Celebration Church. They have the same thing where you don’t really audition for the team. You audition for this process or this training ground. And I think my listeners have heard a bit about that same system, but I think one area that I don’t touch on enough is auditioning. What does your audition process look like for these people when they come out of the growth track and they say, I want to play guitar, what does that look like?

 

Speaker 2

So they will actually, they’ll go to an audition it’s once a month. And the way we’ve been doing it is we will actually video it and they’ll play two tracks. So which is great because for sing detracts. So then there’s no human error involved, which is great, because and then they could change the key if they needed to. And then it’s just there’s a video recording of it. Then people will watch it back later and see how they did. And see, like, as Chris was saying, it doesn’t matter if they messed up, but is their aptitude.

 

Speaker 2

Are they capable of really, like playing with a band or capable of singing harmonies? Because that’s one of the things for the vocal they’ll do. So they’ll have one singing melody and they’ll have one singing harmony, and you have to pick the harmony and just see if you can actually hear harmony. So then if you’re accepted into development, you’ll get an email from Planning Center asking you to set up your profile. But if not, they’ll get a phone call and it’ll be a touch, a person saying what happened, and if they have any questions or whatever, but then the biggest thing we try to do is if they’re not invited to the program, it’s kind of pushing them towards another area of the Church to serve in so that they’re not just getting thrown away.

 

Speaker 2

And they’re not just kind of like missing out on serving at the Church. I’m still trying to provide them an Avenue of place to serve and a place to be involved.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah, that’s so good. And I don’t know about you guys, but one of the places I push people who aren’t quite ready to be involved in worship Ministry is the production Ministry because it still touches the musical side. But you don’t have to thing well or whatever place also. Yeah, I love that. And the tracks idea. That’s a really great idea. The recording aspect, the fact that you’re filming them audition is I think the secret sauce of all auditions, because what I’ve been doing, too, is mainly with the singing auditions that I do.

 

Speaker 1

It’s like recording them so that they can hear themselves because when you’re singing, you don’t really know that you’re off. But when I can point it out to you in a red or do you hear how the end of your note is like, so anyway, for all the listeners listening, please record your auditions because you need the proof to show them that they’re not actually ready.

 

Speaker 2

It helps you, too, because then you can listen back because you might remember it differently than it actually went.

 

Speaker 1

That’s true, too. That’s very true. Very true. Okay, so that was your onboarding process very robust. You talked about giving people good resources to prepare for services, and even to the point where you’re recording every single part for every single instrument and every single vocal. One thing that I’ve never heard explained very well is when you assign vocalist, Alto, soprano, like, how do they know when to sing that part and when to hold off? Do you guys put some sort of, like, sing here? Don’t sing here, like, PDF in the planning center, docs.

 

Speaker 1

Or how do you guys? And then how does each singer know which part to take? Because when I schedule my background singers, I just say, BG, one, two, three. But there’s not parts assigned to those specific roles. It’s just based on the singers range and abilities. How do you guys handle that?

 

Speaker 2

So we’ll actually schedule people for soprano or Alto, but then there is a PDF where it’ll say unison or stuff, like coming in at the beginning of the song. Like, we come up with that during rehearsal. Like, hey, let’s just let the lead take this or, hey, everybody in from the top, and then they’ll split off into parts. And some of that’s even happening with the worship, like leader live on stage, directing them, telling them, like, hey, we’re going to go two parts here. Let’s go three parts.

 

Speaker 2

But yes, there’s a PDF, and then if they know the parts part of that’s also just in the rehearsal.

 

Speaker 1

Being flexible, having a plan, but then being flexible. Yeah, that’s really good.

 

Speaker 2

Coming prepared and then being ready to change it.

 

Speaker 1

I love that. Do you do that with your band as well, where it’s, like, become prepared. But, like, hey, guys, based on the first song energy, let’s bring the drums in right away at the top of the second song. Even though we do, you guys make little changes like that 100%.

 

Speaker 2

Yeah, all the time the other day. I mean, it was even something with Chris and I, we were in one of the songs, and the song was feeling really intense. So I just asked him to. He’s playing electric guitar. I’m like, hey, can you just lay off on this section and kind of let it come down?

 

Speaker 1

And your boss said.

 

Speaker 2

Your body the greatest idea ever. He said, thank you, Tyler, for your wonderful ideas.

 

Speaker 1

You get raised, Tyler.

 

Speaker 2

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

I think one of the main great things about that development process is we train people up on loving feedback. And if you can get to the point to where you crave feedback, I think that’s a real sign of health. Whatever instrument you play, if you can go up to the person that’s in charge of whatever you’re doing, say, hey, after he service, can you give me feedback. Can you give me feedback and give me feedback and you see yourself constantly taking steps and getting better and better and better.

 

Speaker 3

You start to really crave that and the alternative of that. As I see a lot of people who are not used to feedback, and they may really shy away from that, or that may keep them from trying to join the team or having the confidence to come on. But we really teach feedback is a positive value. And once you get that your DNA. I mean, it’s amazing the growth that someone can have when they’re really used to just give it to me. Now I want it.

 

Speaker 3

And we always try to give life giving feedback. So it’s never in a spirit of this was terrible. It was always, hey, you’re doing a great job. Everything’s looking good. Hey, you really doing good with locking into the click. That’s what we talked about last week, but this week, let’s just work on those high notes, maybe bend those knees a little bit and let’s make sure that that pitch gets right there where we want it to be is life giving things?

 

Speaker 1

No, I love that. I think that’s so helpful, and it almost starts. I don’t know about you guys, but for me, it almost starts right in the audition. It’s like, hey, you’re going to sing. I’m going to give you some things to work on. This is what I do with everybody else, too. This is just how our team operates. And you kind of just set that standard right at the front. Right. One thing I want to highlight, too, is for any of the listeners. Listening is like musical excellence doesn’t necessarily come from having Uber, Uber talented people.

 

Speaker 1

It comes from these little small systems that are in place that give people the resources that they need. Because I think a lot of people in small churches, I’ve been in small churches. I know what it’s like, but you think, oh, I could never be as good as Highlands Worship or whatever. Pick your favorite band. But actually, if you develop people and then you give them the resources so that they can prepare and you create these standards, you can get to a really high level of excellence.

 

Speaker 1

So just kind of an exhortation and encouragement.

 

 

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

Or motto is simple songs one and. Well, that’s good song done. Well, that’s really.

 

Speaker 1

And your senior pastor was a worship leader at one point, right?

 

 

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

Still, he plays piano all the time. People don’t realize Tyler knows this more than anyone, but he is still very active. I mean, he’ll be on the front row and we have signs three for the bridge, kick it back, whatever. Double the chorus. And he’s on the front row, and he’s giving Tyler those signs. If he’s feeling it, we’ve all been around pastors that, hey, the worship is is portion, and the message is this portion and it’s completely separate. But our pastor is thinking about the service experience as a whole man.

 

Speaker 1

That’s so nervewracking. Hi, Tyler. Your senior pastor is like telling you, get the band back to the bridge, man. Come on. Come on. Now, how do you run the tracks, Tyler, that you can be so flexible generally.

 

Speaker 2

If it’s a flow or off track. So it would be just using a click track. So there’s been times where the tracks were supposed to go a certain way, and he’s come up and we’ve changed it, and we actually set up a button on there that fades the tracks out over about one and a half seconds. The click will keep going. So it’s actually P for panic. So it’s the panic button. And I hit that and they all just fade out. And then it happened like a week or two ago.

 

Speaker 2

So I faded them out. And then we have a rhythm watch by Thomas. So I just ended up starting another click and then stopping Ableton and then just call of the day with the computer. And now just going straight to band with a Metronome.

 

Speaker 1

That’s good. I’ve seen one local Church here nearby me that they have their tracks, and then they have a pad, MP three and a quick track at the same BPM underneath each song so they can just easily. But I like the cross. Bad idea. Maybe. Tyler, I’ll have to do an interview with you about music directing one of these days.

 

Speaker 2

For sure. That’d be fun.

 

Speaker 1

I’d love to hear more about your systems for because I think the musical side is important, but obviously we all know at the end of the day, Jesus won’t really give us any rewards based on how awesome our van sounded, he’ll probably give us maybe a Pat on the back or a thumbs up, but more important.

 

Speaker 2

So yeah, he’s like.

 

Speaker 1

Good job on the music. And then he’s going to be like, but how did you do with the people? And we’re going to be like, oh, so for all of the worship leaders out there who are too focused on the music, how do you guys disciple your people? What can our listeners take from you guys? How are you communicating with your people? Obviously, planning center is a huge part of that. But what about just general communication and any systems you have for encouraging people, building them up in the face?

 

Speaker 1

What do those like to disciple the musicians at your Church?

 

Speaker 3

Well, I feel like musicians, and it’s almost per campus. Now. The bigger we’ve gotten, the more we’ve kind of encouraged each campus to be autonomous with their teams. And we we have some things that are coming from central set list and different things. But we’re really encouraging each campus that’s their family, that’s their campus family. We spend so much time with each other, either in the green room or not on the stage that I think just the intentionality of making sure that we’re relationally healthy with one another.

 

Speaker 3

And we’re all pretty tight. And I think that just comes with doing life with one another. Hey, How’s your day? How’s your family or what can I pray for you about? Of course, we have a corporate prayer time backstage before we go on. But yeah, I think the majority of that is just happening organically, being intentional with your team. Hey, you want to go to coffee, you want to hang out, you want to go to lunch. So just the day to day walk of life keeps us encourage you or that decently often.

 

Speaker 1

Like taking people out to coffee.

 

 

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah. I mean, again, with this team, you’re getting a lot of the broadcast campus perspective with Tyler and I, but I’m taking one of my guys to lunch every week. I actually feel like in this season in particular, my job is the leader of these guys is to make sure that their health is good, their family’s health is good. And I’m kind of encouraging us to push out the world is is trying to cram so much stuff at us. Now it’s almost too much to take in.

 

Speaker 3

It’s there’s just too much. And so I’m just saying, hey, guys, let’s focus on the job that the Lord has told us to do. And I want to make sure that our team stays healthy because if we’re healthy, we can really benefit and bless our Church. So I think just the day to day intentionality in that or even just shooting a text every once in a while.

 

Speaker 2

It’s like, hey, man, I really appreciate you so easy. It takes 5 seconds. But it means a lot, especially when you’re genuine and you’re saying, like, hey, I really appreciate what you do and you being around and being there with us.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah. And home groups are a huge part. I forgot what you guys call them, but they’re a huge smart in your Church, right? I mean, most of your Church you guys have, like, the highest percentage of people from attendees in home groups of any Church in the world or something crazy like that. So that’s probably where they’re getting the discipleship. And I’m guessing your team is expected to also be in a home group as well, which obviously all that kind of change during COVID. I’m guessing I don’t know how it was in Alabama, but in California, it was like no groups of over two people.

 

Speaker 2

Anyway, it became more virtual. Yeah. Like, Zoom became a big proponent of smart groups. Actually, I do a ultimate Frisbee small group. So I mean, they can be, like, a ton of fun.

 

Speaker 1

That’s right. That’s fine. So then you really are doing life with people and connect the outside. And then it’s just up to us as leaders to keep the conversation intentional about Jesus spiritual. All those things. Do you guys only communicate to your teammates through planning center. That’s like, period. It’s like email based through planning center. No.

 

Speaker 2

I mean, that is absolutely how you’re scheduled. And if there’s any, like times that like, you need to know, like, time of rehearsal or whatever, but that will come through planning center through an email. But depending on when that information is going out, I will also text you, because if it’s like a Saturday afternoon, I don’t know if you’re going to look at your email, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna look at text, right?

 

Speaker 1

We’ve been for three or four years. We’ve been using this app called Band, and it’s basically like private Facebook groups, but not with all the distractions of Facebook. And so we created different bands for each of our ministries, and we’ve been using that. And it was pretty effective. But I think all communication note during Cova, I kind of stopped working. People just, I don’t know, got digitalized out. They’re just like, they don’t respond to text or anything. And we’re starting to rethink. Maybe we should just dump band, but for any of the listeners listening, check it out.

 

Speaker 1

It’s worth checking out. But my assistant, she said we should just start texting people instead. But I was curious if you guys had a good digital connection Besides text and planning center, but it doesn’t sound like it.

 

Speaker 3

Now again, we’re with everybody so much that it’s just easy to throw out a text if we’re doing a conference or something. And it’s the same band over a period of days, we’ll just name a text, thread, a women’s conference band or whatever it is. So in changes or flying really quickly. Everybody’s up to date got it for bigger things, like Church wise.

 

Speaker 2

I don’t know if you’re looking for this answer the stuff that’s coming out, like, here’s the flow of the service. Here’s the message notes here’s what’s happening. That’s all done over slack. So that keeps up with it. And that would hit all of the worship directors. And then they’re expected to communicate that with their teams.

 

Speaker 1

Got it however they want.

 

Speaker 2

Yeah.

 

Speaker 1

We’Re going to transition in a bit to talk about your album, because I just listened to it this morning, and I was very touched and ministered to by it. So thank you. But I want just one more thing. Talk about your volunteers. You guys have this room? I guess it’s in all. Your campus is probably called like, I don’t know, it’s a Dream Team station. Or I heard a podcast with Pastor Chris talking about it recently. What was it called? Dream Team Central? It’s like a lunchroom, a Dream Team Central.

 

Speaker 1

So tell our listeners what is this room in the Church and why is it important and what happens there? And does your band go there or is it just share about that?

 

Speaker 2

So everybody ends up going there. They do meetings in there, like a team kind of rallies. And then it’s a place for people to hang out. There’s places for people to put their things. But the most important thing about that room is food. There is a spread of food at every campus, and oftentimes it’s actually pretty substantial food. So you go in there between services, grab some food, grab a drink, go sit down. Gives you a break from playing a break from whatever. But, yeah, the biggest thing about it is the food.

 

 

Yeah.

 

Speaker 3

Most of the musicians were kind of behind stage. There’s usually a room that has a television feed that you can see multiple things on. You can see what’s happening online. You can see the next section of notes that’s coming up from the pastor has some time marker, several things on it. And that’s where a lot of the musicians are. If we’re not sitting in service, which is greatly encouraged, at least sit in one or two service. We have three morning services on a Sunday, but, yeah, dream Team central for musicians.

 

Speaker 3

We’re just going up and we’re grabbing a quick bite to eat.

 

Speaker 1

But there’s also stuff on the walls, like last week, 28, eight people got saved at this campus because of your Ministry. They’re keeping the vision in front of people and connecting their access service to the bigger picture of why it matters. Right.

 

Speaker 3

And the emphasis on our volunteer base. I just can’t be overstated. I mean, it’s paramount in every message. Small groups. Again, you quoted some stats, but every message, every the news bumpers. Everything is encouraging people creating awareness. Hey, get in a group. Get on the team. That kind of verbiage.

 

Speaker 1

That’s good. So there’s definitely some very practical systems that our listeners can think through and figure out how do I implement something similar in my own Church? Let’s switch gears here. I know you got to head out soon. Chris, talk about your new album, Prayers to the King. It’s like a reflective, personal worship time album, something you would listen to during your DeVos helps you commune with God and pray. I was very blessed. Just like listening to it this morning. Just nice surround sound speakers, like hearing all the atmosphere going on.

 

Speaker 1

How did you guys in the midst of all your business make time to songwrite? And what did that process look like? Were you guys getting together with your songwriters every week, or were people writing at home and sending voice memos? Or was it a combo of that share the process and how you guys were able to prioritize that in the midst of running teams?

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, great question. Lots of layers to that. Answer our Church 21 days of prayer. We do it twice a year. We do it in August and in January. That’s where our entire Church comes together for 21 days at 06:00 a.m. In the morning, and we have a short message and then we pray individually and then come back and we have a short prayer time at the end of that. So that’s a lifeline and our Church corporate prayer and corporate prayer seasons. And so we have all of these different prayers that are in the Bible and different resources over the last 20 years that have been in a book form.

 

Speaker 3

But our Church just came out with an app called the Pray First app. Pray first, it’s free. It is in the App store now. But it has all of the prayers, all the main prayers in the Bible with commentary in them. And so when we were preparing that app, the one thing that we didn’t have was music to go along with that. And so the idea was to write a personal prayer time contemplative meditative project that could be used in conjunction with the app or when you’re having your personal prayer time.

 

Speaker 3

We’ve heard so many stories of people that say, hey, every night before I go to bed and I’m feeling anxious. I turn on this album and I just let it play all night, and it has ministered to me. And that was the intent of this. We love writing Congregational worshiping music. We write a lot of it. We play a lot of it in our Church. That was not the intent for this project. This project, every part of the recording process. The writing process was designed to give people a place of rest and peace that they could go to in an audio soundtrack.

 

Speaker 3

And so that’s the creation of that project, Prayers to the King. So we’re super excited about Tyler.

 

Speaker 2

Now, how that actually got pulled off was we did it in about eight weeks, maybe less. So we had the idea Chris did with the person who’s over the development of the app. They’re best friends. And he was like, hey, the only thing this app is missing is music and then came into legal things if you can’t just put anything on there. So he was like, we’ll write something for it. And we went up the system and everybody was down with it. And for about eight weeks, it was just a grind of a lot of work and a lot of stuff to get that all finished.

 

Speaker 2

And Chris is being humble that he was spending nights at home on the phone or with his guitar, then going up to the other songwriters and then figuring out stuff. And it was is every week just coming up with another song of like, hey, we’ve got to get ten songs on this. And originally we had the idea of doing songs we had already done and changing them to this style. But I think it was great. It was really his vision. I think we want to write something for this for prayer.

 

Speaker 2

And I’m really pleased with how it turned out. But, I mean, it was absolutely a grind on all of us. And I’m glad we did it, but it was a lot of fun.

 

Speaker 1

A lot of work for it being a grind. It’s an extremely peaceful album, so that didn’t translate like that. It’s so nice. And I love how scripturally saturated it is. I mean, really, it’s beautiful. It really is. You guys now, one thing I wanted to ask you because you guys are obviously arrangers and producers. It’s all soft songs. So first of all, I love that it doesn’t sound like every other worship am out there because they all sound the same.

 

Speaker 2

Kind of.

 

Speaker 1

No offense to anybody who produces worship. It feels very different. It sounds very different and it’s all soft and reflective. So what did you guys learn about arranging parts for soft songs? Because sometimes it can all start to feel the same because you don’t really have too much drumbeat going there, and so you can’t really make it differentiated by that. So what did you guys learn in arranging soft songs? Sure.

 

Speaker 3

Great question. We were very intentional on all the recording and producing of the project to make sure that there was a motive vibe that was happening. So we would do things like there were no guitar picks used on the album. Everything was done with the fingers. There were no drum sticks. Everything was done with brushes or with hot rods. All of the vocals we didn’t let them put on headphones. We would play the track out of speakers, turned down at the lowest volume possible, so they had to almost whisper sing instead of actually sing.

 

Speaker 3

And it was all created around this intent of making a project where there were no harsh edges. There’s nothing that’s going to stick out that’s going to distract you from that kind of contemplative place on the writing side. We do have kind of a songwriting method that we’ve done for several years about putting people in groups. And we do these 90 minutes sessions of song starts this project in particular. I have a personal mentor that was integrity Hosanna, a writer in the late 90s, early 2000s, and I brought her into this project and she really had a great hand and the richness of the crafting of the lyric.

 

Speaker 3

And she’s almost a scholar and just personally, to me, it was a lot of blessing having her involved in the project.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah, the lyrics were beautiful. Perfect. Cool guys. Well, I’m going to put a link in there for the listeners to access via Apple Music or Spotify, but any final words for the listener is just about anything on your heart in worship Ministry or the system side of it or anything at all. You guys to close. What do you want to say to the worship leaders listening?

 

Speaker 3

Sure. I think we’re really excited about this app right now. We think it’s a perfect partner for the one year Bible. So if you are reading your one year Bible and you’ve gone through the 15 minutes plan, grabbing the prey first app and then spending a few minutes on a set prayer that’s in the word, going through the commentary and then just kind of pausing, setting up your day. We think it’s perfect complement for that. So the app is called Pray. First. It has the entire album that’s on it.

 

Speaker 3

And the album is called Prayers to the King.

 

Speaker 1

Awesome. Tyler, any final words to encourage worship leaders listening?

 

Speaker 2

Yeah. I mean, it would just be don’t just look at us and don’t look at other big churches and think that you have to have all of the amount of people and all of the amount of resources, all the tech do it because, I mean, it was kind of like what you were talking about earlier that Jesus isn’t going to look at us and go, wow, you sounded great because, I mean, you can do all the same stuff that we’re doing, just an acoustic guitar and a person singing or just a piano and a person singing.

 

Speaker 2

So it would just be continually finding people, investing in people and hopefully building up your team. Something we’ve noticed here is if you have somebody who maybe isn’t as good musically, but then you have somebody who’s great. If you get that one person in the band who is great, they will bring up the level of everybody and it’ll make everything better. So it’s just finding that one person. So I would just always pray for that.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah, that’s really good. You guys. Thanks for making the time and your busy schedule to encourage our listeners. And I’m really grateful for this conversation.

 

Speaker 3

Alex, thanks for having us. We you’re believing we appreciate you fun.

 

Speaker 1

All right. Well, that’s all we have time for today. I hope you were helped and encouraged by this episode. If you were, please take a second forward it on to someone that you think needs to hear. It also, be sure to check out worship Ministry training. Com for free articles, training resources and free courses as well as paid courses to help you grow. As a Godhonoring worship leader, I will see you next month for another helpful episode. God bless you as you serve him.