This cannot be happening again! My worship team is ready to start Sunday morning practice, and I get a text from my drummer saying he is sick and won’t be coming. I had a full band and a high-energy set! I had two electric guitar players, but now I don’t have a drummer to help me execute my vision. My plans are falling apart. I walk to my office to have a quick break and breathe. I must rethink the service without a drummer. My emotions become intense. I feel frustrated, accompanied by insecure thoughts that rush through my mind. I think to myself, why did this have to happen to me this week? Do I change everything or keep it the same? I could tell the electric guitar players to go home and just do an acoustic set, but they are probably on the way. Maybe I keep the songs as I have them, and the rest of the band the same? I think to myself, “If only I had another drummer, I could call, but “Sicky McDrums” is the only drummer I know.” Regardless of how I solve this problem. However, I have allowed the drummer’s absence to impact my attitude toward worship. My team has probably seen my unhealthy, flustered reaction impact my ability to lead as well. What now?
You likely know this all too well. You plan for service to go one way, your expectations are set, and when those expectations fall through, it can be hard not to let your new circumstances affect your attitude. Sometimes it can be hard to come up with a plan B on the spot. Especially when you are having to think through band dynamics, arrangements, and what the song will sound like without a certain band member. What I just shared is a true story of my circumstances affecting my attitude. An attitude the Lord had to break in me. I used to believe the best Sunday worship sets were when we had a full band with every position filled. I felt something was missing when we were only playing with a few people because my other volunteers declined to serve that week. But by God’s grace, I now look forward to every Sunday regardless of how full my team is.
God has taught me not to let unfilled positions or who’s missing in the band cloud my value or worth as a worship pastor. I stopped letting the enemy fill my heart and thoughts with anxiety, resentment, and frustration when a volunteer doesn’t show up. I know I am not alone in wanting more band members to lead worship with. After all, we all know there is nothing like a full band. However, I want you to know that it’s normal for your church to lack enough volunteers. You should expect it. Whether your church is small with 40 people, or well over 1000 people. It is difficult to get faithful, committed volunteers. When this happens, it is so easy to spend time thinking, “If only I had this position filled.” My goal is to show you that you are not alone, and my eager hope is to encourage you by sharing what I have learned while battling my volunteer drought insecurities. I learned that I needed to fight my Home Run Mentality (the idea that everything had to be perfect every time). God has shown me to love and value the volunteers already on my team. To love and lead the team I have, not the one I wished I had. My calling is to create a team culture, rather than creating a list of vacant volunteer positions that dictate my mood and values.
Striving for excellence is probably a term you have heard or read many times before in worship ministry, and rightfully so! The goal is to have a perfect distraction-free service. In my mind, a perfect service looks like everything going right. All the volunteers are present. The lighting fits the motion graphics. The sound is not too loud and has no feedback issues. The band plays all the right notes. No mistakes are made. A perfect Sunday can happen. However, it is nearly impossible to pull off. When I was leading poorly as a worship pastor, I let all these things impact my view of what a successful service was. I wanted a full band each week. I wanted my team to nail the songs. But when I couldn’t reach that level of excellence, I would beat myself up. I would think about distracting moments that occurred. I would look at the service as a failure if I didn’t achieve perfection with my team on a Sunday. Everything that wasn’t a home run was a strikeout. Sundays can often feel like a plate appearance in baseball. You are ready, you have prepared to hit the ball the best you can, and you know you can do it. But when you fail to hit the ball exactly how you want, you are tempted to devalue your worth. But the reality is that even the best hitters in the MLB can’t even hit a home run every game. On average, one home run occurs every two or three games. All fifty-two of our Sunday services can’t go perfectly.
We must see that there is a subtle difference between striving for excellence and perfection. The problem with striving for excellence is that it can lead to a perfectionist mentality that will break you. When you want to achieve perfection, it can be easy for us to lose focus on the most important thing, which is worshiping Jesus and serving his people, from our volunteers to the congregation. The last thing we should do is make our current volunteers feel like they are not worthy enough in your eyes to be on the team in the first place. Let them make mistakes so that they can grow from them. Mistakes prove that what you are doing in service is real. Mistakes may not sound or look good, but at least your church family will know that you are trying and giving God your best.
For me, once I realized how toxic striving for excellence was in my life, I decided to change my approach to striving for growth. Growth implies improvement, but it does not set an unreachable goal. Once I focused on growth more than excellence, I was able to love my team better and help be a better worshiper and leader myself. H.B Charles says in his book, On Worship, “May we never forget that we gather not to please ourselves or please others. We worship to please the Lord.” I had to ask myself what my motivation was. Pleasing myself, others, or the Lord. I allowed the pressure of trying to please the church congregation that I forgot that we were there to please and worship God. If you are struggling with perfectionist pressure, stop and surrender that burden to the Lord. You are not meant to bear it. Yes, make plans, schedule your volunteers, but remember to worship and please the Lord first. When you do that, the rest will work itself out.
Another critical choice you must make when you find that your team is lacking volunteers is to focus on loving your current volunteers well. Stop thinking about the positions you don’t have at the time. Instead, show your current volunteers that you value them and care about them. Thank them for serving. Make sure you do not demean them by saying the worship set would sound better if we had drums today. This does not build them up (Ephesians 4:29). If you believe that God is sovereign over everything, you must realize that he has determined who will be in your band that week, regardless of the plans that you have made. Don’t spend time thinking or commenting on how things would be better if we had this or that. Be thankful for the people who were faithful enough to come and join you in leading worship. Love them, invest in those relationships, and pray with them. Show them they are more than just a bass player or drummer. When I started valuing my volunteers for their faithfulness, I felt free from the burden of having to hit a home run every single week. I stopped caring if all the positions in the band were filled or not. We, as a team, were there to lead our church to the Lord that day, and that was what we were going to do. This was true whether we were all there or not. I used to let my expectations and band preferences dictate my attitude, but now I am free to worship the Lord with my church family. It is a sweet place to be mentally and spiritually!
The last thing I encourage you to focus on is how you are creating a team culture within your team. This focus keeps your heart on the volunteers you already have, instead of creating a position vacancy list. Worship pastors often have a stereotype of hunting down anyone new to the church with whispers of musical talent. People expect us to quickly introduce ourselves and start talking about our band. Now I don’t think that there is anything wrong with that. However, I do think that if you talk about your team culture as a band, then joining the team should come across as a more attractive serving opportunity. No one wants to join a team that seems like it is falling apart or is all about the worship leader. So, think about your team right now. Does your worship team have a godly culture full of community, love, and prayer for each other? Or does it feel like your worship team is on a sinking ship? Who would want to come aboard that ship?
The Lord has called you to serve your volunteers and your church first and foremost. The music is secondary. I hope that you feel encouraged after reading this article and excited to lead your people in worship. Remember that excellence is a good thing to pursue, but it can become an idol. Treasure the volunteers that you have now. Continue to pray for those vacant positions to be filled, but pray that God will lead the right people to join. Think about how you are leading your team closer to Christ with the team culture you are creating each week. Our worship ministries are not about how full our band is or how good we sound. It is about being faithful to those who are there and offering to the Lord our hearts as we lead our church in singing. Let our ministries echo Psalm 9:1-2, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
Ian Mavity is the Worship Pastor of Redemption Hill Church.
