What to Expect:

The Qualification Process for New Worship Ministry team members at Speak Life Center.

Why New Music Ministry team members?

Here at Speak Life Center, we value adding new team members for a lot of reasons. New team members can:

• Bring fresh voices, sounds, ideas, and perspectives to the team.
• Create opportunities to mentor and develop the next generation
• Help us confront the sense of entitlement that creeps in after people have been in the ministry for a length of time.
• Avoid burnout.
• Move us toward specialists versus generalists for great impact (Often church musicians will cover a role that isn’t their strongest talent).
• Raise the level of commitment and skill throughout the ministry.
• Help us diversify our styles of music.
• Become a multiplying and sending church and ministry.

 

What should you expect as you seek to become a worship team member?

1. We are looking for character, craft, chemistry, calling, and connection.
2. It’s a process.
3. Either you or the leadership may observe we may not be a good fit for each other at this time.

Let’s discuss each of these in more detail.

1. We are looking for character, craft, chemistry, calling, and connection.

Character – This involves someone’s integrity and spiritual walk, etc.  

Craft – This involves…

• musical skill and experience.
• the musician’s ongoing commitment to their musical growth.
• platform presence and expression.
• audio visual knowledge
• leadership ability.

We believe 1 Chronicles 25:6-8 sets a precedent that our musicians need to be skilled. Because of that, we have a process to qualify potential team members.  

Chemistry – This looks at how well people fit together. As we grow larger, we understand not everyone will be best friends on the team. A person may click better with some more than with others. However, there needs to be respect and camaraderie between members in order for us to create and maintain a great team culture.

Calling – Calling is another “tough-to-determine” qualifying factor. Essentially, we’re looking for someone who has a sense that God is leading them to serve in this ministry.

So, what are some aspects of calling that apply here?

• A sense that God is leading someone to serve. More in a moment on why “serve” is important.
• An affirmation of the call by leadership. The leader of the ministry needs to have the sense that this person is a good fit and is truly being led by the Spirit.
• An availability that allows the person to serve. The validity of anyone’s call to the worship team is questionable if they can’t attend our required midweek rehearsals.
• Honoring God and serving his people is at the heart of their calling.

Connection – This specifically focuses on a person’s connection with Speak Life Center. Does this person truly want to serve this church, or simply play music?

If the person is a new attendee, we will move ahead slower, check references and talk with a previous pastor or another church leader.

We look for at least six months of regular attendance at Speak Life Center before we will invite someone on the team. However, we do occasionally make allowances for people to participate as guest musicians if they meet other aspects of qualification.

2. It’s a process.

Becoming a worship team member is not a one-step event. It’s a process, a system of steps we use to determine if an individual is right for the team. The leadership needs to get to know you and how you might fit best with our ministry. And you need time to make sure this ministry is a good fit for you.

The process looks like this:

Step One: Application

Complete the online application. After you complete the application, we will contact you to set up the next step in the process.

Step Two: Initial Interview

This usually involves meeting with the a few of the worship ministry leaders/team members to get to know you personally and musically.

• You’ll be asked to sing or play a few pre-determined songs.
• You’ll be asked to demonstrate your knowledge in the AV booths (if an AV role was our selection)
• We’ll also discuss why you feel God might be calling you to minister in this area.
• We’ll answer any questions you might have about serving on the worship team.

Step Three: Live Band Audition

This involves singing, or playing (or operating AV equipment) with a group of musicians from the team. You will sing or play some predetermined songs with the band. This is a time when we will observe:

• How well you connect with others, relationally and musically
• How musically strong you are in a group setting – i.e. can you sing and play in time with drums/click, can you complement the other voices/instruments, etc.
• We also look for platform presence and expression, especially from our vocalists.
• How you operate (under guidance) the AV equipment for the role you have selected.

Step Four: Invitation

If this seems like a great fit, we’ll invite you to be a part of the team. At that time, we’ll ask you to affirm your commitment to the team by signing the worship team covenant.

Step Five: Acclimation

During this step, you’ll get used to our systems and ways of doing things, such as:

• how to use Planning Center Online, our scheduling, and music distribution tool.
• using in-ear monitors and our system for those.
• participating in a rehearsal so you know what to expect.

We’ll also be working on getting you on the schedule during this time. Please note: our schedule is often set up to two months in advance. While we’ll look for openings to include you, we may not be able to fit you into the current schedule.

Step Six: Participation and Follow-up

As you begin to participate on the team, we’ll discuss informally after each Sunday how things went. After a few months of participation, we have a brief meeting to see how things are going, talking about ways that the leadership can serve you better and any areas we need to help you develop.

3. Understand we may not be a good fit for each other at this time.

Reasons why someone might not be eligible to be on the worship team:

• Musical ability not at the level needed.  
• No current openings for a vocal part or instrument.  
• Issues of character.
• Interpersonal issues – if someone doesn’t mesh well with current team members during the qualification process, this is a red flag for us.
• Too new to our church with no other solid references from other churches or leaders.

Here is Leadership’s approach:

1. We will say no as soon as it is apparent this is not a good fit. We do not wish to lead anyone along or give false hopes.  
2. We will say “Not yet, but please try again later” if we believe that someone has potential with some work and development. We will give them constructive feedback for things they can work on. 
3. We believe everyone is a “10” at something. We will help a person take the first steps to find the ministry fit here at Speak Life Center if they would like.

Thanks for taking time to read through this. If you have specific questions before completing the Welcome Packet, please see  Bro. David Schlichting. If you’re ready to complete it now, go to click this link: Welcome Packet.