3 Ways To Get Your Worship Team To Give Up Their Music Stands

Oct 13

Written By Leading Worship Well | Spencer Cormany

3 Ways To Get Your Worship Team To Give Up Their Music Stands

There's no doubt memorizing your music for leading worship takes a lot of work. But in the end, it's completely worth the effort. Maybe as a worship team leader you recognize the benefits but how do you get your team to actually do it?

It seems like a "big ask." Can you really expect that much from volunteers? Yes! When you don't ask your team to put in very much effort, what you're really communicated is that their role isn't very important - they can just skate by and it's good enough. When you push your team and make a "big ask," you are reinforcing the understanding that their role is important.

Here are 3 ways to get your worship team to give up their music stands:

1 | Explain the benefits

In order to get buy-in from your team, you have to communicate the importance of leading without music in front of them. For some ideas on the importance, check out my post from last week "3 Benefits of Memorizing Your Music For Worship Leaders." Don't spring your demands on them all of the sudden out of nowhere - spend time working through why you want to do it in the week leading up to when you ask.

2 | Challenge them

Now that you've communicated the benefits, challenge your team to take action. Inspire them to lead worship well.

Make a team-wide challenge that next week you are going to collectively be able to play 1 song by memory as an entire team. Ease your team into the process and allow them to learn how they can best memorize their music. Start slow by only implementing the "no-stand" policy for one song at rehearsal. Then, over time, slowly ramp up the expectations until your team is leading on Sunday without a stand.

3 | Model it

Your team isn't going to do this on their own - they need your leadership! You have to be the one that sets the example. Put in the work and show them a living example of the benefits of leading without music in front of you. Your team will only go as far as you are willing to lead them so lead well!