I just started at a new church. What should I do with the current worship team members? Grandfather them in?

Question:

I'm a worship pastor at a new church and planning to change the onboarding process for team members. There wasn't one at all before. There hasn't been a worship pastor here for 18 months.

What are your thoughts on how to handle existing team members? Should I grandfather them in?

My reservation is there are several current worship team members who probably really aren't a right fit, and I'm having a hard time justifying asking new members to go through a certain process when the existing members didn't have to, or saying no to some new people when there are others already on the team who have an even lesser skill level and not a great heart posture, etc.

Answer:

Prioritizing Relationship Building First

So, you come into a new church. What is the first thing that you do?

It always starts with this: I started at this church that I'm at two years ago, and the first thing that I did was not start implementing changes left and right and telling worship team members that they were horrible and they shouldn't be on the worship team anymore.

You start with building relationships and figuring out where people are currently at and why they are currently there.

First of all, if you haven't built relationships with these people yet, that needs to be your focus before you start shunning people from the worship team.

Strategic Implementation of New Processes

I understand that you want to put this process in place, and you a hundred percent need to do that.

But we need to do it tactfully and strategically over time.

Build relationships with these people, and then, after we've built relationships and kind of in tandem with that, we start casting vision for the team.

I think it's perfectly acceptable after you figure out how a team has done things to say, "Hey, listen, I know that you've done it this way for the past eight years, but I would really love us to start doing it this way."

That is your responsibility as the ministry leader. People should be expecting that when a new leader comes in, that things are going to change because people do things differently.

Communicating Vision and Expectations Clearly

You don't have to apologize for it. You just have to be firm and clear in your vision for the team.

If these people aren't prepared for your worship rehearsal, then you say, "Hey, I know we spent a lot of time in worship rehearsals lately figuring out parts and stuff, but I would really love to move towards a place where we can just show up to worship rehearsal and we know our parts."

You don't have to call somebody specifically out right away. You just set the vision for your team.

You don't say, "Joe, I've noticed that you aren't very good at guitar and you're never prepared." You say, "We want to step into this new way of doing things."

That's what it means to lay the vision before your team, and understand that it's not going to happen instantly.

Grandfathering Existing Members and Introducing New Standards

That's sort of the high-level view of the answer to that question.

As far as like grandfathering people into the worship team versus having them retry out, I mean, yeah, I would probably grandfather them in with the understanding that we are going to be doing things a little bit differently, and just tell them that up front.

Whatever system you're creating for new team members to join, like hopefully that involves laying out the expectations for your team.

You need to go through those expectations not just with new team members, but people who are already on your team and say, "Hey, you know, I'm putting together this system for new team members who want to join the music, who want to join the worship team when they join, that I'm going to give them this document, and I want to make sure that you have it too, so you know that these are the things that I'm expecting of new team members, and not just new team members, but all the members on our worship team."

And you can try to be like, "You know, a lot of these things you'll already know since you've been on the team for a while, but I just want to remind you of them." So, you hand that out, maybe you spend a devotional time at your rehearsal going through those things.

Resources and Final Thoughts

By the way, if you need a plan for your worship rehearsal, check out the worship rehearsal blueprint. It's a free PDF where I'll show you a step-by-step guide so that you can make sure that you lead your team well, not just musically, but spiritually and relationally as well. So, check that out.

At the end of the day, yes, grandfather them in, also teach them the new expectations a couple of rehearsals.