What should I do with inherited worship team members?

Question:

I have two singers on the team that were singing on the team last year before I got here.

Now they feel so confident that they're requesting to lead songs and I have let one of them and received terrible feedback. She thinks it went well and can't wait to do it again.

Personally, I would prefer if they didn't sing at all as they sing out of pitch frequently and throw off the music. It makes it hard for me to focus, let alone the congregation.

My heart is to provide a place for people to grow in their calling and that the heart is more important than talent. However, there are others that disagree.

I also am not a vocal coach and I'm mostly self-taught and really don't know how to help them other than encourage them to take vocal lessons which they don't think they need.

How do you handle situations like these?

Also, serious question, I'm wondering what percentage of you guys request the sound team to turn down mics of the still growing background singers?

Answer:

To sum up the question, you have worship team members that you've inherited from before you were there who should not be on the worship team. Or at least should not have been allowed on the worship team in the first place, and they needed some more development beforehand.

What do you do in that situation?

Because it's completely different than asking someone if they want to join the worship team or if they come to you and say they want to join the worship team and then you realize that they aren't there musically yet.

What do you do when somebody's already on the team?

Balancing Grace and Church Health

That's a tough question, right?

Because you want to honor these people who have been serving.

At the same time, we need to balance that with: “I can anger two people or make the rest of my church happy.” Which I think if we look at the math, obviously that's the correct answer.

You make two people mad, or you make a hundred people uncomfortable during corporate worship.

We are called to lead our church well, not just two people well.

So, we have to do what's best for the greater good.

So, I think you can see where my answer is leaning here.

But how do you do it in a nice way?

And I don't think that it is an instantaneous thing where we show up one rehearsal and we say, "Hey listen, you are horrible at singing. You need to get off the worship team and never be here again," right?

Like that is not the appropriate response.

As leaders, we guide people.

And so, how can you guide these people into either improving their singing or not leading worship anymore because they aren't gifted at it?

The Importance of Musical Giftedness

And I understand that you're trying to be nice in this question and you're like, you know, "I always understood that worship isn't about the musical side of things, it's actually more about the heart."

And that sounds good on paper, but it's also not true.

Or I should say that with a caveat: In musical worship leading, that is not true.

There are a hundred different ways, a million different ways to lead worship, and it doesn't just involve singing.

When we are called to lead musical worship, we are called to be musically gifted, at least to a certain degree, right?

If you aren't gifted musically, then don't lead worship in that way.

If I wasn't gifted at preaching, but I said, "Hey, you know what, I really want to talk on Sundays even though I'm horrible at it," then I shouldn't be preaching on Sundays.

If I'm not good with children, then I shouldn't be working in kids ministry, even if I want to because I'm not good with kids. So, I shouldn't lead worship in that way.

Therefore, if I'm not good at music, I shouldn't be leading worship that way because that's not how God has gifted me.

So, those are my thoughts behind the softening of the blow where it's like, "Yeah, it's not just about music, I understand that it's about our heart," but you minimize the view of what leading worship means whenever it comes to that.

Why do people who aren't gifted at something always want to be on the platform leading music and not doing anything else in the church?

Like, we never hear these problems in other areas, and I think it's because being on stage is attractive for people, which is obviously wrong.

Practical Steps for Addressing the Issue

So, what do you do about it?

First, I would do this.

I would take a recording of our service where these people led.

You know, a lot of churches live stream now.

If your church doesn't live stream, find a way to record them leading.

And then at the next rehearsal, you say, "You know, I really want to focus on improving our musicianship as a worship team and one of the best ways to do that is to hear ourselves."

Oftentimes, these worship team members, they've never heard themselves before.

I mean, that's true for a lot of musicians. They just play in their bedroom, practice in their bedroom, practice in the car, and then show up on Sunday and sing and just go for it. But they've never actually heard a recording of them.

So, listen to a recording of your worship team and tell people, "I'm gonna ask you at the end of this, I want us to discuss what did we do well and what could we improve upon?"

And people will be naturally self-critical when they listen to the recording because we're selfish at our core and so we're listening to ourselves and like, maybe these singers will realize that they sound bad and maybe that's the jump start that they need.

Maybe they legitimately don't know.

Like, you can tell them, but until they hear it for themselves, maybe they don't know, and then they can start working on it.

Now, let's say that they don't get the hint and they are prideful and say, "I sound amazing."

At some point, as the leader on the team, you need to sit down with them for the health and benefit of your church gatherings and say, "Listen, you know, I don't think you're quite there musically yet. I know you've been on the team for a while, but you know, listen to this recording."

And just tell them straight up. Don't lie to them.

Be like, "Like your vocals are flat here. You aren't on pitch. You're blending with the other singers. Like, these are things that we need to work on."

And if they say, "I'm not going to work on those," then you have to say, "Like, that's not the kind of team member that we're looking for. We're looking for people who are teachable, and so I need you to be on board with this and work on this or else you're not going to be able to be on the team anymore."

That's a tough conversation to have. I'm not saying that it isn't. But for the benefit of your church, sometimes we have to, you know, hurt one person, not intentionally, but it's not like we're being mean to them, but we have to do that for the benefit of our church.

So, sometimes you have to have a hard conversation.

So, that's what I'd do.

Have them listen to a recording.

If they still don't get it, then we need to address them and be just very clear about it.