Implementing Administrative Systems in Your Worship Team

If you are a Worship Pastor, you know that playing an instrument and singing is only about 10% of the job. Usually worship leaders begin leading worship because they’re musical, but then find they need to be a leader, theologians, pastors, shepherds, etc. Alex Enfiedjian from Worship Ministry Training sat down with Matt McCoy to talk about the importance of having administrative systems in a worship ministry, and how to implement them.

1. The “Why”

Why should Worship Pastors have administrative systems in their worship ministry?

Alex: “If you lead a ministry, you cannot have a healthy ministry without having good administrative systems. Unless you build solid, stable, reliable rhythm of a ministry it’s going to be chaos. People are going to be frustrated. You’re going to be frustrated! If you want to have an enjoyable ministry experience, it’s vital. You can’t have something healthy and growing if it’s unstable. If we’re last minute texting people, or the stage isn’t ready for rehearsal, people aren’t going to come back. They won’t want to give their time and energy to something that’s wasting their energy. You can’t have a healthy ministry without stability.”

If you don’t have things prepared regularly with systems in place, the chaos will start to weigh on your team and on you.

Alex: “If every week all of your energy is going towards putting out fires and managing chaos, then you have zero energy and time left to build the things you want to build and do the things you want to build. You can’t songwrite, you can’t disciple your team, because it’s so chaotic. Build a system place that works every week so that you can focus on the things you want to do.

2. The “What”

Once you establish that you want to implement these administrative systems, it may seem like a daunting task. But there are many very simple things that you can put in place that have a big impact on your ministry.

Alex: “What’s helpful is to think of it as rhythms and systems. Rhythms are doing the right things at the right time. They’re “when” you do certain things. Systems are doing those things the right way. Before you build either, it’s important to ask what you are trying to accomplish. What do you desire for your ministry? Then you can reverse engineer your system to get you towards that outcome.”

So whether you want to help your worship team become more like a family, or have your team be more prepared when they come to rehearsal, there are rhythms and systems you can put in place to achieve those goals.

Alex gave a few great ideas for systems that every worship team should have in place:

  • How to audition people – what are your steps for when someone comes to you and wants to join the team?
  • Onboarding a new team member – what are the resources and things they need to do to start?
  • Organizing your back stage area – don’t spend time looking for the same cables every week!
  • Creating community in your team – weekly hangouts? monthly events? what can build this outside of Sunday?

3. The “How”

Alex: “Ministry is a pattern. Sunday is coming every week. Why not set up your week so that you do the same things on the same days every week? Monday mornings I schedule my sets, Monday afternoon I send set notes to my team. It’s a habit. That’s the rhythm side of things.”

If everything feels chaotic with your team, make a weekly schedule. Write down what you need to do each day and stick to it. Then make a monthly task list for things you need to do once a month. That simple system right there can really help your entire team. Worship Ministry Training provides a great free worship calendar template that you can download if you need help getting started.

What do you do if a team member won’t follow the system that you put in place?

Matt: “I would take them out to coffee and explain why we have the system in place. It’s there to help them, and it’s there to help everybody. I would tell them straight that it would really help us if they follow them so that we can focus on other parts of ministry.”

Alex: “It’s about the relational piece. We need to show grace to our team, but also truth. The truth is that the reason our team operates well is that people are doing what needs to be done for the good of the team. But, you can’t have those conversations down the line if the expectations haven’t been set up front. Everyone who joins our team sits down with me and I go over what we expect. Then it’s my job as a leader to constantly reiterate and help teach the systems.”

Figuring out what you want to accomplish in your worship ministry and then putting in systems and rhythms in place to achieve those goals can have a huge impact on your entire team. You can watch the full interview below for more tips.

Resources

If you’re looking for more resources, tools and trainings on how to implement systems at your church check out WorshipMinistryTraining.com.