Drawing Musicians To Your Ministry
Gary Lamb wrote a very insightful little post about drawing musicians to your church. This is definitely worth a read.
1.) We have spared no cost in equipment. From day one we have spent a large % of our finances on sound equipment. In 15 months we have probably have bought about $100,000 of sound equipment. Our service we had musicians show up and they stayed when they saw that equipment. Why? Because it showed we were serious about that area.
This is something we’ve done a good deal of as well, we barely have anything right now, but as far as sound equipment (in large part due to some very generous donations) we’ve got a sweet and huge soundboard, good speakers and all, and even in-ear monitors for all our musicians. For the size of building we’re currently in I believe we’re very high-end sound equipment-wise.
2.) We hired a GREAT leader. Tim is without a doubt one of the best worship pastors I have ever been around. I thank God every day for him. I am not a musician but our musician’s love him. Far too many worship pastors are good front men but not good leaders. Tim is both.
We’re in kind of a weird process, trying to figure out this worship pastor thing. Currently, I’m the head charge of worship as something that falls under Creative Director and we also have a couple of our musicians who are called to be worship leaders. We’re still sort of figuring this all out as we go but we definitely do not have a shortage of quality leadership.
3.) Great musicians draw great musicians. Your rarely find one musician. You find a group of them. They hang out together and all know other musicians. I found this out and as a non-musician it didn’t make sense. Great musicians would rather play once every 6 weeks with other great musicians and great equipment then play every week with poor musicians and poor equipment.
This is so true. One thing that is great is that Peter (our Pastor) and I were in a band together for nearly 4 years which puts us on a connection level with other musicians.
4.) We let them do their thing. I don’t know music so I let those guys do what they do best and that is rock. Far too many pastors try and tame the band and make them fit some mold. I didn’t think our music would be as heavy as it is but that is the type of musicians we have so that is what we allow them to do.
This is good advice for the future, right now we’re all so involved in everything because we’re small.
5.) We have a professional sound guy. From day one we have had a professional sound guy. At first it was my friend Scott King and then we transitioned over to our current guy who actually travels with some of the huge worship leaders of the day. Nothing will frustrate musicians faster then bad sound quality.
We have been really blessed with both very experienced and knowledgeable tech people (including sound) as well as very willing and quick-learning volunteers. We plan to run United Foursquare with a very Jedi Master and Apprentice style of letting the skilled people bring others under their wing and create new leaders out of them.
6.) We are guitar driven. I know that sound weird but it is true. Most churches who say they are contemporary are keyboard driven. There are very few rock bands that are keyboard driven so when musicians hear this they think it is lame. Most rock bands are guitar driven so when they hear our music they are drawn to wanting to play in the band.
Frickin yah! This is one thing that I am fully behind. It’s sad because right now we’r ekind of limited to just an acoustic guitar-lead set, but soon we’ll ahve electric guitars and it will be seriously rockin!
Sweet, thanks for the post Gary!
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