HOW TO MAKE SCHEDULING AND SET SELECTION EASIER
Things you can do this year to make your job easier.
plan way ahead - songs and band schedule out 3-4 months at a time
Play in the zone.... Pick songs that are in your teams comfortable playing zone.
Focus on your strengths as a leader and delegate things you aren’t good at
Eliminate worry.... make a list of your weaknesses and then make a plan to get those areas stronger
Verbalize your vision to your team
If you need more musicians.... make that known to your church and open a path to training. Set some goals to train new musicians.
Get 10% off your order in the online store use code: PODCAST www.worshipbanduilder.com
Get one-on-one help from Eric to help you decide what the best next step is for you on your journey to grow your worship ministry in your local church. https://www.worshipbandbuilder.com/get-help
Full Transcript
Eric:
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the worship band builder podcast where we are working with you to lay the foundation for skillful worship. I'm Eric Roberts and this is my cohost Emily Roberts.
Emily:
Hello, it's our first episode yay!
Eric:
our first episode ever, and you're here with us. So we're excited about that. And we also have a couple of other firsts. Our first drums and bass foundation courses are launching today. The day the podcast drops,
Emily:
Oh yay!
Eric:
I didn't tell her that before so she didn't know. But if you are interested in drums and bass, you can go to the website, worship band builder.com and you can click on drums and bass and you will also also save 10% on your order if you use code podcast. And I just blew her out of her seat. She speeches, she doesn't know what to say.
Emily:
Code podcast.
Eric:
And today we're talking about how to make your job less stressful and more enjoyable.
Emily:
Yes, we titled this one. You can thank yourself later because everything we're telling you today, all of these tips will make your job so much more enjoyable. It will take all of the stress out of what you're doing.
Eric:
Yeah. When being a worship leader or being in a band is can be very stressful
Emily:
if you let it get ahead of you.
Eric:
Yeah. Probably some of the most stressful moments in my life have been based around being a worship leader or being in a band or trying to perform or trying to learn songs. And sometimes I go, why am I doing this to myself? I could just be sitting on a beach somewhere doing something, but we know why we're doing it. That's not what today's episode is about, but we don't want to freak out and be so stressed out. So there are some things on our list that we can do this year. This is the beginning of the year, the beginning of 2020 that we can do to make our job easier. And I'm going just going to start going down these, uh, we'll talk about 'em plan way ahead. This is songs and band scheduling, three to four months at a time,
Emily:
three to four months. That sounds like a lot.
Eric:
Yeah, that sounds like an overachiever. Worship leader over achiever. You're going to plan out three or four months in advance, your set schedule and your band schedule or your songs. That's, that's doable, but it's crazy. What do you think about that?
Emily:
Do you give that schedule out to your band members ahead of time so they can give you a heads up on whether they can be a part of that, if they can help when you need them to help?
Eric:
Yeah, I say yeah, and I think this is something that I learned years ago when I was scheduling three to four months out. Actually I started doing it when I was getting really um, organized and it started. I started noticing it was actually easier to schedule three to four months out than it was to just schedule a month out and then kind of keep going a month, a month. The month goes by so fast. By the time you get your, you know, your schedule done, you think you're all finally done, you got that out of your head, it's a month later and you got people that you have to reschedule again. So we can talk a little about how you do it. Yeah, I would schedule three to four months out. I would use a spreadsheet. Now, this was before planning center and some date and a way back, but I think planning center had just sort of come on the scene, but you could schedule people out three to four months.
Eric:
But I had rotating bands and a schedule that went out three to four months. And then like the song list can be scheduled out pretty far. And there's really a lot of reasons to do that, but you can also change it so it's not like set in stone. So if you get your four month plan, uh, you know who's playing in the band, you've got everybody kind of, yes, I'm going to play and we can talk more about that in future episodes about how rotating bands and creating that kind of scenario. But the idea of for this for today is that if you can get planned out three to four months in advance, then for those three to four months things will run smoother and your stress levels will melt away. It will be and people know what's going on.
Emily:
Yes. Letting everybody else in on what you're doing is crucial to making a cohesive team. And I think planning the songs out ahead of time makes good sense because you don't have to remember what you did last week. Planning at the last minute means you've probably already forgotten what you did last week and then you have to remember, okay, what songs did we do? Cause I don't want to repeat that. Um, what songs did we do two weeks ago? Cause it might be too soon for this song or that song. You know, if you've planned those all out ahead of time, then you can put the songs in place and not worry about it anymore.
Eric:
Yeah. And you know, if you plan ahead, there's a couple of good things about planning ahead. One is and the people will know what's going on. So if you know your drum, if you know your drummers schedule and he knows his work schedule, you know if you're dealing with people who are saying, well, I only know my schedule every two weeks. I mean this is, people don't really work on Sunday either. Really? Do they? I mean some people do so so it depends on, yeah, I guess your job, you could work.
Emily:
A lot of people's kids have sports stuff on Sunday.
Eric:
Yeah, they do. That's true. So you really have to have a committed group and you have to say this is the commitment you're making and then we're planning out three to four months. The worst thing to do is be planning week to week or every two weeks. People that really are committed are going to not really know what's going on. Look here, here's the thing. I would take three to four months on a spreadsheet. I would put the bands and I would rotate the bands I would give them. They're kind of there. This is the, this is what's happening. Along with that. I would give them the set list that were sort of in a draft mode, but they were like pretty much 85% done and they would be all the way out for four months so you can plan we're, we're introducing this new song, you can plan where you know, doing these extra practices or we can plan around these holidays.
Eric:
Where I practice is changing. All of that's ahead of time so these people know it. So three to four months out in a draft form, but it's 85% complete is really, you know, perfection because you can fill in then each week or each couple of weeks you can just fill in those things. The other thing for the band is they can be practicing the songs for months in advance and that that's really a key to to, to making it less stressful. Yeah, and really as a worship leader, for me it was just, it became just a maybe more of a selfish thing. I mean it helped the whole team, but it was about me. It wasn't about the team really. It does help the team, but for me, I just knew after literally a couple hours on a Monday morning I could have four months planned and then that was my infrastructure that I could put that aside instead of just frantically, always trying to plan. It was about, it was about me, it was about me being confident, knowing what's coming and then the band liked it too. And when you have to change, you have to change, but you are planning way in advance.
Emily:
Okay, so the next one on here says play in the zone. What do you mean by that?
Eric:
Play in his own well, pick songs that you can play so it doesn't matter what level of player you are. If you're very beginner and you have a small, you know, very beginning team or if you're, you know, a highly, highly professional player and you're playing with highly professional people or you could be a highly professional player playing with a lot of beginners, whatever it is, it's your job kind of as the director, worship leader, volunteer, whatever you are to know what your zone is, to know what is going to be successful. So if you don't have a really strong electric player, don't pick a lot of really strong electric lead guitar songs from Lincoln Brewster. Uh, you know, in his stuff, his newer stuff isn't so like that, but the older stuff was. So you have to be real careful in picking your songs and arranging them to be in a zone that makes you successful. I think that's probably one of the biggest hangups when you're getting started or even as you're going, is trying to do more than you can because that's going to be stressful.
Emily:
It's, it frustrates the whole band when, when you have a song that not everybody is at that playing level. Um, reminds me of when I used to go to holiday dinners at my grandmother's house. And she would say, now, grandma doesn't care what you take as long as you eat everything on your plate. You know, and that's kind of what we do is we, we get these grand visions of, of what we think we want, but then we really can't finish the plate.
Eric:
Right. And I've done that before. I mean, I've had, uh, in my, as I was growing one of my bands, once I would, I would hear a song, I would just think this is it, this is a song. And then about halfway through practice, I would just shut it down and be like, we're not doing this song, this song. It's gonna wait. I mean, you're, you're constantly pushing the zone, or at least I was. But, um, sometimes you push that zone too far and you go, okay, this just isn't, this doesn't sound like I want it to, and I don't think it's gonna sound like it for now. So we're going to scrap the song. That's okay too. When you're, when you're trying to find your zone, it's okay to test it out and it's, and you're going to have to, especially if you take on a new church or if you're starting a new band and you're getting new volunteers, they may surprise you and be able to play really well.
Eric:
Some hard stuff, even different styles like country or gospel or you know, more rock modern stuff. It's your guys and your girls on the band, they're going to have a talent level to certain styles as well. So I know that song I was trying to do was an Amy Grant song and it had more of a country vibe to it, but our band was very much more like Tomlin rock band and it just sounded terrible. So I was like, no, we're not doing this song, but I wanted to do it bad. Um, but I, but I didn't and it was better for the whole band in the church.
Emily:
So, so far we've done a plan way ahead, play in the zone, and next on the list is focus on your strengths and delegate the things you're not good at.
Eric:
Ooh. Yeah, that's a tough one. Delegation is really hard to learn and finding you're figuring out what you're good out is also, I think hard to learn if you're going to be a good leader though I think you have to really be able to kind of put down your pride. You know, we're, we're in this to be as good as we can and to do as good of a job as we can and we're as leaders, we're kind of, people are looking at us, you know, at least in my experience, once you are become the leader, then people are kind of looking at the whole program and it's sorta like, this is because say Eric is doing this is this is good because he's doing good or this is bad because he's doing bad. So you kind of have to learn to gauge that where, what am I really good at? Because if you're not good at scheduling three to four months ahead, but you know, you need to then find somebody who's somebody out there is really, really obsessed with scheduling way ahead and they, you know, they're just different people. I'm, I'm not like that
Emily:
to help. They're looking for an opportunity to be a part of the worship team. So that could be somebody who's not even a musician per se, but they have a love of music man. They could help you line up your musicians and take care of that piece of it for you. And that would be one weight off of your shoulders.
Eric:
Yeah. Yeah. You want to really get to a place where you're confident as a leader, you know who's around you. And that's kind of like focusing on your strengths. If you're a great arranger, then arrange, you know, maybe you, maybe that's one thing you hold close to the vest. You don't let a lot of people come and arrange your music, but then if you're really not great at, you know, running rehearsals or um, running sound or things like that, find people scheduling, find people to do these things, um, and delegate them. Delegating is really probably the only way to really grow your ministry and as a whole overall, because people, like you said, they're going to get involved. Then they're going to feel like I'm a part of this. And they'll start investing really time. They'll invest time, they'll invest money, they'll invest instruments, they'll invest. All of the things that you need to grow your ministry, if they feel a part of the ministry.
Emily:
I think that a lot of us get stuck in that. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself mindset. Uh, but truly I think, uh, my degree is in teaching and one of the most important things that I, most important pieces of advice I think that anybody ever gave me was just to say, you don't always have to have the answer. It's okay to say, I don't know, but let's look it up together. Now that's a teaching example, but for, for worship, you can say, I'm not really comfortable with this soundboard, but I know who is, and you go to them for that, for that piece of it,
Eric:
right? Yeah. So maybe instead of, you know, some people are really good at what they're good at. I was talking to one of my friends day and I'm like, you're, you're good at telling people that you're good at this. And you know, and I'm pretty good at that too. You know, you're good at tell people, yeah, you're good at telling people you're good at things. And I was just kind of teasing him because we've kind of like, it's always kinda been like a joke between us and, and uh, you know, every guitar player has an ego, you know, so it's like you get to, we were talking about guitar and it was like, well, you're always, you're, you're, you're always good at telling everybody how good you are at guitar. So that's just kind of a, the way guitar players are, you know, they're really fast, tell you like, look at all I can do.
Eric:
Um, but maybe if you're good at that, just write down your strengths or what better on the list here is eliminate your worry by making a list of your weaknesses instead. So write down some things that you hate. And really your week newness is like for me, it's like taxes, you know, doing the T, doing all the paperwork. That's like, I'm a creative person. So yeah, I want to like play with the sound board, but then if you tell me to like go do the taxes, I'm like, I'm not really good at that because I don't want to do it. So, um, write down what you're not good at. You know what you're not good at because you pretty much don't want to do it. And when you do it, it's just, okay. So I would say write down the list of your weaknesses and then try to make those stronger, but then try to find people that are, you know, the point is you don't have to.
Eric:
Yeah. The point is you don't have to do it all yourself. You're good at some things, but you're not good at all things. I mean, I think as a worship leader and as a leader in general, if we can admit to our own selves, like, we stink at this and we can know that that's okay, then maybe we'll be okay. Uh, delegating that to people. And I've, I've always done that. There is something you said earlier, you know, if you want it done right, do it yourself. There are some things in your ministry that, that you're going to know that if I want this done cause I, I do have that problem. But if you want it done, do it yourself. And I'm a doer, I'm a self doer. I do everything. I try to do everything myself and I'll figure it out. But in ministry, there's a lot of times when you're like, no, I'm going to have these people do these things. Some of these things you're only going to want to do yourself and you're going to know that if I do this part, it's going to be the best. I'm the best person to do this part. That's okay.
Emily:
Yes. Oh absolutely. I mean, they hired you for a reason.
Eric:
Yeah. So do your part, do your best and then find other people that you know to fill in the gaps. Um, so let's talk about vision. I mean, we're talking a lot about planning out and trying to find strength and weaknesses. One thing I think that kind of brings us all together is vision. When you're around a team,
Emily:
what kind of vision should a worship leader have? Are we talking about goals for the future? Maybe building a bigger band or maybe it's that challenging song that you're trying to reach. W what are we talking about as a vision for the worship team?
Eric:
Well, I'm saw on the paper here it says verbalize your vision to the team. And what I'm thinking is if you do have a vision, if you write it out three to four months, that's a vision. You know, here's the songs that we're gonna do. This is a vision for the team. Uh, if you are, if you are saying, I'm not good at this, but I envision a team that's strong, so we're going to have other people plug in. So you're verbalizing the whole vision. Like you, if you say like, we're going to have the best sounding worship band and we're going to have the tightest band and we're going to also have this, you know, really, um, large worship ministry where all these people are involved. You're giving vision. But you're not, you're not going to build it all yourself. So you're opening the door to, so I think as you're putting together these plans and as you're focusing on your strengths and doing all this, you're, you're also communicating a vision, a greater vision other than, Hey, I'm, I'm Eric, I'm here to lead worship and I'm just gonna make this happen for everybody.
Eric:
And then just everybody follow me and this'll be fine. That's one way that we can do ministry. And that's um, I've done ministry like that before where it's like I'm here, I know what I'm doing, I'm going to just play and everybody's falling behind and we'll just make this happen and we'll just kind of get by. That's one way of doing it. But when you are talking about verbalizing your vision in all of these things we're doing, we're verbalizing per se a vision to them that we are, we are, we are in deeper, we are in together w we are building our wink, building our strengths and weaknesses together and we're going to fill in the gaps.
Emily:
So I think maybe one piece of that would be the structure of your practices. Everybody, if everybody knows that we show up 10 minutes early to make sure that our instruments are plugged in, tuned up, you know, microphones are in place, all of that kind of stuff, you know, um, we get together and pray before we start. If there's a routine, if there's an expectation that could be part of the vision, couldn't it?
Eric:
Yeah. I think that's part of setting that whole thing, that setting that team vision. Uh, ma, the whole, the whole point of this is to make your job easier, so and less stressful. Is it stressful when everybody shows up 10 minutes late and then the sound guy doesn't come to practice? None of that. None of those scenarios have ever felt stress less to me. That's always the Stressless. They've all felt like full of stress and anxiety, especially like Sunday morning because nobody showed up for practice or half the people practiced and half didn't. To me as a worship leader. That is, that's why I'm talking about, you know, I would rather just go to the beach and just forget this because you get in these moments where you didn't plan ahead, you didn't have a vision, you didn't have a set time. You know, we really, um, you know, one, everybody here, you didn't have that. So you live under this. Is this going to, are we going to pull this off? I mean, are we gonna, is this gonna sound right in 30 minutes when church starts you, you don't want to be in that position. The only way to get out of that position is to go back to that morning where you're planning out four months where you're filling in the weaknesses, where you're getting more volunteers.
Emily:
So when we say verbalize your vision, we're really talking about making your expectations clear.
Eric:
Yeah. To you and the team and setting up a framework that actually works so that when you're standing up there at nine 59 and the countdown clock is it, you know, one minute, you know, I've got this, you know, my strongest players are in play, you know, um, we've known about the setlist for weeks or months. You, you have fun. And I, I got to that place in my ministry at one time where everybody was sort of in place and that, that this is really where a lot of these techniques that we're going to be talking about over the next year on the worship band, Boulder podcasts come from come from real life experiences where yeah, I've been the worship leader where the countdowns that at one minute or we can't even get the countdown on because you know, we weren't there in time and we're just kind of going, you know, flying by the seat of our pants and hoping it goes well. And then I've been in a scenario where we know all of everything's there and we've, we've practiced and our best players are in play. And that's when there is no stress. That's when it became fun. That's when worship leading and church band building became fun for me.
Emily:
And that's when everybody else is having fun. That's when everybody wants to play every week. They're so excited to be there. They're confident and they know that they sound good together. Um, that's a good place to be. You said something, um, about making the vision clear even to yourself and that's um, a point too that sometimes our, our vision for our team can be unrealistic and we have to be able to check and balance that. We can't say everybody show up 10 minutes until six. If we know that one of our band members doesn't get off work until six o'clock and they got to um, you know, run home and grab their base or whatever it is, um, that's not a realistic re realistic expectation for your band as a whole. So, um, knowing what you want and fitting that to your team, um, takes a little bit of work.
Eric:
Yeah, it can take, it takes a lot of work and it also can create a lot of stress. Like I say, friction in your own life and in their life. And as a leader, if you're committed to that church and to those people, then you have to be able to, and we'll be talking about this in future podcast, but you have to be able to work with that team, cast that vision and pull them on. I know, I remember times when I've asked my drummer, Hey, I need you to be here for, you know, three weeks a month. And he's kinda like, I don't know if I can do this and you know, pray about it. And really this is the vision of the team. This is the teams that we're building. This is how we're going to be rotating. And so you, you're not just working by yourself like everybody has to do what you say, but as a real leader with less stress, you're, you're looking at each one of those guys and girls as a part of the greater team.
Eric:
And they do. Yeah, they do have kids. They have everything. So the fix, the verbalizing, the vision helps remove the friction, but it happens over time. So, you know, one of the biggest stresses probably that I've, I've felt that I listened to worship leaders and pastors all over United States say they don't have enough musicians to fill the stage or they just can't get enough people to play. So if that is what we're talking about instead of, Hey, we have so many musicians, we're rotating. I mean if you feel that you're like, feel good about yourself, but a lot of you are saying, Hey, I can't find enough drummers or we only have one drummer and you can only play every other week. And that's what worship van builders, foundations courses are all about. And so as we close out today, we'll talk about that a little bit.
Eric:
How you can actually take people out of the pews and get them on the stage playing with you, integrating them into your team, giving them foundational training that makes it them know, Hey, I can do this. I can live up to the expectations of the worship leader and the band. And you got to know there are people out there right now in your Pew that are going, I wish I could play the bass or I want to play the drums. And as I mentioned in the beginning, we just released this week just today we're dropping the drums and bass foundations courses. So you can check out on our website today, worship band, builder.com and it will help you systematically build more musicians in your team. You can also save 10% if you use code podcast.
Emily:
So this is our final tip is getting people out of the pews and onto the stage because that seems to be a common stress factor for worship leaders is, you know, I'm always hunting for somebody who can play the bass. I've got one guy, and if he doesn't show up, then I'm scrambling. Um, our program is so simple and it's so affordable and if it's not affordable to you, we find a way to make it affordable because we want you to have musicians. Um, and we, we want you to succeed. This is, this is worship to the Lord and, um, it should be an honor and a privilege and not, um, a point of anxiety. So if we can help you do that, I find our website, like Eric said, a worship band builder.com and uh, even talk to us, give us a call. We can help you with any of this.
Eric:
Yeah, it's pretty easy right there on the website. If you're listening to this for the first time, maybe you're just getting to know us. Uh, there is a, there is a place right there you can ask for one on one help. So that's actually just a conversation with me on the phone. And, uh, you can also ask her financial assistance through our unite program where we have people who are donating to help smaller churches. Because you know, right now that that is a problem. You're a small church. Maybe you need instruments, you need budget, you need musicians and training. Uh, could that, that, that affordable price that we think is affordable to your small church may just be out of the limits of your mind to be able to afford that. And when that happens, just let us know. We have, uh, people who are willing to donate those, uh, training, ministry training tools to you.
Eric:
And you know, really it's all about starting the journey, thinking to yourself, I know what I want, I want, if you're a pastor or a worship leader, I want a stress free worship environment where people can meet God, they can, they can come in and when they leave they can feel like they've, they've been changed, they've worshiped, they've used, they've made that expression through music. And in order to do that, we have to do, there is a lot that leads up to that. You don't just Willy nilly walk up to the stage and throw on a track and then it just happens. There's a lot of planning, and if you're listening this far into this podcast today, I believe that you are called and you are developing talent in yourself or in your church, and that's the thing you have to remember is you're called to do this and that God is giving you and will give you the strength to do it.
Eric:
If you just press in and do the right things, plan ahead, nothing just happens. You know, just maybe when you meet that one you love, you see him for the first time, things just happen. But you know when you're talking about across the table into your microphone has, and you say, this has got to be the one, but that's what we have today. So we thank you for joining us in the worship band podcast, and we'd like you to take a moment just to share this, to hit the light button. If you're listening on YouTube now, you can listen to the podcast anywhere. You can get your podcast also on YouTube and any other platform in the entire universe. What a great world we live in today. God bless you guys.
Speaker 3:
[inaudible].