Eric and Emily talk about how to be a good leader on and off of the worship stage.
Subtitle: What Makes a Good Leader?
Lead by example: arrive practiced, prepared, punctual, and prayed up
Open with prayer: open practices and meetings with prayer, especially anytime you meet with a disgruntled team member
It’s okay to show what you don’t know. Delegate authority in areas where others are more knowledgeable. You’re a team, not a one man band.
Accentuate the positive. Anytime you hear the team or a member getting it right, point it out.
Roll up your sleeves. When there is work to be done, be the first person on the job.
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
Featured Ministry for this Episode
uSeminary™ is an online micro-certificate program for pastors and anyone who wants to know more about their faith. uSeminary™ is a department of Artists in Christian Testimony International. Learn more at useminary.org
Full Episode Transcript
Eric :
Hello and welcome to the worship band builder podcast where we're working with you to lay the foundation for skillful worship. I'm Eric Roberts. I'm joined by my cohost, Emily Roberts,
Emily:
episode two!
Eric:
episode two and it's Epic. Before we start today though, I'd like to tell you about you seminary, my friends there, they have an online micro certificate program for pastors and anyone who really want to know more about their faith and you can learn more and take courses@uwseminary.org and on that note you can also take some of the worship that King courses right there on the platform. So we are excited to be a part of helping even develop that platform as it was birth just about a year ago.
Emily:
Yes, very exciting. And these guys have hearts
Eric:
I gold, amazing teachers, amazing people. Really just check it out you seminary.org and today we're going to be talking about what makes a good leader.
Emily:
Okay. This is a tricky one.
Eric:
Yeah, I mean, why did you write this one in as podcast number two? Like let's just dig right down into these worship leaders and just really dig it out and say, what makes a good leader? Well, this is probably one of the biggest problems in all of ministry. When I look at any of the forums I've been on in the last couple of years for worship leaders, everybody's always just talking about all of these issues that really boil down to basic leadership has nothing to do with music. It's mostly people. And that is something I learned very young as a worship leader in a, in a bad way because I didn't just, I wasn't just born a great leader, you know, I just born, well I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. Some, you know, you hear that some people say, you know, you're just born. It was a born leader. And I do think some people are born with leadership qualities and I do believe that I was born with some leadership qualities. I've always kinda been a leader, but, but I've made some major mistakes along the way and it has been hard to be a good leader, especially on the worship stage.
Emily:
Well, it's not something that is taught in high school or college. They don't, uh, there's no course on how to be a great leader. And most of it, as you said, is about communicating with human beings. And I've known you now for over 20 years.
Eric:
I know I'm only 20. How would you know me? Where were you born in this?
Emily:
Yes, we were born the same day and we had our little baby conversations across the glass in the hospital
Eric:
years, you know, since we're in our early twenties now.
Emily:
And we still even as well as we know each other fail in our communication sometimes. So when we get out there with our worship team, um, it, it's very complicated and, and it can be difficult to always know the right thing to say or the right way to approach a team member.
Eric:
Yeah. So, you know, when I started this out, this is totally unscripted and I started thinking, well, maybe I was a born leader. Let me ask you that question and ask you just to send us your comments. If you're watching this on YouTube or listening on podcast, send us your comments. Let me know what you think about, you. Think about you as a leader because I really do think I was born to be a leader, uh, but I've also struggled to be a leader. So Hey, I can say that if I want to. I know it's all, it's all about you. But when you're a, when you're called to be a leader, when you're called into ministry, when you're called to be a worship leader, which some of you are, those things are that it is scary and there are, I think there are courses now, there are probably like courses out there on how to be a leader.
Eric:
Yeah, there's, there's a course, there are tons of courses on leadership and like you're not born and they hand you the books. Like, here, go be a leader, but as you want to be a leader, there's all kinds of stuff out there that you can learn even if you weren't. What we're going to talk about today should help a little bit. Yeah. And you're a leader in everything. Like now that we have a seven year old son, you know, it's, it's definitely uh, taught me a lot more about leading by example and knowing that people are watching you. So the first point, leading by example, it is, that was such a great segue right in there. And I didn't even think about that, but so, all right, think about lead by example. So arrive, practiced. We're going to shift this over to music because now that we know all of you are born leaders listening to to us, or at least those of you on my side of the table, uh, arrived, practiced, be prepared, be punctual, and be prayed up.
Eric:
Those are all things that you can do by. Isn't that what you want your team to do? Basically, I'll begin with P. they all begin with P I feel a new book coming on. But no, but for serious though, if, if you think about the things that you want your team to do and you're not doing them and you're not leading, so that again, yeah, if you, if you think about all the things you want them to do, like arrive prepared, prayed up, all this, be good, be whatever, but you're not doing them, then you are not leading. And I will tell you that, and I'll get to this later, I'm down here when we got the rule of the sleeves part. I don't want to spoil that too early, but you need to be leading by example. So whatever you think your best worship team member is, you know, I think it's easy for us to look at other people and say, well if everybody would do this, this and this and this, then this would be perfect.
Eric:
So start there since it's easy to do that. Write a list of all the things that you think you wish all your worship team members would do and then go ahead and put that list against your own actions. That might hurt a little bit. Am I staying? But that's the, that's the, that's the purpose of thinking like that. And when you're able to do that, then you'll become a better leader. You'll become a good leader. In fact, if you can't do that, you'll never be a leader. Those are strong words. I'm making up some, sir. I'm bringing some stuff to the mic today
Emily:
and fire and brimstone today, brother Eric.
Eric:
If you can't lead by example, and if you can't look at yourself, then you're never going to believe people. Let's go on. Let's go on to this next one. Emily,
Emily:
open with prayer. Uh, open practices and meetings with prayer. Especially any time you meet with a disgruntled team member, right?
Eric:
Never met with a disgruntled team member.
Emily:
I don't think I've ever needed to use the word disgruntled before.
Eric:
I'm sure many of you send us, send us some stuff today about disgruntled team members. We want to hear about that. Actually, I don't want to hear, that's all I hear about on the, on the forums. All I hear about is disgruntledness but, but this is good because I think, uh, Emily, Emily was a school teacher. I think we mentioned that in episode one. And she has had some disgruntled, she was a Christian school teacher.
Emily:
Yes. And this is such a beautiful example. Um, so I grew up in public school and um, just had no idea what a Christian education looked like until I was hired into a Christian school and watch some of the other teachers doing it. Um, and what they encouraged us as a faculty to do when it came time for parent teacher conferences was to pray before we started the conference. Now I was so nervous to do those first parent teacher conferences. Um, but I took that advice to heart and I prayed with every parent, every set of parents that came into my room. And in all the years that I taught there, I never had a single bad conference. We may have had to talk through some difficulties, some things that their children were struggling with, but no voices were ever raised. It was never a me against them situation. There was because I was able to convey to them through my prayer that that we were on the same team.
Eric:
Yeah, that's good. I mean I have had some slightly disgruntled or hard conversations with worship team members and you know when you can just pray and put it kind of evens the playing ground, you know, kind of, it kind of changes things. Also, you know, it's really easy to start practice and just go right through and just kind of, it's hard. It's kind of somewhat legalistic to think like if you think I have to pray before every little thing as a Christian, so I'm not for that. Totally. I'm kind of like a free spirit. But I do think that when we come to worship and you got all these people around you, if you can just say a few seconds prayer, you kind of acknowledging why you're all there.
Emily:
Yes, absolutely. It acknowledges you're there and it lets them hear your heart and it reminds you why you're there.
Eric:
Right? And also if you've got time, some of the best times that I used to have, uh, with my worship bands growing up was when we just prayed in a circle. We asked everybody real quick, if you have time to share and we'd pray for pray for each other. That prayer is really important. So lead by example, pray open with prayer and pray, pray a lot. Um, especially, especially when they're disgruntled, but even just the daily stuff. Now sometimes I'm cool with it. And just so you guys know, I might say a prayer like, Hey, God bless his practice. Thank you. Helpless. You know, it might be like less than 10 seconds, but yeah, that's on a speedy prayer prayer sometimes, but it's an acknowledgement of that. So, and, uh, so let's go on. So definitely be praying and this is that, that's kind of leadership for you. It's okay to show what you don't know. We talked about this last, um, in episode one and we talked about delegating authority to others and, uh, that are more knowledgeable and this is really important. If you can't do this, then it's going to be tough to be a leader.
Emily:
It is you, you just can't be good at everything. You can't be everywhere at once. Um, it, I don't want to brag on Eric here, but he should, he is capable in many areas and if you sat him behind the soundboard, he could run it with excellence. If you put him on stage, he can lead worship, he can sing, he can play guitar, he can do everything, but he can't do them all at once and neither can you
Eric:
and I can't do taxes. That's why I hire somebody to do the taxes, uh, or, or anything that's, I can mow a mean straight line down the grass too. Right. I can mow the grass. Well, I do that well, so I'm so glad she said. Yeah, we don't mow grass as much anymore. Um, but sometimes, you know, if I get really busy I'll delegate my grass mowing.
Emily:
There you go. And that that could really genuinely be part of this. You only have 24 hours in a day and maybe you don't have anybody else who can play guitar for you, but you might have somebody who can mow the grass while you're learning the part.
Eric:
Yeah. So it really comes down to who's going to mow the grass this summer.
Emily:
The whole point of the podcast is just who's going to mow the grass?
Eric:
No, but it is true. Just get, get people to help you. You're not a one man band, even though you know, for those of you that, um, want to be awesome, sometimes you think you can do it all. But to be, we're talking about being a good leader and being a good leader is really teaching people and developing people around you to do this stuff so you can still look awesome. Don't worry about that part. If you're worried about not looking awesome when you're a good leader, you'll even look awesome or okay. And that's going to be leading me to say accentuate the positive in anybody. Anytime anybody does anything right. You gotta be, and this is part of building a band part of doing what we're doing, built worship band Boulder, telling people they're doing a great job. Even if they're just doing okay, you gotta be like, you're kind of like a cheerleader to your team.
Emily:
Yes, that's right. They want that kind of feedback and that makes it okay when you need to say, Hey, I think you need to play that F as an F sharp right there, or whatever the case may be. It's okay to, they're more willing to take a criticism if you've been giving them positive reinforcement as well.
Eric:
Yeah, that wasn't on the sheet, but it is. I'm sort of tough as a leader if you're talking about being a good leader because they're going to be tough conversations like you're not playing this week or there's just going to be a lot of tough con. Even like you just said, Hey, will you play the right chord there? You're playing the wrong chord. If you are not building up rapport, if you're not accentuating the positive, if you're not like mr cheerleader, if you're not making them look good, then when you go tell him like, Hey, you need to play like tune your guitar, they'd probably be like upset with you. And that's kind of what I want to hear about on these forums a lot. It's a lot of little people. Stuff that is, is hard and it's never going to be easy. I don't want anybody to be listening to this today and thinking that, that, you know, we've got these answers for leadership because the leadership is not ever easy and it's not, especially in a worship team because I like to say musicians are weird and I can say that and nobody's ever, um, disagreed with.
Emily:
It's true. It is true. We are just on our own planet.
Eric:
Yeah. And being a musician, I can say that totally fine. Like musicians are weird. They are just weirdos, you know? And I kind of get that and I can kind of speak that language and I can kind of speak to and with that language. But, um, it, it is weird. It's like we all, like we have these little egos and we have all these things we need and like we want to play on stage for certain reasons. Then we become Christians. We want to do that for Christ. And there's all these different things running through a musician's brain. Now you're the leader. You got to work with that, understand where they're coming from, understand who they are. And that's why I think I see so many messy posts on all these forums. Like all of this stuff is always kind of [inaudible],
Emily:
not just because musicians are weird, but because communication is so complicated. And if I could just go back to the prayer piece of this. Um, pray for your worship team members on your own time. Write a list of everybody that's on your team and pray for them. Because if they're on your heart, if they're on your mind, you're going to be, um, more compassionate towards them. Um, you're going to be more understanding if, you know, if they're not prepared when they come or you know, maybe you, maybe it gives you an opportunity to realize why they're coming unprepared or showing up late or whatever the case may be. I'm praying for them. Can only help you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and definitely will help you,
Eric:
but why are people late? We can't, we can't even do that. They can't be an episode. We can have a hundred, a hundred reasons why my wife is late.
Emily:
Hey, I am much better about showing up on time. Places you have to admit.
Eric:
That's true. Definitely much better in the last couple of years. I don't know why. I don't know how that's happened.
Emily:
Well, it's funny because ever since I have had to get two people ready instead of just one person, I get to places on time more often than when I was just getting myself ready.
Eric:
Yeah, that's true. That's true. And if I, and why, why am I always late? I don't know. I don't know. I liked it. I'll tell you why though. I like to not, I don't like to be there on time, like early. So I try to be there on time, but then, you know, like being there on time to some people is late. So this is a whole whole mess. But as a worship leader, if you're a leader, you better be there on time. It'd be
Emily:
yes. And you, you're not late when you need to be on [inaudible].
Eric:
Right, right, right. Most of the time
Emily:
you're only late when you don't really want to be there.
Eric:
You know, if you show up late and leave early, then it didn't even happen. Um, all right, so this is a, this is definitely, uh, something that we want to talk about that I need to talk about and it's TA, it's about this, be a leader. Roll up your sleeves when there's work to be done. You gotta be the first person to be there and you're going to have to be the last person to leave. If you want people to follow you, you gotta be there. You gotta roll up your sleeves. And that's one thing I think that maybe when I was talking about being a born leader, you know, I just work hard when I'm motivated to do something and I put that in there when I'm motivated to do something because that's mostly element to this. Yes. If I'm not motivated to do something, I don't not doing it but, and that's not great. Ask my uh, junior high school teachers.
Emily:
But anything that had to do with worship, when you were leading worship, um, you were there, you are the guide climbing underneath the stage to run cables. Um, and maybe you don't know how to run cables. Maybe that's not a piece of it that you can do, but you can be there. You can show up first and you can run, get the guy a cup of coffee. If nothing else.
Eric:
You could get under the, you could, you could be there early even if you don't know how to, and you could be the one that crawls underneath there with all the spiders and cobwebs and then the worship could just hand you the cables and tell you where to plug them. That would be great. So no, there's a, there's a lot of, lot of things that we do. Once you get on stage and all the musics go on the light in the fog. If you guys have fog, if you're cool enough to have fog, Ooh, we don't have fog right now, but if you have fog, somebody's got to plug that thing in and get it to run and there's going to have fog. I hope we don't ever have fog. Fog, I don't want, I don't want fog. Fog really messes up my, anyway, that's a different podcast. But let's say you have lights and sound and all those things. By the time that countdown timer goes off and you start the music, there's tons of work to be done and it's always, it's never ending. So really what we're saying, if there's work to be done, be there, do it, get it done, and be the first one there. The last one out.
Emily:
Yes. This is not the time to delegate and go sit on the couch.
Eric:
Yeah. And so one time, and I'll tell this last story right before we end tonight. One time I was in charge of setting up the entire set for our big huge production Scrooge. And it was like the worst thing I did every year. But, um, the last year I did it, I told, uh, you know, I had a Sunday morning announcement and you remember that? What did I, what did I say on the Sunday morning announcement?
Emily:
You said something like, all of you guys that keep complaining to me that you don't have any friends show up come and work and you will make friends.
Eric:
Yeah. And everybody was kinda like shocked that I said that, but it worked. We had Paul from the public, Hey, if you don't have any friends, it's cause you're not doing anything in the church and not working in the church. And uh, we had like 30 or 40 guys show up that night, that weekend. Yeah. It really changed everything and we just, you know, we, that's what happens when you start working together. You start getting out your power tools and doing all the stuff that you're always going to do. You're always going to do that as a musician. You're always going to be doing something with power tools or trying to build a stage. We're trying to hang lights just goes along with the production of being in a band and it's a, to me, it's fun. And when you're doing this in church, it's a, it's a real time to connect.
Emily:
It really is. That's the time when you bond with people. It's when you're doing those little things that just have to get done.
Eric:
Yeah, that's it. So do it. Get to work, be a leader. And if you have any questions, you can always get free help. One-on-one help, right on our website, we're [inaudible] dot com and you can also save 10% on your order of foundations courses or anything. If you use the code podcast@worshipvanbuilder.com I want to say thank you for listening. Make sure you like share and subscribe to the channel and to the podcast and we will see you on the next episode.