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- Musicianship → Mentorship → Discipleship
Every ministry in your church gives unique opportunities for discipleship—and the worship team is one of the best places to do it.
As more teams embrace higher production and performance levels in their services, regardless of traditional vs. modern styles, it's easy to shift attention away from what really matters:
Glorifying God with our craft and leading others to do the same.
Let's dig in.
Nurture Talent to Inspire Confidence
When someone joins the team and they're relatively new to doing "worship," it's crucial to set them up for success. Sure, there has to be a minimum ability for them to play an instrument or sing, but give them attainable goals—and praise them when they make progress.
When criticism is warranted, always "sandwich" it with positives and be direct in addressing what needs to be corrected. This way, you can help the team member lean into their strengths and use them to build up the weaker areas. You'll most likely need to help them with their:
Time
Tone
Tuning
Tastefulness
Inspire Confidence to Strengthen Character
Once you've inspired confidence in the new people on your team, you can then use that confidence to strengthen their character by giving them larger goals and responsibilities, much like a mentor does for an apprentice.
Think of this like a couple of apprenticeship examples we see in the Bible:
Moses and Joshua
Elijah and Elisha
Each mentor took time to train their pupil, directly giving correction but always encouraging them. For your team, this looks like exercising new responsibilities and meeting new challenges:
Vocalists become song leaders.
Instrumentalists become music directors.
Team members get cross training in tech roles.
Strengthen Character to Pass the Torch
Looking back at our biblical examples, we see a passing of the torch from mentor to apprentice that leads to greater kingdom work:
Moses led the people to the promised land, but it was Joshua who actually helped them set foot in it, conquering Canaan and seeing God's promise fulfilled.
Elijah faithfully spoke God's word to kings, lords, and commoners, and he performed about 7 recorded acts of power. What about Elisha? Well, he prophesied, too—and he performed 14 recorded acts of power!
So in your own ministry, you can shape your team to go from handling a few key responsibilities to eventually running larger parts of your projects:
Song leaders plan out worship services.
Music directors become arrangers.
Those who've cross trained become producers/directors.
The Key That Holds It All
As you take your team through this journey of mastery and responsibility, it's VITAL that you sow seeds of spiritual fruit; this informs how well they adapt and progress in their skills, and God uses it to bring each individual into a deeper relationship with Him.
When you demonstrate and discuss how to balance music, production, and excellence in the context of:
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
self control
...then you're increasing the chances that those lessons are honed and passed on to another generation, who pass it to the next, and the next, and the next...
And right now, it's more important than ever—because it's what helps keep the church from dying.
A Call to Action
Right now, the American church sees a hefty amount of young people leaving the faith after high school—it's over 60% of graduates that drop away from the faith.
BUT—if those students receive intentional mentorship and discipleship, then they have at least 2 times a lower chance of leaving. (Doing the math, that's 20–25/100, compared to 60–65/100.) That's a HUGE difference.
And that's where an exciting new initiative called Worshiping Musician comes in.
Worshiping Musician is a platform that uses music education to disciple young people so they can carry on a heritage of faith in the years to come. In their own words, it's "a movement to see the next generation deeply rooted in Christ, engaging in their church families, and spreading the joy of worship music across the globe."
We're excited for what they're doing, and they need YOUR help to make it happen.
Below you'll find a BackerKit link that explains their mission and method more in-depth, and when you've watched the video, please consider supporting this movement to sow into the next generation of worshippers.
Be blessed 👊✌️