A message from Vijay
Firstly – we have a great worship team ! Our church really appreciate the effort you put into preparation and delivering the worship – even if nobody mentions it to you please be assured that our worship leaders get regular positive feedback on how much people enjoy the songs – it’s overwhelmingly positive !
Leading God’s people in worship is an awesome privilege and this has associated responsibilities. We’ve tried here to highlight what we believe are the key attributes and behaviours that we’d like every worship team member to model – we’ll send this link out regularly and we’d ask everyone to review it. Whether you’re an existing team member or an aspiring musician or techie we need everyone to be in agreement with the principles described below.
THE ATTRIBUTES OF A WORSHIP TEAM MEMBER
This short piece is a great summary of what we should be aiming for as worship team members
ROTA
When you receive the email about the rota you must respond quickly with any dates when you are unavailable as we have a very short time to organise the 3 month rota for the next quarter. Because of the time constraints, we’re only able to include those who reply within the timescales which will be highlighted in the email requesting availability.
PRACTICE
Normally the songs will be sent out by email by the Thursday before the Sunday service. Please use the time to run through the songs, paying particular attention to any notes which the worship leader may have included about intros, style etc. The worship leader will also ask you to confirm whether you’ll be there on Sunday so this is a good opportunity to confirm your attendance.
Practice shouldn’t just be about learning the songs for Sunday. We are making an offering to God of our talents so it’s important to continually develop ourselves as musicians – this will involve personal practice which can in itself be an opportunity to worship – it will be different for everyone but if you’d like any help or advice please ask Vijay or any of the band members as there are many ways to develop a consistent approach to developing as a musician.
We’ll be organising regular structured practice sessions which will give us the opportunity to start to bring on new musicians and also for existing musicians to work on some of the material we use regularly.
ATTENDANCE
If you are going to be unavailable for a service please try to find a replacement yourself – please only contact the worship leader as a last resort as they are very busy in preparation which involves study and prayer as well as choosing songs and liaising with the speaker etc. so they have limited time available.
As we only have a limited amount of practice time it’s important that everyone arrives at church on Sunday ready to start a practice at 9am – so if you have an instrument this means that it’s in tune and plugged in ready to go by 9am. For techies this means that you should arrive before 9 to check batteries etc and get everything switched on.
ON STAGE
Because the band are standing behind the speakers it’s very difficult to get a good idea of the overall sound which the congregation are hearing, it’s also difficult to hear other instruments. It’s important that you use the in-ear system provided as this ensures that everyone gets a good mix, please ask the techs for help with this if you are unfamiliar with it. Persisting with this will ensure that we as a band deliver the best possible result and it will help us all develop a better, tighter sound.
For vocalists – please stand close to the microphone. If you watch any vocalist on TV you’ll see that they’re singing within a couple of inches of the mic – this is a bit scary at first but again please persist with it and it will get easier !