Dealing with Worship Band Frustration

I’ve noticed that many people who are playing in worship bands these days will eventually have the same question. The question in….umm…question is: “How do you deal with frustration within or with your worship band?” This question can mean a lot of things. It could mean that you have a specific issue with an individual in the band. It could mean that you have an issue with the style of music being played. It could mean that you have an issue with the leadership. It could mean that you have a problem with those around you not following your leadership. Suffice it to say that this question is a rather wide-ranging one. I even noticed a few people checking out this page for help with frustration in their worship band. So I thought it would be apt to dole out a few thoughts regarding some of the issues that will inevitably arise in most praise band settings.

Begin From A Biblical Perspective
The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
-1 Timothy 1:5

Everybody begins an argument from a perspective. In the whole of your Christian life, always make a true effort to begin from a God-centered, Christ exalting, biblically based perspective. The Bible contains such better wisdom than we could ever hope to drum up on our own. The 1Timothy passage above reminds us of the kind of attitude that we ought to have in approaching all things in life. If you don’t remember to act in love, you may end up acting in spite or rage, which does not produce the righteousness that God requires (James 1:20). Let all interactions between you and the other praise band members issue from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith. If we don’t do those things then we are not honoring God as Lord. Let that inspire a certain degree of fear and trembling within you. Let it be well known to your heart that by acting out of selfishness you are not honoring the one and only true God.

Create a Statement of Core Values
I’ve been working on a statement of core values for our praise band for a little while now and I hope to complete it soon. The reason that I decided to move forward with the creation of a set of core values had everything to do with where God was moving my heart. Those participating in the praise band simply need to know why the praise band exists and they need to have a clear understanding of why the band functions like it does. A word of caution though…don’t develop a statement of core values based around your personal values. It could be possible that not all of your personal values are in line with the Gospel. Consider that you, as an individual, are perpetually flawed. This is not an insult, it is merely a statement of fact. None of us have attained perfection or complete righteousness. Therefore, it is always necessary for us to weigh all that we do and say against the light of God’s word. If your arguments do not hold up under the scrutiny of scripture then your viewpoint is probably not in line with the gospel. Your statement of values should be chock full of biblical foundation. If it is not then it will be open for great speculation and debate.

Create A Welcoming Atmosphere for Worship
As a worship band (praise team, praise band…whatever you call it) we have several responsibilities. Everyone within the group must understand these responsibilities. Our top priority is always to glorify God. Everything in a corporate worship setting trickles down from this one main objective. In a corporate setting, we should always attempt to create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable to worship. Creating this “atmosphere” requires many things. It requires great discernment regarding song choice. It requires great discernment in leading the songs. It requires that the band be well rehearsed and prepared to lead the songs. The list could go on and on. If you’re experiencing frustration with your worship band, for whatever reason, then it’s highly possible that you, as a group, are actually inhibiting the worship environment. Sometimes this stems from something as simple as poor playing. God can certainly work through all our failings but we should always strive to “play skillfully” before God. Young musicians, or overly confident musicians, often have trouble understanding that they are merely a small part of a larger machine. This can spell all kinds of disaster. Such persons can make a spectacle of themselves or they can simply get carried away and basically make any song fall apart. When a band doesn’t play well together there’s always added potential for frustration to occur between band members and there’s also the chance that you’ll be frustrating the people in front of you. Here are some tips for avoiding frustration in this area of your worship band. These are, by the way, in no particular order.

Develop Musical Competency Amongst All “New” Musicians: Every band requires the proper musicians with the proper attitude about their objectives as well as the proper attitude about the kind of music that they’re playing. If not, the whole operation is more likely to come unglued. If someone comes into the church and they have a desire to play in the praise band, that desire should be cultivated by the leaders of that praise band. It must be clear from the beginning that new musicians come into the praise band on a “practice basis” first. This means that all they should do at first is practice with the band. They don’t enter into the corporate worship time immediately, unless they prove themselves capable to do so. For example, if someone just can’t follow the lead sheets, and they don’t really know their chords or note positions on the neck of the guitar, then they need more practice. Let’s face a difficult fact: If someone doesn’t know what they’re doing and they suddenly insist on playing loud and wrong, they’re going to draw attention to themselves. This assists people in taking their minds off God and focusing entirely on the individual creating the distraction. Ergo, the worship atmosphere becomes compromised. Let’s keep this on a biblical foundation. The Bible calls for skillful musicians. Psalm 33:3 says, “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” 1 Chronicles 15:22 says, “Kenaniah the head Levite was in charge of the singing; that was his responsibility because he was skillful at it.” It is our biblical responsibility as those gifted with musicality to play skillfully before God. This doesn’t mean that we have to play perfect or even play like professionals. At the very least, however, we want to play like very competent amateurs. Therefore, if a “young” (inexperienced) musician comes into the praise band and their skills have not yet brought them to a place of amateur competency then they should be worked with until their skills come to that place.

Keep Within the Style: In your worship sets you might play eight songs and each one of them might require a slightly different stylistic treatment. Some inexperienced musicians simply don’t understand what this means. Every song requires a careful balance of instrumentation, patience, feel, and direction. If you don’t maintain that balance then the song will not sound cohesive because not all the musicians playing the song are on the same page stylistically. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Say, for example, you were playing something in an acoustic ballad style. The band is falling nicely into the groove when all of a sudden the lead guitar player comes in with some blistering, albeit completely out of character, 80’s hair metal guitar lead with lots of distortion and delay. Meanwhile the rest of the band is keeping things subdued and trying to make a slow build into the final chorus of the song. What if that lead guitarist thinks what he/she is doing sounds really cool when it’s obvious to everyone else that the guitar part that they’ve just introduced to the song sounds completely absurd and distasteful. If the worship leader is not clear about the musical direction that each song needs to take then every musician could develop a different idea about what needs to happen musically within the song. This is the perfect recipe for disaster. If you have someone in your band who just doesn’t understand how to musically blend in then they should not be allowed to continue in the corporate worship setting until they truly understand how to contribute in a sensible fashion.

Differentiate Between Performance and Worship: I’m all too familiar with “performance”. I’ve done some relatively ridiculous things in my time as a “performer”. I’ve jumped around like a spastic moron. I’ve kicked things around, stripped off clothing, walked on bars, jumped off bars, laid on disgusting stages, licked guitar strings, powered down shots of Jagermeister in the middle of songs…anything I could think of to get the crowd going. I’m sure that if I could go back in time and watch myself doing all that stuff I would probably be a little embarrassed by much of what I used to do. However, that’s entertainment. I’m not sure if that’s a slightly sad statement or merely an observation of the truth. There are people that are going to disagree with me strongly on this point and that’s fine. To me, performance was always about trying to draw attention to yourself so that people would feel engaged in an experience and hopefully have a good time. I just don’t have those kind of values when it comes to worship through music. I think that if you’re bringing attention to yourself then you are trying to make yourself the object of worship. In my performing days that was certainly the case with me. I was always hopeful that there was some woman out in the crowd who was getting turned on by what I was doing so that maybe, just maybe, we could have some kind of meaningless tumble in the dark later. If it wasn’t that then it was because I wanted people to think that I was really something. I wanted people to talk about me. I wanted to be able to brag that people thought I was a good performer. How much more egotistical and self-centered can you get? Therefore, I usually have a great disdain for people that try to turn the worship environment into an arena of performance. I would hope that most people would consider my definition of performance and say, “I define performance a little differently, but I see where you’re driving at. I just call that something else besides performance.” So let’s not quip over words. Let’s instead come to the agreement that the worship atmosphere must be devoid of any selfishness. No one must have a desire to be known or recognized or applauded. I don’t lead worship because I want praise. Oh sure, praise makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside but it can too easily serve the worship of self. I am not worthy of praise. God is the only one worthy of praise. I would rather that people save their words of adulation for God. I’m not, of course, postulating that no one should ever encourage anyone or tell them that they appreciate what they do. That would be absurd. I’m simply saying that all praise that we give to others must be done in sober humility and humbleness. No one should become puffed up with conceit out of, or for, the envy of another. (Galatians 5:26)

Therefore, if someone in your band is doing something that crosses the line, i.e. something that draws attention to themselves, then they must be dealt with accordingly. Begin with private conversation, encouragement, and exhortation. If that does not work then try again but this time go with another individual that the person in question might be more apt to listen to. Namely, you want to take someone with you who can corroborate what you’re seeing. If this doesn’t work then bring that individual and their actions before the entire praise band. If that person continues to persist in following a path that is not in line with the gospel, then they shouldn’t be allowed to continue in the praise band until they find greater wisdom, humility and humbleness. I’m not pulling this out of the air. Hopefully it sounds familiar to you. See how Jesus speaks in Matthew 18:15-17.

Conduct yourself carefully and not self-righteously in these matters. Don’t be overly hasty but rather conduct yourself in all modesty and wisdom. Remember the charge of 1 Timothy. I could rattle on here forever. Hopefully the words presented here, though brief, will help you gain some perspective on how to deal with the issues that arise in your praise band. If you have any specific questions that you would ever like to e-mail me I would love to hear from you. Simply e-mail me at chad@bethechurch.com.

Comments

[Chris]

Chad, I haven't clicked over here for a few weeks so I didn't see this article until now. This is excellent, and something that needs to get into all of our worship team members' hands. Thanks for putting these words down bro.

[Kenny McKnight]

Awesome! I just read this myself and I could not agree with you more. Coming from being the praise band leader at Racine UMC, I have dealt with my fair share of praise band issues and I am going to send this on to the others there as I think it will benefit them to read as well now that I am no longer there and they are getting adjusted to that. Thanks!

[Jared]

Really good stuff and great reminders for us all!

[Josh Lynch]

I agree Chad, good thoughts. I need to get my air-drumming skills under control. No more disco-punk beats during practice.