Don’t Make Them Choose
Don’t make your team choose between their needs and their integrity, let me explain.
The vast majority of church volunteer musicians want to be prepared. As a weekly volunteer, I want to show up and give my best. No matter what role I am serving in, I didn’t join the worship team to feel like I am just surviving on stage. You volunteers need resources in a timely fashion in order to be prepared and do their best. When we wait further in the week to post songs, we have chord charts that don’t match, or links that go to the wrong arrangement of a song, we are making volunteers compromise their integrity. You would never say it that way, that’s why I am. In all my years of helping churches, I have never heard one good excuse for not doing these things. Time, demands, responsibilities are all adult things. The people that serve with you have the same demands on them. Your preparation and intentionality will attract a certain kind of volunteer. And on the contrary, your lack of organization and lack on consideration will attract a certain kind of volunteer.
I remember going to a friend’s house when I was newly married. When I walked in the house was a wreck. There was stuff everywhere, and not just the normal mess of life. It was chaos. The guy I came to visit looked at me and said, “we could have a clean house or a fun house and we chose the fun house.” I walked away thinking, “Is it only one or the other?”
Just because you are ok with it, doesn’t mean other people are ok with it. Just because it doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother other people. Our job as worship pastor is to minister to our team with preparation. The ministry of preparation may not be something you’ve heard, but now you have and you can’t unhear it. You have an opportunity to minister to your volunteers by providing them with the resources they need so that they can show up and do their best. We cannot ask them to be prepared when we are not being prepared on our end. Ultimately, over time, you will run off good volunteers who are talented and have a genuine desire to serve. If I don’t get the things I need, I am having to show up unprepared and not my best and that conflicts with my values and integrity. I want to give you my best but I can’t when you aren’t giving your best.