Week 11 • Season 3 • Worship Team Devotionals
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)
What’s actually going on
Most worship leaders inherit a recruitment problem. We always need more people. More vocalists. More musicians. More tech volunteers. More people who can run lyric slides without dropping a slide. And so the language of our team-building tilts toward recruitment.
We post in the church bulletin. We ask people after the service. We make a slide for the announcement reel. We say things like, we’re always looking for more team members.
And the people who join us join because we needed them, not because we saw them. There’s a difference, and over time the difference matters.
Discipleship is different. Discipleship sees a person and asks, what is Jesus doing in this person’s life, and how can our team be part of that?
It’s slower. It’s harder. It produces more durable team members. It also produces leaders, not just slot-fillers.
What’s true
Jesus didn’t say go and recruit. He said go and make disciples. The verb is different. Recruitment is about my need. Discipleship is about their formation.
On a worship team, that means the question shifts. Instead of, can this person play, the question becomes, what would it look like for this person to grow as a worshiper, as a disciple, as a person, in our team’s care?
Some of those people will become musicians. Some won’t. Both outcomes are wins, because the goal was never the slot. The goal was the soul.
Worship leaders who shift from recruitment to discipleship report a strange thing: their teams get fuller, not emptier. People can tell when they’re being seen instead of needed. Discipleship is magnetic. Recruitment is desperate.
Pick one person on your team this season and disciple them. Watch what changes. Then pick another.
For your team
Three discussion questions for your pre-rehearsal team huddle.
- Are we currently recruiting or discipling? Be honest.
- Who on our team right now is being discipled, by whom?
- What’s one shift we can make this season to move toward discipleship as the default?
Pray this
Jesus, You called me to make disciples, not slot-fillers. Forgive me for treating people like volunteer hours. Teach me to see them. Disciple me, so I can disciple them. Amen.
This Sunday
Pick one person on the team. Take them to coffee in the next two weeks. Don’t talk about Sunday. Talk about their life.
Go deeper
In the network: Search “Relational Worship Teams” in the TCC community for the live training on building teams that are family before they are function. Free at thechurchcollective.mn.co.
This is Week 11 of 52 Weekly Worship Team Devotionals from The Church Collective. The first 12 (including this one) are available now — grab them as a free PDF. New devotionals drop every Monday morning. Free, denominationally diverse, 501(c)(3). Made possible by our Supporters: become a Supporter or give one-time.
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When Conflict Comes for the Team