There are all kinds of Worship Leaders, right? Extroverts, introverts, men, women, piano players, guitar players…
Those who are pro-music stand and those who are anti-music stand. I have been a part of both kinds of teams and there are pros and cons to each side. You hear things like:
“Stands are so distracting! How can the congregation really engage in worship if the singer is staring at his music stand?”
Or
“They’re just volunteer musicians. It’s not like you’re paying them. So you can’t ask them to put in all that work to memorize their music.”
We’ve all heard it. And honestly, both of these thoughts are only partially true. Yes, I believe someone can still be worshiping God while glancing at the music every now and then. And yes, there ARE volunteers who are willing and able to memorize their music without being paid.
Which way should we go? How do we make it happen?
My desire is for my entire music team to show up on Sunday with their music memorized. We have agreed, as a team, that we will never settle. There is always some way we can improve our craft and get better. And come on, if we were asked to play for the Queen of England, we would memorize our music, right? So when we have the honor of playing for the Emperor of the Universe every Sunday, why wouldn’t we give our absolute, 100% best?
While that was my hearts desire, when I began leading worship, I wasn’t sure how to make it happen. Should I just all of a sudden require it? Should I tell all the new people to memorize their music and let the band members who have been there awhile ease into it?
The advice I was given was to set a date and require it. Every time I thought about doing that, it didn’t feel right. So I went about it a different way and the success has been overwhelming!
Here are the 3 steps I took:
1. I memorized my music. I came to our Sunday morning prayer huddle before our run-through and said, “I’m so excited guys! I worked really hard this week and I memorized my music!! Pray for me, let’s see how it goes!” My team was excited for me and they were super encouraging. But what they really saw was that I cared so much about this ministry, that I was willing to go the extra mile. They also saw that it could be done. If you have people who have never memorized music before, they will probably feel like it’s too hard for them. Show them that it’s not. Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.”
2. I cast vision on a regular basis. As the leaders, we have to keep our teams on mission and headed in the same direction. You may feel like a broken record, that you talk about vision all the time. Remember that you are a staff member who lives and breathes the inner workings of the church, and your volunteers are not. Our bi-monthly team meetings are laced with vision. When I give individual instruction, I always start with the “why” not just the “how to”. We pray as a team for our church’s mission every single Sunday. There should be no one on your team who “doesn’t get it”. It’s your job to help them get it.
3. I openly celebrate their success. After I made the transition to memorized, I had a lead guitar player follow suit. When I saw him take his stand off stage, I said, “You’re memorized?!?! YES!!!! That is so awesome!” And the entire team rallied around him. Don’t you think his morale was totally boosted? He gave 110% that morning and continues to show up memorized. Create an environment of encouragement and support! Tell people often how great they are doing. Be specific and point out their successes. After I raised the bar for myself, within three months I had five musicians memorizing their music on a regular basis. I know of two more who are diligently working on it.
So no, I didn’t take the advice I was given. No, I don’t require anyone to memorize their music. But I DO require everyone on my ministry team to strive to better themselves. We are doing it together. We are dreaming big and working hard. Together. What strategies have you put in place to better your team? What’s your philosophy on memorization? Leave a comment; I’d love to hear all about it!
Hi Laura,
Reading this, I can completely agree. We all need to strive for excellence. Perfection will never happen, cause we are not perfect. However excellence can be obtained and memorizing music is definitely one way of striving more for that. As someone who plays multiple instruments any given week, (as well as run sound) my goal is always to memorize my music. If not, then I write out my own charts onto a one page document. This serves two things. First it helps to memorize by writing it out in Nashville number system form. Second, because it’s only one page, it can sit on the floor by my pedal board and while I’m doing the foot dance I can glance to make sure I’m good. Usually I treat it as a double check and have everything solid well beforehand. But the underlying reason is again striving for excellence and bringing the very best that I have to offer for that week. If, at the end of the day I can say that I gave my best, then I know that God is happy with that.
Curtis, that is so awesome! I love your attitude! Keep it up!
Really great suggestion Curtis! A couple guys on my team do the cut chart thing too!
This a rather profound article. Some great leadership & shepherding principles in here. Thanks!
Ross, thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words!
I’ve had the same experience laura, lead by example. love it
That’s awesome, Ben! So glad to hear!
Nice article Laura. As a drummer who’s always on the back line I don’t see the difference if I have a stand or not. I’ve played gigs w/& without stands & my personal standard is my utmost regardless. For the extra time it would take me to memorize music vs quickly writing out a chart, it doesn’t make sense in terms of stewarding my time. As a musician & Christ follower when I’m in the congregation, my lens is “Is he/she fully engaged & killing their part?” Not stand/no stand. Just offering a kind-hearted different perspective 😉
Thank you, Morgan! I totally see what you’re saying. 🙂 I’m wondering if it could depend on the drummer. I have a drummer that strives to memorize his music because he feels like he personally focuses on worshiping God more fully without his music there. Thank you for your perspective!
Thank you for this article Laura! As someone who has struggled to see the importance between stand/no stand I really appreciated the challenge you presented. We are playing for the Creator of all things, why wouldn’t we bring our best?! I will definitely be considering this as I go into my next practices.
Wow, Russell! You are so welcome! I’m so glad it was helpful! Let me know how things go! 🙂
Absolutely fantastic article, Laura! I pray our worship team heads this direction! 😀
Thank you, Jake!
Having been a musician for over thirty years, a teacher, and been playing worship music in bands and in big and small churches, it is great if you can memorize the music for a given Sunday. But I believe that sometimes we emphasize to much on the “no music stand” policy. It doesn’t make you feel more professional by not using one. Look at many of the orchestras for example. I try to instill in the hearts of the other worship members to get the “mechanical ” stuff ready but come with a heart ready to worship. Many times the songs aren’t ready until a Sunday morning ( which does irritate me) or there are added songs at the last minute or a singer can’t make it to church. A stand can be a good reference point for music or as I have done in the past, consolidating to one or two pages and leave it on the floor. Another area, monitor wedges or ear buds? To much “mood” lighting or just leave the lights normal? I look more to getting better in your gifting and most of all, come prepared to worship starting in your heart!
Great thoughts, Paul! Thank you!
I just started playing in a praise band where they require all of us to memorize the music (5-6 songs every Sunday.) I’d been in a band for 8 years before where we all had music stands, so I was really nervous (plus, I’m 52, and I can remember every summer camp song I ever played, but not a chord from what I played last Sunday!) I have never worked so hard in my life, but it’s paying off! It’s actually getting easier (maybe I am making some new brain synapses:-), and I fell very engaged with the congregation by not being behind a stand. I’m a visual person, so I can literally visualize the charts until I get it into my muscle memory.
Cathryn, that is so awesome! Way to work hard!!! I can totally relate to remembering the summer camp songs! hahahaha. Keep up the good work!
The thing I think makes it harder is when as a volunteer there are new songs every single week. I am a guitarist and sometimes getting the lead parts down and the chord structures for 5 new songs in a 3 day window is tough. (Get songs on Tuesday, practice Thursday with band; Friday and Saturday are spent tweaking parts) I have tried the cut sheets so just the progressions are there which helps (except I need better glasses..LOL or bigger print) Planning out the song sets a few weeks in advance helps give more time to memorize and familiarity. Our worship leader has started incorporating new songs over several services so we have time to get familiar with them.
Michael, I agree! Having new songs every single week AND a short turnaround from when you receive the music to when you play it, makes it extremely difficult to memorize everything. What works best for our team is to introduce 1 new worship song every 4-6 weeks. We also send music out 7-10 days in advance. This has helped us with excellence and memorization. I’m sure these things can vary from team to team. 🙂
I think this post is the right way to go about it. It’s always good to strive for excellence, but leaders need to understand that may look different for each of their volunteers. I’ve been volunteering in various churches for about 15 years now, and there’s recently been a push across our locations to memorize music. A few have already banned music stands. Honestly I find it hard to buy the reasons why… it seems to me that it comes down to superficial things like how we look, how the stage looks etc. I asked some people in our church and they didn’t even notice that there used to be music stands and there aren’t any now. I really don’t think they’re as distracting as people make them out to be.
Personally, it’s already easy to be burned out in ministry – especially as a volunteer with a job and a family – and requiring memorization on top of all the preparation we already do can be pushing it. I practice quite a bit, but my brain does not work well for memorizing. It adds hours upon hours for me to do it, and even then I’ve had times where I’ve forgotten the song. That’s why I think the right way to go about it is to be sensitive to the volunteers, while also leading them to do better. And much of it is individual. People have different strengths and weaknesses and can be pushed to excellence in different ways.
I just think worship leaders need to be careful about burning out their volunteers. I see it all the time in our church – and it’s pretty telling when I go to a large church of thousands upon thousand of attendees, and they’re having trouble finding musicians. I probably won’t be playing at locations that don’t allow a music stand anymore – it’s just way too stressful for me and I can’t worship as well under that pressure.
Great thoughts, Ben! Worship Leaders DO need to be careful about burning out their volunteers.
Hi Laura, I appreciate your thoughts regarding memorization and getting better. I truly appreciate being able to use the gift of music that God has given me to worship Him. It’s an honor and a privilege. I also enjoy the challenge of perfecting this gift so that the worship experience continues to get better.
However, I don’t believe that using sheet music and/or a stand has to detract or take away from the worship experience at all. Nor does it make the musician (or congregation) any less cable of having an anointed worship experience. Personally, I use an iPad and mic stand on stage as I simply don’t have the time to memorize music due to work, family, and even practice time to perfect my gift. While in some instances I have most songs partially memorized due to repetiveness, if I were “required” to memorize each piece of music in order to be a member of the worship team, I probably would stop playing and find another venue to use my gift for the Lord.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that the memorization requirement by some worship teams has stopped a lot of gifted and interested musicians from using their gifting in the service of our Lord. Nonetheless, it’s something we have to all pray about and be led appropriately. Thanks again for your insight and thoughts.
Arthur, thank you for your thoughts and viewpoint! I do agree that this is definitely something that can look different from person to person and team to team. Us Worship Leaders do need to be prayerfully making decisions for our teams!! Blessings!
Hi Laura,
I definitely agree. I work with a student ministry worship team and usually I have just my vocalists come memorized but it’s been difficult to get all my students to memorized because I don’t believe they see the value. However, I’ve encouraged them to do because I noticed that when I’m leading worship and I’m not really familiar with the song, the words on the stand become a crutch and I can’t get into worship because I’m worried about what’s next and that’s what I try to convey to them. I’m definitely going to emphasize this more.