Forming your church’s music ministry/ worship ministry would be a lifelong project. I think the hardest part in raising volunteers is in the area of music since music requires talent.

The past 2 years we have been running our music ministry with volunteers. Nove has been doing a wonderful job in leading passionate volunteers. We are not without problems. With busy volunteer comes busy schedules. I think every church face this problem.

So we have been tweaking and retweaking till we find the perfect system that could work for our church. So let me share to you some of the things we have been doing and tweaking.

1. We crafted a win with our key worship leaders/ band leaders.

Here are some of the WIN we wanted.

– raise up passionate worshippers

– eliminate our Saturday service by modeling to every music ministry volunteer that it is their job to study their material.

– for volunteers to improve in their vocals.

– camaraderie among band members.

2. Create a culture of “i’m not just a volunteer, I AM A VOLUNTEER.

– it is an honor to volunteer. Volunteers has a big responsibility as we serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

– honor your commitment. If you can’t, tell us in advance.

– you can’t make it, find someone to replace you.

– study your piece for the success of the team. Don’t study, you waste other volunteer’s time.

3. Three Month Intensive Training

For our new sign ups, we required a few things for them before they are released to worship on stage with the existing worship teams:

a. they should be part of a Victory group. This is a non-negotiable. It would be hard for someone to volunteer who is not sold out to the core value of the church.

b. they should finish Victory Weekend – our 2 day event that discusses the cross and what Christ did for us to live a victorious Christian life.

c. finish our 3 month music training – this training includes what worship is, what worship entails, commitment and vocal trainings for the singers and band practice for the instrumentalists.

d. spiritual progress not spiritual perfection – honestly, we can’t and should not micro manage our volunteers. There is a limit to what we can do. We have had questions from people asking about other qualifications needed. If we get too strict and micro manage the life of our volunteers, then nobody might volunteer for church. As long as there is spiritual progress, we get them to do a,b and c and release them to do ministry.

Hope this helps and once again I know this is not the perfect system and if tomorrow we find another way on how to form our music ministry, we are ready to change and tweak again.