Apr
22

Starting A New Team: A False Argument

Featuring Bruce Kunkle Posted on April 22, 2010

Once you decide to start a worship team, how do you know how to select the members of the team?  At first it may seem as if you must accept anyone who volunteers.  The argument for this approach goes something like this: None of us are professionals therefore it would be hypocritical to demand a high standard for anyone else on the team.  Besides, that would mean auditions and then we’d have to tell people they weren’t good enough.  And since none of us auditioned, it would be unfair to require it of others.  Shouldn’t we just trust the Lord to send us whomever He wants us to have on the team?

A False Argument 

As convincing as this argument sounds, it is really nothing but a series of excuses for dodging the responsibility for the worship music in your church.  Let’s look at the statements one by one.

None of us are professionals therefore it would be hypocritical to demand a high standard for anyone else on the team.  This statement expresses the fallacy that there are only two classes of musicians: talented professional and untalented amateur.  But you don’t have to be a professional musician to make a worthwhile contribution to a worship team.  And there are those who, no matter how sincere their attitude, will never do the team much good.  Even high school drama clubs would never present a play without auditions.  There has to be a minimum standard for ministry.  Some form of audition will be required, but as we will see it doesn’t have to resemble the traditional audition at all or carry all of the emotional baggage associated with one.

That would mean auditions and then we’d have to tell people they weren’t good enough.  Yes, you will, from time to time, be faced with people who want to be on the worship team who are not (or who may never be) ready.  You will have to give them the bad news.  This goes with the job and you have to accept the responsibility if it is yours to bear.  But as we will see, you can make things a lot easier on yourself here.

Since none of us auditioned, it would be unfair to require it of others.  If you really follow this logic, then nothing can ever change.  You could make no improvements because it wouldn’t be fair to those in the past who didn’t have a chance to benefit from them.  Any time you make a new rule, you change things for everyone affected by it.  If the rule is a good and necessary rule, you must not permit yourself to be paralyzed by this logic.

Shouldn’t we just trust the Lord to send us whomever He wants us to have on the team?  Absolutely!  But how will you know who these people are if you don’t check them out?  What if Satan sends you people too?  Or, more likely, people just want to join the team without God’s call on their lives?  That doesn’t make them “sent from God.”

 

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