Matt Stinton - Worship Team Administration | Teaching Moment

well uh hello nice to see all of your smiling faces my name is Matt as previously mentioned I am the worship department director here at Bethel Church as well as I mean I lead worship and do some riding and stuff as well so today I am going to be talking about overseeing and running and managing a worship department so depending on where you're at as far as the size of your team some things may apply to you some may not as it is here at the church we have about 90 musicians and singers that I will schedule and we'll hold hands with hey you know buddy I sent you that request to play like you know a few months ago and you still haven't confirmed and it's tomorrow are you gonna play you are okay okay we're good so if you're on the team here I'm probably not specifically talking about you probably not but that's that's one of the joys of scheduling a really large team everybody has busy lives and it's easy to overlook things so I came to Bethel in 2009 I actually started just like this I came to the school of worship that year and liked it so much I stuck around and got involved with worship and then God brought on to the worship department about two years ago and then last year got brought on as the department manager and kind of running things Brian and Jen oversee the worship department they are the they are the smiling faces and I am the arms and the legs and the fists of punishment if necessary which I'm really good at as you can guess because of my obvious athletic build and you can't tell but I actually have a I've got a black belt underneath this shirt so so I'm I'm going to cover just a few things today I'm going to tell you a little bit about how our department is set up and how it runs and then I'm gonna give you guys some some pointers primarily I'm going to be talking about how like good good ways good systems good things to keep in mind for running a department because it's it can be it can be really tricky and we're still learning because no one has the whole picture so the way the basic structure of our department started hinting at it Brian and Jin are the heads of the department and with advisement from Joel Taylor who is in charge of the record label who oversees that for them and and then I am the worship team manager and with if we have a hand a couple of employees my friend Paul McClure is one of the other guys who's helping out as well as he works for worship you and between the two of us then we are doing the scheduling and the administration of the department we have I said seven services every weekend and so that's a lot of musicians to schedule and the way we have it set up right now if a Friday night team we have a band that plays all three of our morning services here at our main campus which they are just lord bless them they are Saints and that's a lot that's a lot of playing that's three services they're here from 7:00 a.m. until usually 1:30 playing music so it is a lot of work but it but it works and then we have leaders Lee the first two services in a different leader different leaders will come in for the 1 p.m. service we have our Sunday night team and then we have which hopefully is a different team than the team that played all morning but sometimes if you guys do any kind of scheduling you'll know that can be really crazy sometimes and you just can't avoid some things and then we have our secondary campus which has two morning services and when the schools going has an evening service as well so we're quite busy very busy scheduling and texting people and calling people and very likely begging people please please play so in that we also have what we have as section leaders we have a couple people that are in charge of their particular department the like their musical instrument department so we have like Michael Pope who's been up here almost every day playing and Bobbie the two guitar players they are they oversee all of our electric guitar players and they make sure that they're learning parts and they're helping them with gear helping them with tone and we have that for drums and keys etc so that's the whole idea is to have when you have a big team you can't do everything yourself so finding great ways to delegate keeps you from burning out because if I had to do everything myself I wouldn't be able to so it wouldn't wouldn't work really well so we've got those sort of structures we have a few basic requirements for being a part of the team we have a monthly community meeting which I believe we're actually having in here next week next Thursday night that here and I think everybody gets to come to that don't quote me on that but they'll talk about that next week I'm sure ok so we have that once a month it's usually like an hour and a half or so two hours where we hang out and then talk about whatever's going on within the department new and like announcements change of protocol things like that and then we here's a here's a shocker we asked our team to go to church and so that's one of the other requirements if you're going to play on our worship team a church worship team we want you to go to church and it's it's it's out there but and then basic like other requirements are like character and those sorts of things which I'll get into in a little bit so once you once you have your worship team assembled it's good to start getting finding some way to get organized and there's a lot of great tools for scheduling out there we use a Planning Center online there are a handful of other ways you can do it as well I think that there's been a lot of programs that have popped up to do that same sort of thing like worship team comm you could even use something like Google Calendar if you wanted to as well for scheduling but finding a way to get everybody into a database so that you can very easily email everyone on the team as opposed to having to text everyone if you have a smaller team that's really easy you know you text the drummer that the bass player the guitar player and your flute player and you're good and then you know you're set I came from a church just like that so before I was here like we had a little tiny church if I didn't show up no one played electric guitar and you know that was the only guitar player and it was just rhythm so there was no lead and sometimes we had a bass player sometimes we had a Keys player it was just it's the real deal I understand the struggle and then it's actually really good if you haven't created a requirement for your team this is what we want from you to be a part of this it's actually really good because what that does is that helps set up expectations for your team so they know this is what is expected of me if I'm going to be a part of this so things like a value system like we have there's a lot of things on our own value system I mentioned it already one of the big ones is character because whether or not someone likes it if they're on stage they're viewed as a leader because people are going to see them on stage and then if they see them out smoking getting drunk at the bar that's obviously going to create a problem so we've created a character sort of some guidelines character systems things like that so that people know hey I'm a leader therefore I need to act like a leader because what I doing off of stage reflects my leadership so if I am setting a bad example off of stage I on the weekends whenever like if let's say if I personally do something stupid out there that makes a mess I'm creating a mess then for my leadership I've made a mess for Brian and Jen and indirectly Bill Chris all the other leaders that I look up to and respect so much my actions have created a mess for them so it's a respect sort of thing so having good character is one of our primary primary things in valuing character over someone's ability because you can have someone who's super talented but if all they're doing is making messes well then hmm that's a that's a really unfortunate sort of setup and I'll talk a little bit more about that in particular because that's a really hot topic I realize a lot of people want to know what do I do with this and that and this guy over here doing these sorts of things like I will talk about that in a couple minutes another thing is growth one of our other values that we have is growth both spiritual growth and musical growth because there's always somewhere else to go you know you never reach you've never fully arrived because of the fact that there's always something else to learn and both musically speaking and spiritually speaking we don't want people to thrive musically but then not be growing spiritually we want it to be a steady progression so creating like a value system like that that's clearly communicated to your team these are the things we want from you helps a ton because then there's it eliminates a lot of questions and it eliminates a lot of potential messes oh yeah I didn't realize that wasn't supposed to be smoking marijuana in the back parking lot because you never said I couldn't so I just assumed it was okay that hasn't happened here so you will obviously need to tailor the needs for your specific church as well though obviously different churches have different like value systems I'm not talking about marijuana now hopefully that we're all in the same page with that I mean if you're in Washington or Colorado then there's you know maybe that's that's a whole different subject that you have to cover it's it's legal there that's very interesting I don't I don't envy you that argument so so you need to tailor it for your particular church for your own needs and for this the strengths and the core values of the house as well because you obviously if you're part of a church then you're under that Church is covering and therefore you want to honor what your church is what your church stands for so through that you're setting expectations like I said eliminates messes and everyone feels better like when someone says hey this is what I'm expecting of you please go here here here and do these things when you're there everyone feels better than if you were told oh yeah just go ahead no way what what am i what am i doing look at you great go ahead it really helps I mean I function really well when I have like guidelines and like things set up because then I know exactly what's expected of me which is why I think it's such a good idea to have it set up that way um and then one of the really big things that you want is to find a way for your team to really feel more like a family than it is like an organization you know because you want but you want it to you want people to feel like they belong to something and that they're valuable and that what they carry is important and that there's not some that they're just being used further for their abilities and in you want to have people feel like they have a way to grow that's one of the reasons that we have the section leader set up is so that our musicians are constantly growing that's why we have our community meetings where we're praying for each other and people are giving testimonies about what the Lord's doing in their lives and we're taking prayer requests like hey I've got this terrible thing going on this is really hard I need you guys to to pray with me because there's really strength in numbers when it comes to all of that stuff so giving people somewhere to go and being a part of your body being a part of your community should be mutually beneficial so you want obviously you're going to gain when someone is able to play for you I really understand that scheduling it can get really crazy but having someone be a part like it obviously is super helpful when somebody is able to play fill-in at the last second all that stuff is super important but you don't want to create a system where it people just feel like they're being used you want them to be able to benefit from from being a part of it and that's that all comes back to to the growth both Musical and spiritual growth that's why it's so important is because it takes care of so many things it creates value for individuals it gives them somewhere to go it helps people from becoming stagnant and it in all of that it finds ways like it's finding a way to show value to your people which is obviously really important and I mean there's always the question of well do we pay our musicians do we not pay our musicians that's really that's really up to you and we pay our musicians for conferences and we will sometimes have jobs and different things that we will have people do for us and that's just the particular way that we have it set up here but some people have a stipend for their musicians or they will bring in musicians from all over I know some churches will like hire musicians / service and they pay them for that my only concern when it comes down to whether or not to pay a musician is it becomes a question of motivation like why are you here are you here because you're getting a paycheck or are you here because you want to be a part of all of this and that's the whole that's kind of the huge debate for everyone do we pay do we not pay that's usually it comes down to obviously finances and what is what's then the motivation going to be so you just have to decide that on your own you know with I don't have any great like this is the way you have to do it because it's all dependent on where you're at and another huge part of running a department is being a good leader like you want to become the leader that you would want to follow someone who listens someone who is empowering someone who is encouraging there's a couple I think there's like two basic forms of leadership like motivations to follow someone there's either love or there's fear I've I've led I've worked for some people whose leadership style was do this so you can avoid my wrath and the amount of joy you can have in that sort of environment is is pretty limited very honestly I I hate it those are my least favorite jobs if you're avoiding being punished all the time it's you're always looking over your shoulder and I hope no one's watching what I'm doing right now or feeling like you're feeling like obligated by fear to perform as opposed to you know what I love this person so much I will do anything for them because they value me they've shown me value so I will show them value so it then becomes very important to lead by love and not by fear of punishment we've tried really hard to create an environment for people where it's okay if people mess up if they make a mistake obviously there are consequences you know it all depends on the type of mistake that's made but if you have an environment of acceptance an environment of love I mean people tend to it just creates so much more safety for people if they do make a mistake or even again it comes down to I love this person so much that I'm actually going to avoid making this mess because I know of how much it will affect them one of the biggest things that you can do as a leader is to communicate well because nothing shows value like communication or nothing shows a lack of like no communication communication is probably the biggest way to prevent wounds and to heal wounds however bad communication or no communication is probably the best way to create wounds a lot of us will I know communication like we call it brave communication here in the Bethel world a lot of us are not used to communicating particularly if it's a difficult subject it's not awesome to sit down with someone and say hey we have to take you off the team I've had to do that and it's not it's not fun like you know it's it's it never it's never really easy you can't get used to it though I haven't had to do it very often and I'm glad that I haven't had to do it very often because of how much fun it was the times I did but if you if you continue to if you have a problem and you're avoiding having that conversation it actually doesn't get better the longer you go without communicating the more difficult it becomes and so we we tend to like well I think I'm just not going to schedule him forever and eventually he will get so frustrated that he quits the team which is what I want I want him to quit the team so I don't have to fire him and but you don't realize that in that whole thing he's sitting there why why am I not getting scheduled I must have done something wrong I must have done something wrong and and then that all these questions start rising in that person's heart like maybe they just don't value me or maybe they just you know they don't like what I do and so in you know our avoidance of communicating it can create so many wounds because the person doesn't know what's going on because we haven't told them what's going on so then they assume something's wrong be like and it's the whole worried thing sets in and that can all be avoided by hey this is not this is not really working for us what do you think you know this is this is what things feel like in communication is really important in this sort of communication or just communication in general it's really important to there's a few things we we love using the phrase I feel like or this feels like finding ways that don't sound like accusation 'el you always do this you do that this is what you've been doing and like the tone the tone is such a it sets the pace for everything if it's I feel like you're not really interested in being on the team because of these sorts of things now that's the way I'm receiving it but what are you thinking like what well how are you feeling in all of this because this is what it might suggest to me but I want to ask you about it so what's going on so you're asking questions about it rather than accusing because when use all accusations it's like it's not up for discussion and I mean while some things aren't up for discussion like no you can't stay on the team I'm sorry this it's just there is no way that you can stay on the team this is the decision that we've made however you know having that whole conversation so you can hear there and so they can hear you so you can come to an understanding is it's absolutely the healthiest way and it is the the most christ-like way and since we're basically talking about it let's go ahead and let's talk about discipline because we're we're sort of hinting at that the this is ever the popular subject okay well I've got this guy on my team we'll just call him Johnny and I'm pretty sure he's been sleeping around because he comes to church with a different girl she's dressed very strangely every with every all of them they're all dressed strangely one time they were here all together it was really weird and he always smells like marijuana when he comes in and I just don't I don't think that he's a Christian what do I do but he's also the only drummer we have it's not a real struggle so the question then becomes what do we do what's more important in this situation having a rhythm section or having a pimp and you know in it when it comes down to it a lot of times you're just gonna have to ask the Lord because there's two ways you can look at it you can say you're only we're only as strong as our weakest link like if I've got somebody back there who's got a list of issues you know like I think he just got out of jail that looks like a prison tattoo that's a prison tattoo yeah and and he's got all these things that he's got all these issues going and he's back there we're trying to lead worship but he's back there is he creating a stink in the incense of worship that's going up before the Lord like the real real question is this is kind of the approach that we take obviously if there's somebody who's got a lot of issues going on we have taken people either completely off the team or we put people on breaks here's the real distinguishing factor is where's their heart if I have somebody who has an issue which we have people always have issues that's just part of life the disciples had issues you want to read some read about some issues like Jesus was not afraid of people having issues he chose some real winners when he came to picking disciples and what he saw where their hearts were at so we're not looking for people who are completely perfect but we are looking for people who are willing to grow if you're not willing to work through your stuff then that's where we really have a problem if they have they're making huge messes then we're going to take them off either way if you want to work through your stuff great you can do that from the front row and we will we'll set up like a plan for them this is how this is what the path to restoration looks like we want you to do this we want to do that but only if you want to like here's that's another thing is you can tell people you need to do this to get better but if they don't want to get better they're not going to do those things that's why we often if the situation comes up like that it's always the question of do you want to get better you obviously have a problem do you want to get better if you love being unhealthy more than you love the idea of becoming healthy that's fine you don't have to grow for us but if you want to grow then we can work with you and that's sort of the approach that we've we've been taking and so it really comes down to choosing in your own situation you know where do I draw the lines and do we kick this person off do we keep them ask the Lord about it and also like ask is this person going to go to jail if the police find out what's happened I mean we've we've had we've had that situation before so we've had all kinds of things and that's just how it is when you have a big community of people particularly musicians who are very wounded and very sensitive that can be not everyone's wounded just say but when you're creative there does sometimes tend to be more of a sensitivity where you can tend to carry wounds a lot particularly childhood wounds I can I could teach a whole other lesson about that in my own life but you have to wait like the consequences and then make the best decision but it always needs to be motivated by love not by not by fear that needs to be from your own your own heart this seems like the best move because it seems wise it's not fear-based it's love based because I know if I put this person on break they're going to grow from it and it's not I'm afraid they might make a mistake so I'm just gonna so it always is really important then to give them the choice and then this just a tag on to that because I've had a lot of people ask me about this well what do you do about people who are Christians or not Christians can you let non-christians onto your team again it comes down to that to that same question because it's sort of like what's the Lord doing on this person's heart you know if if they are Steve the guy with the Prison tattoos who just got out yesterday and he's just a hardened criminal then I wouldn't probably recommend him being on the team however you could bring him into some of your other things and see what happens like oh yeah we're all hanging out and singing hymns and holding hands would you like to come and you can see we're building relationship takes you otherwise sometimes I mean sometimes the Lord is moving really strongly on someone who's not a Christian and it's like well he plays drums he's fantastic at drums I'm using drums as an example a lot it's no there's no reason for it don't if you're a drummer I'm not picking on you if you're one of our drummers I'm not picking on you and he's really good and you know what I really feel like the Lord's doing something on his heart and that's where you would have to figure that out and maybe ask your leadership obviously you know your if you have good communication between your pastor and yourself then you can you can say hey what do you think he's not a Christian but the Lord is doing something clearly can we have him play and kind of go from there or maybe even just set up like good expectations beforehand between yourself and the pastor so the pastor says yeah I'm just not comfortable if they're not a Christian haven't been a Christian for 10 years and have a certificate from a Bible College that says that they are a certified Christian then I'm not okay with them being on up on stage and if that's the expectation well then that's the expectation and you need to honor that because that's what's been you're under that leadership and you know there's always room to discuss things but that also comes back to setting up your core values so that you know when questions arise like that that's always a good time where you can say okay great this question has come up let's make this sort of part of our value system that way there's no questions next time if this happens a second time so yeah so anyway I think that just about summarizes everything I hope that that was very beneficial for all of you

Channel: WorshipU by Bethel Music

Views: 37,407

Rating: 4.9328361 out of 5

Keywords: matt stinton, worship team administration, worship team, worship department, worshipu, worship u, worship school, worship conference, bethel music worship school, bethel music worship conference, worshipu on campus, redding california, bssm, worship team tips, worship leading tips, worship leading, bethel worship, how to lead worship, bethel church, bethel music

Id: 5qr7dwgN6hU

Length: 29min 27sec (1767 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2015