Posted on October 2, 2020 by Dr. Will Whittaker
This semester I’m teaching Introduction to Church Music Ministry at Truett McConnell University. My students are church music majors and this class is a required overview of what to expect in local church ministry. One of the assignments I have the students completing are interviews with worship pastors and/or music leaders already serving in local church ministry. In preparation for these interviews, I had the students bring in 8-10 questions they wanted to ask these leaders so we could share ideas and suggestions on which questions might be the most useful for them to ask. The questions they brought in were really great questions. But, what stood out to me was that every student had one or more questions related to resolving conflict and how to have good working relationships with their pastor and staff.
If my students are any indication of other church music students getting ready to head into local church music ministry, then I think we better equip them with conflict management and relationship skills in the best ways we can. But honestly, these students need to start seeing these skills demonstrated as they are growing up in their own local churches. My point is: our church music graduates entering the local church need to be ready to handle the relational side of ministry on par with the development of their musical skills and their worship leaders growing up need to model it for them early on.
Everyone reading probably agrees with what I’ve said. Yet, our time of investment with young people called to the ministry is largely spent on crafting musical skills and platform presence, not the relational side of ministry. This is a mistake!
I’ve asked several pastors over the years the biggest reasons why worship pastors are terminated and very few of them revolve around lack of musical skill. Among the results are the following:
Since not every local church worship pastor/leader has the opportunity to teach in an academic setting, we local church worship leaders MUST invest in those emerging worship leaders in our congregations who feel called to vocational ministry. As a musical leader, you will naturally pour yourself into helping with them understand the musical and technical aspects of worship ministry, but don’t stop there. Spend time talking with your budding leaders about how to develop good working relationships with your pastor, other staff members, and volunteers. Show them how resolving conflict is done in a Christ-like manner. Below are some ideas.
Conflict resolution is important; solid communication is important. These things are taught, yes, but they are more likely caught as your emerging worship leaders are in your music ministry. Model excellence in effective communication and conflict resolution while investing in them one on one to help shape our younger worship leaders into pastoral musicians.
a few ideas (not exhaustive) to consider when confronting someone with the goal of resolving conflicts:
Posted on September 25, 2020 by Dr. Will Whittaker
As a follow up to my last post Resuming Choir Rehearsals During a Pandemic- How we’ve done it, I wanted to share how we began our process of re-incorporating our orchestra into worship. Like most all churches, we found ourselves having to become digital only for our March 15th service. We went to livestream only, where I led from piano only until April 26th. On the 26th, I had our rhythm section and two other singers join us to enhance the sound knowing that we would begin in-person worship on May 17th. You should have seen the joy on our player’s faces that day; they just wanted to play and serve. We operated in this manner through all of May and most of June.
In the middle of June, I contacted our 38 orchestra members and asked them their comfort level with playing in worship services. All but two were comfortable returning. Because of the physical distancing requirements, I have only been able to accommodate 25 players in any service. We have lots of folks in our orchestra that are family members so I was able to group family members nearer to each other to fill out our orchestra. On June 28th, I welcomed our orchestra back to the platform and continued to use our praise team to lead our congregation. My goal was to create a familiar atmosphere for solid congregational singing and the orchestra with the praise team was the “safest” choice to accomplish this.
Some will disagree with me on this point, but I felt that getting the players back in the building to lead was more important than bringing back the choir instead. I have over 90 singers in my choir. With distancing requirements and our space limitations, I realized I’d have to create rotating teams that were, based on our room, inadequate to bring the full sound we were accustomed to. There was always the option to mic these singers well, but I was also worried about finding the right combinations of singers to carry an anthem well. Further, our choir has found a safer way to still serve in music ministry that allows them to be a part without being in the loft on Sunday mornings. Recently, our choir has begun meeting in our sanctuary spread out and we’ve recorded some anthems to use on Sundays. Because we’re only averaging 35-40 percent of our people for in-person worship, those watching livestream can’t tell the difference in the recordings we show. The choir meeting and recording for worship gives them a chance to still serve in music ministry until we get the opportunity to all be together again. In fact our choir and orchestra will begin meeting on Wednesdays starting in October to record together spread out.
Why the Orchestra is Vital to the Intergenerational Church
A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the growth of our orchestra here at Ivy Creek and how this single ministry perhaps is the best visual representation of the intergenerational church at its best. It is yet another one of the reasons I’m glad we’re using our orchestra every week for the time being. Read it here:
Developing an Orchestra in the Intergenerational Church—from 7-30+ players in five years.
If I were to count the number of evangelical churches across America that use orchestras every week, my number wouldn’t be very high based on resources, size, space, et al. My experience the orchestra is one of the most intergenerational groups in our whole church. In few other groups in our church will you find teens serving alongside many other generational cohorts on a regular basis.
At this moment, four generations in our church play in our orchestra. Ten of those players are under the age of 20; all my string players (7) are students. The students who play for us are excellent players and the sight-reading they get to do for me helps them in their school bands and orchestras. Without using all our generations, we wouldn’t be an orchestra…we’d be a band…we’d be smaller, less effective, and have less color/timbre. Teach them to serve for life. Invest in your students.
Posted on September 3, 2020 by Dr. Will Whittaker
Being a firm believer that all ages should be engaged in serving the Lord in music ministry, finding ways during a pandemic has been challenging. Since March, our church like virtually all others, has had to adapt to the ever changing challenges of providing music leadership in the safest way possible. As I’ve talked with many of my fellow worship leaders, I’ve realized there is not a one-size fits all approach. Context, location of church, demographics of the church, number of people in the fellowship affected by the virus and so on, will influence decisions related to how best to utilize your musical teams. In my next blog post I’ll explain our process of reincorporating our orchestra into worship, but I wanted to share with you about our first choir rehearsal in six months on August 26th.
The church choir is about music for sure, but more importantly, it’s about setting aside our personal preferences and working in unity to serve and proclaim the message of the Gospel. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian church urges [us] to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV). The first song I chose for us to sing in our rehearsal was “By Our Love,” a song of unity for the church. It was quite emotional for everyone in the room. This was the first time most of our people had sung outside their home or car in 6 months.
I’m a list guy; I love them. Anyone who knows me well knows that lists keep me focused. I see information better in a list than in written prose. When I email my college students at Truett McConnell reminders about what’s due and what we’ve worked on, I tell them a Whittaker list is coming! In fact most of my blog posts include a list of something. So, I started a list of things related to this first rehearsal so I would remember what happened and wanted to share my observations with you. Behold! a Whittaker list:
Here is a snapshot of (most of) us recording our song for worship. Four generations present, worshiping and encouraging each other–what a blessing!
“Intergenerational Worship” is worship in which people of every age are understood to be equally important.
Howard Vanderwell