HotPraise: Administrative Skills

Worship is essential. Talent is great. Commitment is totally necessary. But one thing that's often overlooked is the matter of simple administration.

Yes, I know. I don't like it either! But unfortunately, many worship teams fail to reach their potential just because of the lack of effective administration.

For instance, who's playing keys in your church this Sunday? The congregation usually takes it for granted that someone will turn up and play. But exactly how does that happen? Do your people just pray throughout the week, and they're so spiritual that they just turn up "as the Spirit moves them?"

If that's your approach, good luck with that! Most churches will have some kind of rostering system. In other words, it only happens because someone organises it. This is what administration is all about.

Administration is the stuff that happens in the background that enables those who are "up front" to do what they do. Just think about how much stuff happens, just in the worship team, because somebody took the time to do something behind the scenes.

Somebody has to organise the rosters and make sure that everything fits with when people are away or chaos would reign supreme. Someone has to organise what new songs will be taught, make sure there are chord charts, lyric sheets, and data projector slides.

Someone has to keep CCLI up-to-date with the songs that are being used. Somebody has to organise practices, make phone calls, and send emails.

You might have a specific person designated for these tasks or you might have a group of someones all with different responsibilites.

But the main thing is that the jobs get done. If you don't get the administrative side of the worhip team under constrol, bad things will happen. People don't turn up when you think they are supposed to. New songs don't get taught. People don't have music or lyrics. All this can have a profound effect on the worship team and therefore the worship.

So, maybe nobody likes doing it, but it's still got to get done.