The goal of every church music minister is to build and grow his ministry. Sometimes, though, you can't do that. We have a paid culture that was created when I came here, the pastor insists we need to keep this culture going and I have not been able to persuade him otherwise in 8 years. 

The flip side of this is that our church is out of space. There is no more physical room to grow the music program. We have bells, we have praise band and singers, we have brass, strings. We have organ, piano. We have a choir. But the choir can never get larger than 18 people. There is just no room to put them if they do. The bells can never grow larger than a 2 octave group (thought we have 3 octaves) because there is no room for the tables to ring from.

​So, how do you grow your program? You prepare for rain. Begin laying a foundation for your band and singers, and really all of your ministry, that is one of excellence. Begin to tell them,s how them and read to them what type of culture you want. By selecting the right musicians, and by placing into their hands the measurement for ministry success at your church, you have empowered them to grow to a point where, when you do have space, you will fill it up with solid, dedicated people, willing to serve.

Don't be afraid to set the groundwork now, while you are still waiting for the new building, to fill that new space with the best dedicated musicians you can. Train them, raise them and equip them. Do not let the rehearsal dictate the spiritual growth opportunities. Take time to devote together, praying for one another.

I regularly play piano for my bell choir, and close with a hymn as prayer. One of the ladies in my choir is also principle violin in our orchestra, and tonight we just did It Is Well With MY Soul, and closed with a prayer from our hymnal. 

The response was stellar. They have all commented in one way or another how touched, and how changed they were at rehearsal tonight. -- Growth, while it would be nice, does not have to be numerical. Sometimes, it is better to have a mental or spiritual growth taking place. NO, all the time it is better to have spiritual growth first. This sets the stage for excellence in worship later.

​Bless you friend where ever you serve.

The church and your music budget may not always see eye to eye, but they are going to need to get along and cooperate. For as long as we have had musicians the church has had to contend with an ever growing music budget. But there are some ways you can bridge the concern between the board and the budget.

This past year I noticed that we had push back in offering our Contemporary Praise band musicians more money. We've had a paid band for our praise service since I came here in 09. I've tried to manage that as well as anyone could, but; the reality is that the church is split on the idea of a professional praise band. If the truth be known, we wouldn't have a praise band if we didn't pay them. There is no one in our assembly that plays an instrument that would be in a band if we didn't have a paid band. SAD!   I've never worked in a church where they had no instrumental (band type) volunteers. 

However, as few as a few weeks ago, I realized that our band is taking advantage of me and our church's generosity. They will cancel being here at the rehearsal on Saturday, and more often than not show up 10 -15 minutes late on Sunday. Consistently. I counted up and figured that I pay them straight for the event.... I am asking no more than 3 full hours of their time. IF I base their $50 off that, and then take into consideration market pay, they each are making $4.66 above market pay. So, I recently installed a swipe card time keeping system.

They now swipe in and swipe out each week. It is up to them to swipe in and up to them to swipe out. If they fail to do either I only award them 2 1/2 hours total pay. They all start at $15.00 an hour... which is $3 above hour gig rate in this area. If they want the premium of $1.66 more (matching the original $50 per weekend service) then they have to be on time, and have no skipped rehearsals for 30 days. After achieving that, then they get paid $1 more an hour the next month, and incrementally if they maintain that they will climb back to the full $16.66.

The benefit is, after I calculated what was going on, we overpaid $576 this past year so far for what they were paid and what they should have been paid. That is almost one full month of musicians pay.

The Bible speaks about paying a man his worth - and we should take advantage of no one. But this goes two ways. I believe my band, over time has become lazy and/or entitled. Well, he'll pay us even if I miss... or he'll pay me even if I'm late it really makes no difference. But, it really does make a difference.  It's about what is ethical for your work place (The church) and what is ethical for the stipend musicians, (The band).

There are times I have them here longer for one reason or another, and it is at those times that they will be paid appropriately, so we won't just pay them flat $50, when they should have received $58.

It is about accountability and it is also about making sure that I am responsible and a good steward of the resources the people of the church entrust to me to use. Being a good steward also means being a good manager of the funds and being able to be accountable for how those funds are spent.

Don't be afraid to pay your band, but be fair and be honest to them and to your budget. It will make asking for funds or increases much more favorable because people will know that you are being very responsible with what you have been given.

It's Monday morning and you just received your Pastor's sermon notes and ideas for the week. You have a pastor that rarely plans his message themes and titles ahead more than a few times per year. And when he does, they are as vague as randomly opening the Bible for a reading session.
What do you do?

I get this all the time where I currently serve. While I'd like to say that I have the dream job of having everything 3-4 weeks out ... I rarely get anything more concrete than the week of. I don't despise this though. We are a church that follows a Lectionary cycle, and my Pastor's personal philosophy is: "If it's about Jesus, Communion, God, The Holy Spirit, A Creed, Confessional... it's all good!"  With that I can plan a wide variety of services.

I suggest, you first get a lectionary and try to stick to common themes and ideas. Most lectionary programs now actually work within the broader scope of themes. You also have the seasons of the church year. If you do not use Lectionary or The Church Year cycles, then you may want to plan based on you hymnal or use a hymnal for more sturctured planning before you fill in with praise/modern songs.

1. Use the Lectionary or Hymnal and follow or create themes for each week's service.
2. Using the Lectionary or Hymnal you can now select some widely known songs and use elements with in your worship flow that is familiar.  
3. As you pick songs, try to create a medley now and then of a few hymns on the same theme, and add ways for your choirs, soloists, duets, or whatever to lead your congregation, or present in special music. Be careful during this stage to plan music that your people know, and your group that is up on Sunday is confident in leading.
4. Schedule your ensembles and get the music to them as quickly as you can. Coordinate with your media teams as needed and get the Tech side of things well organized and underway.
5. Prepare your heart and your notes for choir rehearsals, band rehearsals, orchestra, bells and small praise team singers. You must know what direction each element of worship will take or it will be an unplanned failure on Sunday.

I know this can be stretched out to more than 5 tips, but I wanted to keep the 5 most important tips that have helped me to stay "with it" and "focused" in an atmosphere that is more "at the moment." Don't despise your pastor's preference of planning. Work with it to your best. I try to convince my pastor that if he can't come up with any REALLY wow themes, let's stay in the Pericopes (Lutheran version of Lectionary Cycle)  - this keeps everything easy enough for him to plan week to week (his preference, and sometimes, mine too) and allows me the ability to plan ahead those things such as solos and special music and anthems.

Blessings as you try to plan your week.