I love our worship team at Sunridge Church! This rare behind the scenes footage shows how much fun we really have each week! These are servants who put in hours and dedicate much so that hundreds can worship. The funniest thing is the last words on the on the tape…don’t miss that.

I have been three times to the Saddleback Worship Conference and have had a blast! To see people like Lincoln Brewster or Paul Baloche lead worship and to be in workshops with Saddleback staff with the likes of Tony Guerrero make this a refreshing time for those of us who lead worship or serve on the worship team. I have brought young adults and teens with me, too. The teaching is great and to sing with thousands of others who can sing on pitch is a rare thing. Our worship team at Sunridge has gone as a retreat, some taking off time from work to attend. You gotta make it!

READ THE REST at RKWL…

Tony Guerrero is a guy I have enjoyed each time I have hung out with him because of his outlook on things and wit. This site, www.funnyworshipstories.com, is not a surprise coming from Tony. So, calling all people who have witnessed or experienced the following:

Contribute your story about:

• Songs gone horribly wrong…
• Funny people stories…
• Crazy requests from the pastor…
• Tech disasters…
• Funny things that were said…
• Wardrobe Malfunctions…

OK, go and share your funny stories and read what others have seen: www.funnyworshipstories.com

Have you seen the new ASIMO; that little miracle-powered self-aware robot by Honda that has arms, legs, eyes…? It can smile, wave, walk up and down stairs and recognize over 6 million objects (including the Toyota Prius). If you walk holding its little hand it will do so without crushing all the little bones in yours because of how clever it is. It will match your speed and even changes in direction. Honda is very tight-lipped about its ASIMO project but after 2 decades, 40 machines, and Lord knows how many millions (or billion) dollars spent, they are finally bringing mankind closer to the day when Terminators and the Borg will kill us all and take our place of dominance on Earth. Hollywood’s got the picture though. How many movies can you count that feature a set of cybernetic versions of wasps working systematically trying to enslave or subdue the human race? The number is quite a few.

Ants are scavengers, taking their food from dying things. Bees create honey and help pollinate flowers. What do wasps do? So far as I can tell, nothing. Nature has a habit of disposing of useless creatures like the dodo bird that couldn’t fly and was too slow to outrun predators. Then there are the dinosaurs, which we all know got too big for their own good. And yet the wasp is still with us. Why? They have no relevance to the food chain. They cannot make any honey, and they aren’t fluffy. Wasps can smell out a bowl of sugar from five miles away. How do they do that when sugar does not smell?

They also organize flight paths between food sources and their nest. But how, unless they’re been trained in air traffic control? Wasps are also vindictive. Many creatures will attack when threatened or hungry, but a wasp will attack you if annoyed slightly. And unlike a bee, which tears out its entrails while plunging its stinger into you, a wasp can sting you again and again.

Annoyingly however, wasps also live amongst us in church. They are both on your staff and a part of your volunteer core. As a ministry leader you no-doubt have people that are useless to you. They don’t usually volunteer. And if they do they are very picky, the first to whine, inherently late and flaky, and they do it without a sense of passion. Every church has freeloaders and naysayers, but what do you do with them? The church stopped officially sanctioning executions in the 17th century, so put away those asbestos salad toppings.

Working with these people is akin to a ship trying to sail while dragging its anchor. Anchors are for keeping you constant and unmoved regardless of the weather, but that’s not what the church should be culturally and dynamically. It should always be adapting to reach people. Growing churches are ones that never let down their anchor, they’re always looking to grow and move, always looking to capture the slightest wisp of breeze. In short, growing churches don’t have anchors, because they are heavy to carry.

To make matters worse, the prescription is worse than the diagnosis: Get rid of your wasps. Wasp staff members will only be an incumbency providing little cost to benefit ratio for the church organization. Wasp volunteers will only keep your ministry from effectively reaching to the community. You are better off without them. You’ll find another staff member and more volunteers, and your morale will be higher without them. Do you have people who are hurting you and keeping you from moving forward while at the same time eating your honey? Get rid of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a wasp that needs the proverbial can of RAID.

As a member of the typical worship team, singers often rely on the gear presented to them by the situation. I have served in church plants in school cafeterias and in new worship houses that seat over 2,000. Either way, the issue of gear for any musician is important. One thing I have learned: If something sounds cheap, it probably is.

I own a fairly decent guitar that cost me about $600. It sounds pretty decent. But, when I played a friend’s $3,000 Taylor I loathed picking up my own guitar again. Most instrumentalists invest in good gear to present their best. A typical electric guitarist might easily spend up to $10,000 for his gear: amp, pedals, guitars. A pro trumpet can cost about $3,000.

How about those of us who sing? Do we invest in gear, too? I think we should. Here is a list of gear I would recommend for each singer on my team. Now, vocal mics can be shared and wireless in-ear receivers and transmitters can as well. You do want to have your own ear buds, however:

• Shure UR2/KSM9 wireless system. I have demoed this microphone and think it is amazing. I would love four to five of these for our regular Sunday worship. They cost with microphone, and receiver a whopping $1,800 a piece. My audio expert, Jeremy, tells me the double magnets mean it can cancel a lot of feedback and that they sound great.
• Sennheiser EW 300 IEM G2 is a cost-effective choice for monitoring in-ear. Being able to monitor anywhere on the stage is one plus, and the fact of removing large monitor speakers and their cabling cleans up the stage look, too! This unit, which actually has one earbud with it will cost you about $950. (If you are in a school cafeteria, having this might SAVE the mix.)
• Shure SCL5 are dual driver earbuds. You can pay a bit more to get custom molds to your ear from your audiologist (maybe about $150 more in cost). Imagine hearing the full range of music, minus very low subs and being able to have the volume be to your liking! You could stand right near the drummer or a guitar amp and have no problem with the volume. This is one way to save your ears, too. The price for this baby is around $400.

The total cost if only four vocalists purchase there own and nothing is shared would be $3,150. That is about what an average instrumentalist would buy on your team no matter what they play. If you have 8 singers share the mics and cost, each person would have to cough up about $1,500. And, perhaps even a bit less.

If I were to prioritize, I would first get the in-ear monitors times four and add the vocal mics later. Also, there are options for earbuds as low as $100 that can work great, too. So, as a plan “B” it would cost about $575 per person on a  vocal team of 8 people to do this.

I am interested to know what other worship leaders, audio guys, vocalists and instrumentalists think about singers and gear. Let’s discuss.

If you are a drummer like my friend Nate in this picture, you know that there are pitfalls to your instrument. Every church lady cringes when she walks in the room. Some times, you have to get there earlier and stay later than the rest of the worship band, and a sheet music might even be put in front of you. However, the most insulting thing (besides playing electronic kits) is when you are put in a glass cage.

The audio guys want control of slapping snares on the back wall and the worship pastor wants to be sure he has a job the next week. You are in a bind. The glass kills your ears, since you get reverberation instantly to your ears—unless you can pay for in-ear monitors which have their own issues.

So, the questions is for all involved: Does your church use a drum shield for your kit? Elaborate, please.

Almost three years ago, our team was informed that our Worship Pastor of 8 years was leaving in 8 weeks. I was asked to step in and be the leader of the ministry. Eight weeks is not enough time to build a team of people to volunteer to lead a ministry, I was the only “official” leader that was in place. So I took inventory and picked six people to be leaders in strategic positions of the ministry. Lucky for me our team was willing and able to do this.

I was told later that they felt since I was willing to make sacrifices as a volunteer that they could also.

For paid staff members, let your volunteers lead and build teams as much as you can, you will be amazed how awesome they really are and you can do what you were hired to do, oversee it all and watch God do miracles through them.

Like a proud parent watches their kid ride a bike for the first time, it just scares the crap out of you but man, what a rush!!!