11 Deadly Sins of the Worship Team, Part 2

By Jon Nicol

Major transgressions don’t begin as major transgressions.

Think David’s fling with Bathsheba. It started with him putzing around on the roof when he shoulda been with his boys at war.

I don’t want to make light of David’s experiences in 2 Sam 11 & 12. But it’s a vivid picture of how the smaller stuff opens cracks and fissures for the bigger stuff.

If you missed the first section, our #1 deadly “sin” (and I use that word figuratively, not in the literal “mess around with a married woman and cover it up with debauchery and murder” sense) is creating a blob of sound. The sins I want to deal with today are the ones that help create this ‘sinful’ blob.

#2 – Failing to Create Space
Do you have people on your team who play every note of every chord of every measure of every section of every song? Every Sunday.

The “demon” behind this “sin” goes by the name Overplay. He’s done quite well at infiltrating most worship teams.

Overplaying isn’t a skill thing. It’s a maturity thing.

And this maturity doesn’t have anything to do with age. I’ve know plenty of musicians who have been playing 30 years, but still haven’t figured out what a rest is. The only way to make them stop is to end the music set or make them take a Sunday off.

The amount a musician plays is inversely proportionate to their maturity. More mature = less playing. It’s a mix of emotional maturity and musical maturity.

Rather than me going on about how to remedy this “sin,” I’ll just point you to an article a friend sent me the other day. It’s SO worth your time to read, as well pass it on to your team. Read The Spectrum of Time.

#3 – Not playing as a team.
This is also known as the “Six People Playing the Same Song on the Same Stage in the Same Key and Nearly the Same Time” sin.

As a moniker, it’s a little cumbersome. But pretty descriptive of lots of teams you and I have played on, eh?

This is one of those sins that have many contributing factors. But two of the biggest factors are 1) failing to listen to each other and 2) a lousy sense of time.

Occasionally, we’ll start our morning sound check by playing a song sans monitors so the engineer get the house mix dialed in without the mud of the monitors. It’s pretty brutal, but it forces us to really listen to the drummer. We rely on him as the unifying force. (What a novel idea—drums holding a band together. Hmm…)

Unfortunately, the monitors get turned on and everyone just starts listening to him/herself.  

Sigh…

When it comes to a lousy sense of time, take a look at these articles earlier in the Turing the Team into a Band series.

In the next part, we’ll take a look at three more sins that contribute to the blob of sound. Until then, let me know what you’re thinking:

How have you experienced the “demon” named “Overplay” on your team. What have you done to “rid your house” of him?

What are some other ways you see these two sins “manifesting” themselves in your team? How have you been dealing with them?

post graphic derived from Stock.xchng, thanks Margus Saluste

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May 17, 2012