Blog | Where to Focus My Time as a Part-Time Worship Pastor
Where to Focus My Time as a Part-Time Worship Pastor
If you’re working a part-time worship pastor role at your church, you almost certainly feel like you never have enough time to get everything done. Or, at the very least, you feel as though your time is aimed at getting tasks done, while no time is available for planning the creative direction of the ministry. If you are ever wondering how to more effectively manage your schedule as a worship pastor, or are simply looking for tips on where to put your focus as a part-time employee, we have a few recommendations for you.
Where to Place Focus as a Part-Time Worship Pastor
Usually, being a part-time employee means you’re sacrificing your focus in some area. You want to effectively manage your schedule and weekly tasks, but you also are concerned about the overall direction of the ministry.
Here are some tips on where to focus your time as a part-time worship pastor:
Team Materials Management
A lot of churches use programs such as Planning Center Online for their weekly team materials management. That involves song charts, message notes, service flow, mp3 files, and tons of other items. Unfortunately, regardless of what tool a church is using, many worship pastors poorly manage the assets their teams need. Sure – you know which charts are correct, the keys everything will be in, how transitions between songs will work, and all other Sunday morning details. But that doesn’t mean your team does.
Your volunteer worship team needs to be 100% informed on which mp3’s to follow, which charts are right, what keys the songs will be in, what song transitions will be immediate, and overall service flow. Spend the extra time cleaning up your database if you’re using a web-based management tool like PCO, or take the time to detail everything out in a group email. Believe it or not, putting the extra work in up front to clean everything up actually frees time later on, since you won’t constantly be correcting everything at rehearsal and Sunday morning run-through.
Building Volunteer Leaders
As a part-time worship pastor, you don’t have all the time in the world to meet with team members, pour into them, and hold their hand through leadership activities. And while we wish you did have the time, the truth is, that isn’t always necessary.
You want to train your team to be capable of operating independently of you. If your team is strong enough to run a worship service without you, you’ll be spending a lot more time on leading the creative direction of the ministry than on all the weekly, repetitive details.
Teach members how to use your service flow planner application (or how to organize all the materials in an email/Google Drive link if that’s what your church uses). If you have strong leaders in your volunteer team, get them comfortable sharing potions of scripture or words with the congregation between songs. Teach team members how to run lines, route audio, and manage the sound system. Get them competent at running each area of the worship ministry so they are able to function independently of you.
Worship Ministry Goals
What are your underlying worship ministry goals? Are you trying to get the congregation more involved? Grow the worship team? Spend time reflecting on the long-term goals; not just the week-to-week checklist basics. Whatever it is, use the volunteers on your team to help meet that agenda. Trying to achieve any ministry goals without the help of the volunteers around you is nearly pointless. Work with those in your midst to foster a culture of involvement and improvement, and encourage those on your team to keep them on board with the church’s mission!
Wrapping It Up
Focusing your time as a part-time employee gets stressful. But spending time away from the week-to-week checklist items to properly organize your service flow application database can free up lots of time during rehearsals and Sunday morning run-throughs. Spend time investing in your team and building up leaders. Get your team leaders competent enough to lead a Sunday morning independently of you! When you have strong leaders in place, you can use them to help achieve your ministry’s goals. Working as one part-time employee doesn’t allow you the time or horsepower to get the work done necessary for growing a ministry, so use the team and tools available to you to be efficient with your schedule and task management.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as TAYA, Big Daddy Weave, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the worship music scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.