The Most Important Members of the Worship Team

So, who are the most important members of the worship team?  Some may say the worship leader or whoever is leading the song at the moment.   Others may claim the guitar players and/or the piano/keyboard players are most integral part of the team, and a few may actually state that drummer and bass player are the most important people on the praise team by supplying the “foundation” for the music on stage.  All of these opinions are correct; every single person on the stage, be it a choir member or fellow musician, is important.

However in my opinion, the most important members of the praise team are rarely noticed by the average congregation member and are rarely praised for their hard work and dedication.  As a matter of fact, their primary job is to NOT be noticed, and the fewer “looks” they get from the congregation, the better they are doing their job.  Who are these people?  From my experience, THE most important members of our worship team are the folks in the sound booth, hands down.  In the words of Ronnie Martin from Joy Electric, “We [the people on stage] are only as good as our sound man is good,” and I firmly believe this. 

 

Those that are running sound, lighting, and projection get to church before we praise team members do on Sunday mornings.  Praise team members are asked to be ready to play at 7:45am which means getting there around 7:30.  Every time Marci and I arrive, the people running the lighting, sound, and projection are already there.  Every.  Time.  They also arrive in plenty of time on Wednesdays, and they stay as late as needed without complaint (for those that don’t know, practices can run as late as 10:30-11:00pm).  It’s also common for techs to be there on Friday afternoons practicing and coordinating lighting patterns.

I’ve worked with all kinds of sound techs over the years, and I’ll have to say that it’s a joy and an honor to work with team that we currently have.  The next time you have a chance, walk back before or after service and thank them for their hard work.  It takes a certain level of expertise combined with humility to effectively run the production in the Reach Center at the scale in which we do it.  Our production team has a real passion for this ministry, and I have a deep appreciation for what they do.  Believe me when I say it’s much better to have mediocre musicians/performers and a stellar production crew as opposed to mediocre production with stellar musicians.  I think that sometimes they make us sound better than we really are.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/103745633

Well, I don’t think we’re THAT bad, but I think that you get the point.  If you REALLY want to see what they are capable of, you HAVE to come to one of our concerts!  It’s pretty amazing.

In closing, let me take this opportunity to publicly thank everyone of the production staff for their hard work:

Sound: Jacob Church, Rocky Moore, Greg Wentz

Computer: Jason Smith, Janice Lambey, Albert McGee

Video: Wally Robinson

Camera: Jon Helton, Josh Anderson, Marc Anderson, Banks Church, Greg Ellis, Scott Anderson, Morgan Robinson, Chaselyn Ellis

Lights: Chris Nichols, Eric Dowell

I appreciate the time and energy you put into enhancing our congregation’s worship experience each service. Thank you all for everything that you do!  

Martin