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Not much can happen in a worship service without the people in the sound booth making it happen. Sound engineers have, in most cases, complete control over delivering the stuff from the platform to the peeps in the pews. Unless you’ve dabbling in a new avant-garde form of worship and preaching using techniques from the silent movie era, you rely heavily on your amplification system. There are very few elements in your worship service that take place without being routed through your sound system. If you’ve ever participated in a church service where the power went out mid-service, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The “sound guys”, as we often refer to them, are important to the success of a worship gathering. In many ways, they can either make the service operate smoothly or crash with one slip of the finger. Following is a list of tips and ideas to help the sound engineers in their ministry of enhancing and supporting the worship experience and ensuring the delivery of biblical teaching.

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When you’re in the midst of auditioning singers and band members to join your crew, what types of things should you look for and what questions should you ask to determine if they’re skilled and versatile enough to meet the demands of a worship team. I am assuming that you do have a worship team and the requirements for joining are a little more than standing upright and having opposable thumbs. If your worship ministry is backed by piano and organ or a kazoo choir and a cowbell, I’m not sure this article will scratch you where you itch. For those of you who utilize a full band, a few instruments, or just an acoustic guitar, it is essential to find qualified volunteers to serve in this ministry. Because of my background and love of music and my commitment to worship, I prefer to have the bar set high because we don’t want the song service to crash in embarrassment like a bunch of chubby, uncoordinated pre-teen cheerleaders. (That, I think, is going to be the name of my next band.)

While each band member can’t have a master’s degree in performance and each vocalist can’t have years of professional experience, your worship team should be comprised of those who are moderately skilled at their craft, be able to work together as a team, and have the flexibility to work through challenges. Here are some things you should consider when auditioning for band members and vocalists. Some are questions you should ask the individual and some are areas you should observe during the entire audition process, including the one-on-one audition and six month trial period. An unfavorable answer to one or a few of these questions shouldn’t necessarily break the deal but this is good information to collect during the interrogation audition process. Now, let’s fire up that bright light, sit them down in a metal chair, and ask them some questions.

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Your worship ministry is one of the most visible ministries a church offers and is probably the most talked about and valued (or scrutinized) next to the preaching ministry. Your style and approach to worship is often a representation of the philosophy of the rest of the church. First time attenders make an impression of your church within the first few minutes in reaction to what happens on the platform: the leadership, the music style, the presentation and ability of the band and singers, and the overall quality of the service. If a church service were a pep rally, the worship team members are the cheerleaders - praise prompters, if you will.

There aren’t too many things more embarrassing than an uncoordinated, corpulent cheerleader trying to keep up with the rest of the squad. In fact, she’s doing more harm than good when she claps a fraction off the beat, falls to the ground after a simple lunge, performs a cartwheel like my three-year-old daughter, and moves her appendages like wet, limp noodles. That may fly in seventh grade but I guarantee you won’t see that on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad. After all, the Cowboys want their fans motivated, not nauseated.

What can you do to make sure your praise prompters are giving honor to God and pointing others to Him? Populate your worship team with believers who are pursuers of Christ and are qualified musicians by using an effective audition process.

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We’ll be focusing on worship teams this week. I’ll get the discussion started with a question:

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