Building Servant Leaders:
Worship Team Training at Music Camp
by Simon Gough
Music camps have been a significant training ground for Salvation Army musicians for a long time. Camps provide a focused environment away from the distractions and obligations of normal life, giving young people the opportunity to make significant growth as players and musicians. In recent years, worship teams have been added to the camp experience in addition to band and vocal. What can we teach young people about how to lead worship well so they can take this information back to their corps? We can focus on the following ideas:
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What are worship leaders and team members? They are servant leaders! They facilitate the interaction between God and His people through music. This is the most important thing to impress upon your team at camp.
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What is the most important part of a worship song? It’s the lyrics. They are what the congregation use to sing prayer and praise unto the Lord. The melody carries the lyrics, so it is important as servant leaders to be sure that we are assisting the congregation to worship. Presenting the lyrics and melody in a clear way is vital.
At camp, we are blessed with a lot of time to spend together as musical groups. Where weekly rehearsals of corps ministry groups are time-limited, we have the opportunity in a camp environment to spend more time learning about more than just the music and technique. We can discuss the reason why we do certain things in a worship setting. Unlike choir or brass band music that is notated in firm arrangements, worship team music often utilizes a chord symbol and a melodic line. This gives the group a lot of room to shape the arrangement of each song. It can be a point of growth for young musicians to spend time learning about how to craft an arrangement of a song through spreading out the sound, or creating a pocket for the vocal line, or learning about other musical tools that enhance the overall arrangement.
Focused time in a music camp environment also gives the students a chance to ask questions. Try starting a session without your instruments. Sit together and ask the students if they have questions about what the group is doing or how things are coming together. Ask them about leading in their context at their own corps. Ask them about their involvement and what their worship team looks like. Give them the opportunity to discuss their worship context or provide suggestions on how they can positively contribute. You want to help them be set up for success as a member of their corps worship team when they leave camp.
In addition to all these ideas, there are also functional needs of a worship team while at camp. Here are the big three that you need to have covered:
Resources
For band and choir groups, they are used to needing chairs and stands, and then they are ready to go! Unlike these acoustic groups, there are many technical requirements that allow a worship team to be successful at camp. This is a largely amplified group (apart from drums at times). They need to be heard by others in the group, and by the individual playing the instrument. Some resources you will need to help facilitate this include XLR cables, instrument cables, DI boxes, microphones, and speakers. All of this will run through a sound system.
Personnel
In addition to a leader that directs and instructs the group, the next vital role is a sound technician. It is essential to have an individual who can competently and confidently manage and run the audio for the group. They should understand how to balance a mix of the instruments both from a front of house mix as well as in monitors.
Flexibility
Just like other camp ensembles, there will be different levels of ability within your group. Leaders should be able to pivot if necessary. It is helpful to have options for songs based on strengths and weaknesses of the group. There is a lot of room to arrange songs in a way that best suits the students. If you don’t have a guitarist that can rip lead lines, try seeing if your keyboard player can help. If your singers cannot sing harmony, perhaps the acoustic guitar can add some of those harmony lines. Use the gifts of the students in the group.
Every camp is unique, and each group of students is different, but these are some big ideas to think about to help your worship team be successful. With these in place, you can build a week of experiences that will help the students grow in their ability, hopefully inspiring them to return to their corps and be a servant leader in their local setting.