Link – Worship Audition Info

Joshua Seller is the Worship Ministry Coordinator at Harvest Bible Chapel in Oakville, ON. He blogs over at Passionate Reverence.

He posted some great info on how they do auditions at Harvest here and I thought lots of you would find this helpful -

• Ask that a Worship Team Application is filled out
  • This form contains a brief background of the persons testimony, their understanding of what worship is, what and how long they have been playing or singing

• Phone call or email asking if they have attended a PWTP
  • HBC offers a night called “Party with the Pastors” where we invite new people out who have been coming to Harvest and want to get involved. This night is a way for someone to fast track, hear about our doctrine, history of the church and ask any questions. Its in a home, so its really a great way to get to know someone
    on a more personal level.
• Get them plugged into a small group
  • If they are going to be used in a stage ministry at our church it is important that they a.) call HBC their home church and b.) are growing with other believers in a small group. Harvest is a church of small groups not a church with small groups. Because of the rapid growth we have always had a hard time finding small groups for all congregates so a waiting list is usually the case for most people.
• Face to Face / Musical Audition
  • If they have stuck around long enough to make it to this stage than I am usually excited for the possibilities. Because we don’t let just “anyone” who can play or sing use their talent in our worship services it really weeds out who is there to perform and who is there to serve the Lord. What I would do is email a couple of chord charts along with a mp3 asking for a certain guitar hook or beat or arrangement to be learned and then brought to the audition. We would play through a couple of songs and the I usually spring a new song on them and see how well they can adapt to new material. I then give them a chance to play what they have been working on and then another opportunity to play something of their choice.
• Letter of response
  • Usually after an audition we like to pray about the person and really seek out where the best possible placement is for that person. We have many people audition but a lot of the time they would do better in a different ministry then on our normal weeekend worship team. (i.e. mens bible study, small group leading, children’s ministry). Again, this comes down to the person’s heart to serve- if they want to be on the weekend stage and no where else then a red flag goes up. After a decision has been made we will send out a letter to inform the auditioned where we feel would be the best place for them to serve is. If we don’t feel that they are ready to begin serving (as a singer or musician) we ask that they re-audition in 6 months.

• Weekend shadow
  • Because we run 3 identical services and rehearse on Saturdays its alot of hours and your weekend is pretty much tied up. To help each new member see and feel out how we run our services we ask that new members join us for 2-3 weeks to just stand on the stage and play along (unplugged) to get a feel and sense for what is expected.

Check his post and go read more stuff on his blog cause he’s got some good stuff!