New Topic...

Hi.

Even though we've quasi-decided (for now) to focus more on macro-philosophical type stuff and less on pragmatics, I want to get your take(s) on something.
As many of you know, we now employ a worship team format for musicians on Sunday mornings. We have three teams, all of whom have "core" instruments of guitar, piano, bass, drums, and some vocalists. There are also others not on teams that come and fill in, usually either as a substitute or additional instruments (violin, cello, brass ensemble, etc.). I have been doing a lot of thinking about this format for the worship ministry -- its structure, cohesion, sense of community, etc. -- and I have some observations.
I feel that structure of the worship teams has broken down a bit (e.g., what has been known as "Team Page", led by Branson/Cristy, has been severely hobbled by the SpencerAcuff tour circuit, and by brand new Caroline Rebecca Page, bless her little heart!!) and are in need of revamping. However, I do not believe the solution is a restructuring of teams. I have been more and more drawn to the idea of a 'worship community'. A year or so ago, Denise Stillwell cited something like this going on at a church she knew of. I think there is some great potential for a group like that: to kinda have one large worship team that all know each other (to an extent) and all have the plausibility of working with each other at some point (rather than a team of 5-7 that only participates with each other; this too has advantages, of course, which is why we employed it in the first place). This larger group would meet on a regular basis, whether it's once a month, or every other, or every three, etc., and have a wonderful time of sharing, praying, worshipping, and community-building. The group would include visual artists, dancers, and other "non-musician" worship folks as well. From this larger group would be drawn each week's music team. This also means that we are not "limited" to having a full piano/guitar/bass/drum band every week, which is what the "old" teams often, by default, would be. We could have the freedom of doing a lot more mixing and matching of people as well as more variety of groups and instrumentations, which would really help to expand the repertoire and worship language of us on the team and those in the congregation.

What do you think of this? I am very aware of the challenges and benefits to both of these formats, and welcome comment and suggestions. Thanks...