Blog | Part-Time Worship Leaders: How To Get Everything Done
Part-Time Worship Leaders: How To Get Everything Done
There’s a reason that “Worship Leader” is often a full-time role. It’s an integral part of the church, you’re driving an entire ministry on your own, and there’s usually more than 40 hours per week of work. But with smaller churches, or churches splitting the worship leader responsibility between 2 or more workers, it can be daunting to manage the workload in a part-time employment situation. With a properly prioritized schedule and workload, getting your work done as a part-time worship leader doesn’t have to be stressful.
Getting Your Work Done as a Part-Time Worship Leader
Here are a few of our tips on how you can effectively manage your schedule and workload to get work done as a part-time worship leader:
1) “Stay in Your Lane”
We’re kidding… Sort of…
Truth is, usually part-time worship leaders work at smaller churches, and smaller churches often have less staff available which increases the collective workload of everyone. If you work at a small church as a part-time worship leader, you probably end up doing work beyond the scope of your responsibilities as a “worship leader”. And that’s fine!
But remember – when it comes to your day-to-day workload and hours, they need to first be devoted to getting everything in order for your specific responsibilities as a worship leader. You should never be cramming the crucial work in the last few hours of the week because of additional duties you picked up at the start of the week that are unrelated to your primary job.
2) Routine Management
As a part-time employee, you probably feel like you’re always burning through your weeks. Time flies fast and it’s hard to fit everything in a short schedule. That’s why it’s so crucial to properly manage your routines.
The most important part about routine management is how it meshes with others’ schedules. If you need to meet with the lead pastor on a week-to-week basis to discuss service details, lock it into a consistent schedule. Once you designate all necessary weekly tasks in a specific routine, managing your workload becomes significantly easier.
3) Delegating
This is a tricky one – don’t get in the habit of delegating just to get out of tasks you don’t want to do. But, if you have talented and committed volunteers on your worship team who are looking for more ways to get involved in leadership activities, talk with them about possible tasks you could delegate.
If your church is using a service-planning app, like Planning Center Online or BandCamp, educate other leaders in your volunteer worship team on how to use admin functionalities. If any are willing to help out, doing simple tasks like inputting songs or charts for the week can be a huge stress relief when you feel like you’re cramming a full-time workload into a part-time work week.
In Summary
There’s a reason that worship leaders usually work full-time – it’s a lot of responsibility! But depending on the size, location, and goals of a church, that isn’t always an option. Working part-time as a worship leader means you need to be extra vigilant of how you balance your responsibilities and workload. Recognize when you are helping out with tasks outside of your range of responsibility. Lending a helping hand is great, but not at the expense of getting your own workload done in an efficient and timely manner. Use scheduling routines to devote time to the tasks that are most important, and feel free to educate volunteers looking for leadership opportunities on tasks you might need help with.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as Kari Jobe, TAYA, Aodhan King, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the CCM scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.