5 reasons not to rehearse
Sep 26, 2008 How To
Posted by
Russell Martin
This summer I spent four weeks gone during the week and would come home on weekends. During that time we decided as a band to only use songs we knew really well, and to just meet up early on Sunday mornings to rehearse. This gave the band a break from Wednesday rehearsals and created a change. Little did I know that we would come to enjoy it and that it actually would be productive. After we did this for a month some members asked if we could continue. After considering it I thought why not. We decided to meet at the church at 8:00 instead of 8:30 every Sunday morning. As a trade off we would only rehearse one Wednesday per month, unless we specified otherwise.
I have to say it has worked out better than I thought it might, and maybe for these reasons.
1. The songs are fresh in our minds- Each sunday morning we usually use about 5 songs in the service. Of those atleast 4 we have done before and 1 is either new or fairly new. On Sundays at rehearsal we have time to go over each of the songs we know twice, and then we spend a little more time on the unfamiliar song. We even find time to look ahead at a song we will be doing the next week. And we only have an hour and a half during sunday school to forget what we learned.
2. The members are less rushed- In my situation we are working with mostly volunteers, and most members have children and families. Rehearsing once per month gives them more time to be with their families, and maybe time to just take a break.
3. We are more effecient- Knowing that we have less time, it seems that we are more mindful of the time we have. We tend to get started better, we don’t spend as much time playing around. We are better stewards of our time.
4. The congregation responds- Since we limit ourselves to the number of new songs we can learn, we end up using songs more frequently. This has allowed the congregationto learn the songs better, and be able to use them to worship.
5. I can look to the future- Freeing up the rehearsal time means that I can be forward thinking and have some time to try new things. We are looking at the possibility of a second worship band, we are also thinking about using an instrumental ensemble. I can use those off weeks to try some new things.
I realize there are things that we lose by not meeting weekly. Mostly the comraderie of meeting together, praying together and supporting each other. We do get that on Sunday mornings and it makes us look at other times that we can get together like at someones house or going out to eat as a group.
So how does your worship team rehearse? What’s your schedule and how does it work for you?
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- Sunday Setlist 1/11/09
Tags: band, Church, Free, rehearsal, Songs, summer, Sunday, Team, work, Worship
September 29th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I help out with a youth worship band. I have a volunteer that directs the whole thing. We normally have rehearsal on Sunday nights, but we decided to change that up a couple of weeks ago. Sundays were just too long of a day, and it was taking its toll on us. The students were at church on Sunday morning, choir in the afternoon, small group after choir, and then band rehearsal.
We use planningcenteronline.com to help us plan out our services one month out in advance. It also makes the chord charts and non-downloadable mp3’s available to our students. They practice at home, and now we meet one hour before our Wednesday night youth worship time to rehearse. We also meet on the last Sunday night of each month to lay out each service. This gives the students in the worship band an opportunity to see how we plan out a worship service, and it also gives them an opportunity to offer some input.
This Wednesday will be our first time on this new schedule. Its a little nerve racking, but I think it is going to have a positive impact on the band.