Welcome to the Senior Coast Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Idicks, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at the end of the day. And today's podcast are very senior marketing. Dr. Greg Adams is a best selling author and international speaker. He has been a ministry and organizational leadership for 28 years and has been writing, speaking, and training leaders since 2000. In this conversation, Greg shares some background into his worship experience and some ideas on what to consider when it comes to hiring a new worship pastor. We hope you enjoyed this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Greg, I don't know if you remember, we got to touch bases, I think it was in Florida at an AG conference. I mean, this is years and years ago. I mean, it's got to be 15 years ago. We had lunch at a little cafe shop. So I'm just really glad that we stayed connected and uh things of that sort. And really excited to have you on call today and the podcast and two channel and all that good stuff. Um, you recently, not recently, you actually wrote an article quite a while ago um about how to hire a worship pastor. Talk about that article a little bit and some of the insights that you brought on that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks for having me and glad to be back on your podcast. Um I uh we actually met uh it was a long time ago, maybe even 2005 or six, long, long time ago. But yeah, it's good to be back on the Vanderblemen podcast. Um, yeah, I wrote an article. Uh I was a worship pastor for 11 years, my degrees in worship, and then was around worship ministry for 20 years, used to be a technical director and producer, and was uh just around that world of producing worship services for two decades and um still have a hand in it somewhat and in you know in producing a conference and all and working with worship people. But yeah um I got asked a while back um what questions should I ask when I interview a worship leader? And I started writing and I didn't stop. And the next thing I know, I had 99 questions to ask a worship pastor when you hire them. And it just really highlights how complicated it is to hire a qualified, competent staff member and why uh search firms exist, like Vander Blumen and others, you know, to be able to uh help people navigate these hard things because a lot of pastors don't think through, they they just think, hey, we want somebody to fill the music on Sunday, but they don't realize all that goes in nowadays in 2022 into leading a modern band. And do you use tracks? Do you have a click track? Do you use in-air monitors? Do you have a click track going to your ear? And um, can you can you lead a band? Do you play from an instrument? They don't think about stuff like that, right? They just think, you know, hey, we want somebody up front. And the reason I know it's so important because having been a worship pastor, um, I know very well that the two people out of the entire staff that the congregation sees the most is the lead pastor and the worship pastor.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02The executive pastor might get paid more, but he's not seen more. Most people don't know who the executive pastor is. Most people never see him, couldn't tell you their name. Uh, you have churches of hundreds or thousands where attendees come every week and they do know the worship leader. They have no clue who the executive pastor is. But um uh, and I say that in love because I do a lot of stuff with executive pastors, but uh the two faces that they know are the worship leader and the lead pastor. So you want to get the worship leader right. You want to you want to make sure that you that you um make make the right decision, and and that's something that you don't want to rush and you don't want to skimp over because uh you know it goes back to biblical examples of Lucifer and Satan and you know, Lucifer being a worship leader in heaven and the divisions that happen. And I can remember being a worship pastor and people coming in my office to complain about the lead pastor, and I would say his office is right down the hall, go talk with him. Yeah, um, you know, but they would always try to put a wedge between the pastor and worship leader because again, they're the two most visible staff members. Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I think it's it's because they are seen so often, and it's easy to view them only as the people that are leading worship, but they're also leading volunteers, they're leading the entire band, and they're also a worship pastor, so we're also pastoring people at the same time. Um, you know, our we love our executive pastors, and and they certainly play such a key role, but you're right, it's the worship pastor and the and that senior or lead pastor that people are seeing on a constant week-to-week to week basis, um, and and having so much interaction with. So it's it's a critical point. And it's to me, it's one of the things that I I love about Vanderblumen is that yeah, we're gonna need to hear their audio, we're gonna need to see their worship because you you gotta be able to lead great worship, but there's so much more to a great fit than just your skill set. And it's it's all those DNA matches that we spend so much, we we spend so much time getting to know the people, both at the church and then the candidates, to make sure that that fit is just perfect. You know, we we equate it to a uh to a heart transplant. You gotta make sure you have a great heart and a great body, but if those don't transfer and connect perfectly, it's not gonna, it's not gonna fit, it's not gonna work. So it's it's so critical that uh you get that hire right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and as you guys know and probably have done studies on, or I'm sure William has written articles about if you make a bad hire that you lose so much momentum and morale when you have to go to to replace somebody and let somebody go or fire somebody and the the whole starting over process, it really hurts the church and makes them go backwards if you have to replace somebody. And so you want to get that right. As you said, they're pastoring people. Uh, a thing that I talk about in the article, uh, it's just 99 questions to ask when hiring a worship pastor that you can find on gregatkinson.com. But one of the things I talk about is um, do you know anything about sound video and lights? Because you know, most churches in America are 200 people or less. And so in the typical church, that worship pastor is a combo position where not only does he do music, but he's over the tech team. So, like when I was a campus pastor at a multi-site church, my worship leader who I hired um had no experience with leading a tech team and sound video likes and production, but I could tell he was a learner and he would work his tail off to learn it. And he did, and he he took them to a whole new level and got really creative with lighting and stage set design, and that's something else, stage design. And oh yeah, um, you know, you think of Jonathan Mom and all those guys that that have all those resources, but um, but yeah, they um they got up to he got up to speed and he's he's he's a great guy, but um, but a lot of churches are gonna ask you to oversee everything under the arts, you know. So you're gonna be over music, worship, sound, video, lights, production, some churches, first impressions, hospitality. Yeah, uh, you know, I'm a first impressions guy, that's what I'm known for. But there's a lot of churches where it's the worship pastor who that falls underneath him, also communion, um, uh baptism, all that falls under the worship pastor. You know, they have to be a leader of teens. I call it a capital L leader. They have to be, and this is in my questions are you an equipper? Um, are you a doer or an equipper? And so they have to be an Ephesians 4 equipper, they have to be a Capital L leader, they have to oversee baptism teams and communion teams and everything that makes a Sunday happen. And then you get into programming and production and using tools like Planning Center and planning out your services. Some churches plan it out down to a minute, down to a second. You know, they have this is going to happen at this many minutes, and this is gonna happen at this many minutes, and and then you get into scheduling and um scheduling a band. And then the other thing that a lot of pastors don't really think about that a worship pastor has to be competent with is auditioning new talent. And so being able to bring a new bass player onto the team or a new drummer or a new electric guitarist or a new keyboard player or vocalists. You know, I always audition vocalists, I'm not just gonna hand anybody a microphone and let them start singing. You know, I had to have auditioned them and heard them sing, and so uh some people don't have the leadership gifting and the personality to run an audition. They just think, well, I'm not gonna tell anybody no, so everybody can come up there, and then it sounds like a training record, it just sounds terrible because they didn't have the ability to look somebody in the eye and say, no, you're just not a good fit. Maybe you should search somewhere else. Yeah. But um, I audition everybody. Doesn't matter if you're a vocalist or instrumentalist, you're gonna audition to be on that stage. And you've got to have that leadership gifting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's interesting. At the at the church I was a staff in up in Atlanta, um, their audition process was really cool because you auditioned and you practiced with a team, but you didn't you didn't go on an actual service for quite a while because it isn't just about your ability to sing or play, it's also who are you as a heart and and how how are you with people? And it was it really it was harder, right? It was harder to get people on the team because it took longer, but it really made for such a beautiful, beautiful fit.
SPEAKER_00Hiring is getting harder, and you need the right people to accomplish your mission. Learn how we can help you find the right people for your team today. Contact us to get started. We would love to help.
SPEAKER_01Hey, you earlier talked about your conference and first impressions, and it's actually interesting. I was just talking to Jason Young about um customers and calling them guests and things of that sort. So um talk to me about um the conference that's coming up and and and just your your heart for that first impressions team.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have a big heart for first impressions. You know, I've been consulting since 2005, and I started my own uh secret shopper company in 2009 called Worship Impressions, and you can just find it at worshipimpressions.com. But uh we've worked with the largest and fastest growing churches in the country and uh worked with over 200 churches and helped them get ready for the weekend. And so I came in and I do uh a get uh guest services evaluation. And so Jason Young is a friend of mine, he's spoken at the first impressions conference at least three times, maybe four. I can't remember, but I know he's spoken at least three times. But um, we have a fall conference coming up in uh late fall, November 2nd through 4th. And um, we're gonna hear from some guest services. I call them gurus and experts and authors, the guy, the go-to guys that are consultants. So we're gonna hear from the GOAT, Tom Rayner, who has consulted with over a thousand churches and written tons of books on hospitality that I have behind me on my shelf. And we're gonna hear from Danny Franks, who's at J.D. Greer's Church in Romney, North Carolina, the summit, who's over guest services. We're gonna hear from Mark Waltz, who wrote the book First Impressions, one of the first things I read about the subject. We're gonna hear from Brooklyn Warren, who's with North Point Ministries and worked with Jason Young and worked with Jeff Henderson. We're gonna hear from Jeff Henderson, um, we're gonna hear from Nona Jones, we're gonna hear from Dave Gibbons, my old friend, from um visiting the West Coast back when I first met you, all those trips I used to take to the West Coast. Yeah um Dave Gibbons, pastor of Newsong Church in Orange County. We're gonna hear from him. Um, we're gonna hear from Carrie Williams, the CEO of Leadership Network. That's awesome. Going to hear from um some amazing people and and leaders and um Ben Stapley. I was just talking with him today. Ben Stapley, yeah. And I know you guys were just at an event together. He's gonna be speaking again. And um uh we're adding a couple of new speakers now that we're completely virtual. We made a pivot and a decision because of the economy and inflation and rising airline cost and uh gas costs. I was looking at the how I was talking to some sponsors, some of our sponsors that go to conferences, and they were telling me how much their flight costs have increased over the last year. And yeah, it is. Yeah, and I I've flown here recently, and the tickets are are uh astronomical. And so uh I thought we want to reach as many people as possible. So why don't we do what we've done in the past? Take travel out of the equation, make it a virtual experience. And so uh now you can just go to first impressionsconference.com, click the register button, register for free, and watch it online for free. You can sit at your home, your office, your iPad, your phone, your computer, your Apple TV. I I've I watch it on my big screen TV with Apple TV, but um, you can just sit wherever you want to sit. You can sit with your team in the auditorium, play it on the big screen. We have a lot of uh church staffs that watch it together because there's something for everybody. We we cover children's ministry, we cover security, uh, we cover worship, preaching, everything with guest services, hospitality, and first impressions. But um, we're gonna hear from some lead pastors like Terry Smith in New York, where uh he's the lead pastor at Ben Stapley's Church. Yeah, and uh he wrote The Hospitable Leader, which is a great leadership book. Uh, we're gonna hear from Wayne Francis, who uh just had a great best-selling book come out on God and race. And um, he pastors up there in New York, New Jersey, where Terry Smith is and they're friends and introduce me to each other. But that's great. Gonna hear from uh lead pastors, guest services experts, and and just across the board. And uh it's totally free. Yeah, that's awesome. I love log in and watch.
SPEAKER_01That's huge. I mean, free, free is free, right? Yeah. So tell me uh tell me this. What what is something new that you're seeing inside of the first impressions um movement, if you will, teams, something of that sort?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think um the new thing coming out of COVID, uh, I've said this for years. It's one of the reasons I started the first impressions conference, is that um they have the anybody who leads your guest services team or your first impressions team, they also have to be a capital L leader. They have to be an equipper. So if I let's say I'm over first impressions at your church, I can't greet you in the parking lot and wave and then take off sprinting to the front door and say, wait, wait, wait, let me catch my breath, let me open the front door for you, and then fly past them down the aisle of the church and say, Let me usher you and seat you too, seat you. It's you have to have a team, and so it takes dozens of people, greeters, ushers, welcome center, parking team. It takes a lot of people to pull it off. And so you need, and I've said this for years, sometimes your best greeter, the guy with the biggest smile, is not your best leader and shouldn't lead the team. You need a capital L leader, a true equipper. And so coming out of a COVID where we've lost a lot of our volunteer base, a lot of churches had volunteers that did not return. You have to rebuild your team and you have to get back into that dynamic of recruiting and training and recruiting and training and building a team back up that can sustain a weekend that can get you through. And a lot of churches will uh have people serve every other week, once a month, every week. Uh some churches like Elevation here in Charlotte do an A week, B week, A week, B week, A B, A, B. But um, whatever it may be, at Danny Franks Church, Danny Franks is speaking at our conference this fall. Summit Church and Raleigh Durham, JD Greer's Church. Uh, they serve every week. He has no schedule, he does not use Planning Center. They are on every week. And if they're going to be off, they have to find their own replacement. That's Capital L leadership.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Danny Franks never worries about a schedule. He never thinks about a schedule. He never, he never touches a schedule. He has thousands of volunteers. It's a you know a church of 20,000, but yeah, um, but everybody's on every week. And if you can't serve, you get somebody from either your alternate team, the opposite week of you, to replace and to swap with you, but they manage themselves. But all that to say you have to get back to building a team, recruiting, training. I want, I want um now that we can meet again and we can gather again, I want to see volunteer appreciation come back. I want to see volunteer quarterly trainings come back. Uh, I just spoke at uh uh training at a conference uh where seven churches came together in Indiana. I got to see Notre Dame for the first time. I went by Notre Dame. I was in South Bend, Indiana, but um I I went and trained uh all the volunteers at First Baptist Orlando and in Florida. And um, so you gotta you gotta have times where you get together and um you train your team, and that's a morale-building thing. You know you boost morale, you let them know why it matters and how you appreciate them, and um um get back to the basics of what got you where you were pre-COVID. Now you've got to rebuild post-COVID. And I hate that the numbers went down, but it's just the reality across the board in America, North America, but we've got to rebuild.
SPEAKER_01It's true, it's just true. And you know, we talked about it from as your worship leaders, but even within first impressions guest services, it's not just about the ability to greet people and be friendly, but you you've you've got to be able to lead, you've got to be able to work with volunteers and all that stuff. Greg, thank you so so much. Um, I appreciate your time. Um, you know, I love all the resources that you've talked about are free. The your article's free, the conference is free. So please go get those. There'll be links in the in the show notes. Um, so so please be a part of that. The conference is fantastic. I got to be a part of it in Atlanta a couple years ago. Uh it's it's so essential that the people that are walking through your doors, whether you're a church, a school, a nonprofit, a business, they need to know that that that you see them and you care about them, um, and that you can be present with them. I I think it's just such a valuable, valuable thing. And of course, worship pastors. If you're if you're needing a worship pastor and you're like, yeah, Greg, you're right. It's really hard. That's what we do. So please reach out to us. Um, we've we've we've placed more worship pastors than anyone. Uh so love to work with you and and uh connect with you and find the best match for you as possible. But please go get those resources, make sure you attend that conference and spread the word about that uh because it's it it could really change the day for someone at your church or organization. Thank you, Greg, so much. So glad we got to stay connected again, and uh I'm I know we'll do this again soon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01You bet. Have a good one.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help Christian organizations build their best through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity of consulting services. Visit our website, vanerblumen.com, to learn more. And subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our newest episode. Thanks for listening.