How To Run Worship Team Auditions (with FREE form, questions, and process) 

Thanks for your consistently thoughtful and spiritually sensitive videos. I’ve been a worship leader for 7 years and have co-led a worship ministry for about 25 years prior to that. For me, step number one is reaching out to the pastor and other leadership when I’m considering someone for the worship team (whether the person approaches me, or I wish to approach them). My pastor and other leaders may have information about that prospective member that I do not. If they have that preliminary clearance from leadership, I’ll then proceed by having them choose a worship song or two that they are comfortable with, and play or sing for me. If their skills are adequate, we’ll then discuss expectations, and I’ll give them a few songs to work on. We connect to evaluate their progress, and I begin having them come for rehearsals and place them in a once or twice a month rotation for starters. I believe that I, as a worship ministry head, am responsible for a certain amount of musical training and tweaking for my team as I seek to meld the members together to make “one sound”. Every leader must decide to what degree they are willing to do so.

My Church's Process Application: Demographics, dedication to complete this tedious process, musical experience/history. Interview: Gauging their personality, beliefs, understanding of worship, learn their story, are they a team player? Audition: We first set the foundation of expectations of leaders on and off the stage. 1 song the team picks 1 song the applicant chooses that showcases their skill level & style. (vocalists audition singing lead as well as harmonies. Looking for good pitch, strong harmonies, ad-lib ability, etc. Instrumentalists audition playing to a backing track and we evaluate their timing, dynamics, improvisations, etc) After the audition is over, the worship leaders deliberate and pray over the next week over the applicants and then make a decision as a team. We rarely deny people from joining the team (they have to have NO musical talent), if they need to work on their skills we bring them under a more experienced musician to be trained up and mentored (musically & spiritually) until they are ready to go live on Sundays.

P.S. Your ideas on this process are very thoughtful and thorough (obviously coming from a bit of experience!) I have a sort of sub-leadership role alongside the person who chooses songs and directs singers. I have shared this video with the staffed leader of our team because we are developing this process for our team.

They have to be actively attending our church for 3 months. Application, interview, send 1 video song. Then 3 song audition. Then a 3 month probation period before fully being on the team.

For audition songs, i give them 4 to learn, at the actual audition, we only do 2 of the songs they learned and 2 others, so i can see how they work under pressure, learned this from Frank Zappa, except he was more brutal, all the song were songs they didnt learn lol

What do you think about drafting a system like this in reverse order? Maybe not in exhaustive detail but at least staying one step ahead of the applicant. I'm more comfortable recruiting if I know have the application prepared. I'm drafting an application right now with the interview in mind. I'm more comfortable doing an audition/interview if I know how onboarding will go. This sounds to me like what you're saying, but "step 1" suggests "do this first." The applicant's first step is not the worship leader's first step.

Looking for advice:) this is great. What about someone who asks to audition but plays an instrument you don’t usually use, like saxophone, flute, or French horn, etc? What do you say, ? I like to be inclusive but these do not feel like a good fit for our church style.

Process? What is this?

Typically just come and join us.