The relationship between a lead pastor and a worship pastor

Unfiltered: Real Church Planting Conversations

How a lead pastor and the worship pastor work together has an effect on Sunday services. What should the relationship between these two roles look like? How do you work together to ensure attendees are having a meaningful Sunday worship experience?

0:20 Lee Stephenson introduces the episode topic that is relevant to church planters, lead pastors, and worship pastors.

0:40 Lee asks Danny Parmelee when he officially had a worship pastor when he was a church planter.

0:57 Danny discusses who his first worship leader was at his church plant and what their relationship looked like since they were college friends first.

2:48 Lee asks how communication with a worship leader worked when he wasn’t a full-time staff and was volunteering his time while working another job.

3:05 Danny speaks to the challenge of not only working with someone who was volunteering their time, but also the challenge of not having any sort of church office to meet together.

4:04 Having simple services at the beginning helped keep the worship aspect simple, according to Danny. But as his church grew, specific meetings to discuss worship elements of the services were needed.

4:45 Lee asks Danny how much freedom he gave to the worship leader when it came to service development.

5:06 Danny feels he gave his worship leader freedom to choose how the worship portion of a service would look.

5:41 Danny remembers for special services, such as Easter or Good Friday, he would ask his worship leader, Michael, to do something special and Michael would blow it out of the water.

6:05 Danny trusted his worship leader to make good song choices but would remind him at times to use songs that were familiar worship songs on the radio.

6:38 Danny knows worship leaders like to do something new and unique to avoid repetition, but also knows the importance of using familiar songs that people can sing along to during services.

7:25 Danny asks Lee about his experience in working with worship pastors and his experience with that relationship.

7:33 Lee remembers meeting with his worship leader about once a month when they were a new church plant. And having limited time during a short service also meant there was no time to be very innovative.

8:19 Lee speaks to the importance of a pastor having a good relationship with a staff worship pastor. If there isn’t unity between those two main people, it can be seen up on the stage.

8:50 Every Tuesday afternoon, Lee would meet with the worship pastor to not only review upcoming services, but to pray together and to relationally get on the same page.

9:32 Currently Lee communicates mostly through email with his current worship pastor, Joel, who is more behind the scenes.

9:50 With the launch of another congregation, Lee knows that the demands of services are going to be a little different and the service structure is more Joel’s responsibility.

10:35 Lee varies how his church participates in communion, so he and Joel plan for that together.

11:02 Danny reiterates the importance of a pastor and worship leaders talking about service transitions.

11:30 Danny agrees with Lee that the more services a church adds, the more complex the planning of the worship aspect and flow of service becomes.

12:04 Lee stresses the importance of planning to create an above average service and the priority a lead pastor should place on collaborating effectively with the worship pastor.

13:16 Danny adds that a worship leader should have a pastoral heart who develop other leaders within the worship team.

14:13 Lee advises that the only way to know if a worship leader has a heart of a worshipper themselves is to spend time with them.

14:23 Lee thanks listeners for tuning in to the topic on the lead pastor and worship pastor’s relationship.