Drawing Musicians

One of the hardest things for a church plant to do is draw musicians. Considering we all want very rocking music, this is a problem. When we started The Stone we had one dude who could play an instrument and that was the keyboard. He was a friend and was only there becaus of our friendship and to help us get up and going.

Now I say without a doubt that our strongest area and area with the most depth is in the area of musicians. All kidding aside, I stand amazed at the talent we have in this area. Not only are we very talented, we are very deep in this area. We have two guitar players that could play anywhere, 3 bass players that could play anywhere, and five drummers that four of them could play anywhere.

We often get asked how did we find the musicians we have and I wish I could give you a great answer but I don’t have one. However I have learned some things in the last year about putting a band together and drawning musicians who can rock the house down.

1.) We have spared no cost in equipment. From day one we have spent a large % of our finances on sound equipment. In 15 months we have probably have bought about $100,000 of sound equipment. Our service we had musicians show up and they stayed when they saw that equipment. Why? Because it showed we were serious about that area.

2.) We hired a GREAT leader. Tim is without a doubt one of the best worship pastors I have ever been around. I thank God every day for him. I am not a musician but our musician’s love him. Far too many worship pastors are good front men but not good leaders. Tim is both.

3.) Great musicians draw great musicians. Your rarely find one musician. You find a group of them. They hang out together and all know other musicians. I found this out and as a non-musician it didn’t make sense. Great musicians would rather play once every 6 weeks with other great musicians and great equipment then play every week with poor musicians and poor equipment.

4.) We let them do their thing. I don’t know music so I let those guys do what they do best and that is rock. Far too many pastors try and tame the band and make them fit some mold. I didn’t think our music would be as heavy as it is but that is the type of musicians we have so that is what we allow them to do.

5.) We have a professional sound guy. From day one we have had a professional sound guy. At first it was my friend Scott King and then we transitioned over to our current guy who actually travels with some of the huge worship leaders of the day. Nothing will frustrate musicians faster then bad sound quality.

6.) We are guitar driven. I know that sound weird but it is true. Most churches who say they are contemporary are keyboard driven. There are very few rock bands that are keyboard driven so when musicians hear this they think it is lame. Most rock bands are guitar driven so when they hear our music they are drawn to wanting to play in the band.

These are all things we learned by accident. Music is SO important to a church plant. This has to be the #1 question I get so I just thought I would share my thought on what I feel has worked for us.

Rock on!