Does this sound like your life? Spend all week picking out the greatest music that your assembly will love Prepare the sheet music for your music group Lead 1 or 2 rehearsals Chart out new vocal harmonies for the singers Prepare a worship aide for the Assembly so they can participate Attend 4 or 5 meetings that don’t really accomplish anything Return 10 phone calls If you answered yes to three or more of the above, you’re probably an overworked Music Director. So in all this work which

It seems as though there is more new music out there today for worship than we know what to do with. The Holy Spirit is definitely moving in our Church and inspiring many composers to write spiritual songs that worship and glorify our God. The challenge that lies before Music Ministers is discerning which of these songs to use; when to use them and how often to use them. If we just start randomly inserting songs into the Liturgy, we can do more harm than good. Too many new songs at once can turn

How many of us growing up got chills down our spines at the sound of these three little words? Clean Your Room! Hopefully it wasn’t a phrase you heard very often. If you did hear it, hopefully it was said with love. Well, our music areas in our churches are in some ways our rooms. It is amazing to me, as I go around to different Churches, to see the state that most music areas are in. Maybe I’m wrong, but they have shelves for books now, they don’t just have to get stored on top of pianos and

I once attended a Mass where the music group sat in a circle of chairs during rehearsal and without any instruments talked about each song one be one. The arrangements were made, verses split up and it was all done with everyone’s input. Although that may sound nice and caring, it took three times as long as if they just would have rehearsed and the director would have led the rehearsal. When they actually got around to practicing they were only able to get though three songs in the time that was

Here are a few tips when putting together a Music Ministry: Model good musicianship even if you have to stipend a few musicians for a while until you get some volunteers. Remember…Good musicians want to play with other good musicians. Always meet with people outside of a rehearsal before they start to explain to them what Music Ministry actually is and what the time commitment is. This way they have a clear idea of whether or not they can commit before they start and don’t end up quitting when

It is sometimes easier to focus on everything that is going wrong with a ministry than to see the good that God is actually doing through you. It is no mistake that you were given gifts and talents to play music and sing God’s praise from your heart. If God has truly called you to this ministry then He has a plan to make your ministry fruitful. He wants you to find joy in what you do and to lead others to His joy and truth through the amazing gift of praise and worship through music. No one has

I once started a Music Ministry position at a Church where the Priest had told me there were no musicians to be found in the Parish. I considered this a great challenge and began to seek out new Music Ministers to be a part of the ministry. I began to find that there were a lot of talented people in the Parish, but no one had ever really made it known that they were needed. They had always had one Cantor at each Mass that did all the singing and when they had a big choir it was always people that

Well, there it is… I said it three times and I hope it caught your attention. It’s all about dynamics. Put on a CD…A good CD. If it’s really a good CD, every song will sound a little different. Some songs will start with all the instruments in at the top. Others will begin with just a guitar or piano or some other instrument and build from there. Some will start with all the vocalists singing at the top and some will start with a solo voice. My point is that not every song has everybody in

It’s been said that everything worth doing is worth doing well. It’s no different with the Liturgy. As Catholics, the Liturgy is the most important thing we do. A priest I once worked for said we can shut down our school, our office and all of our programs but we can never sacrifice the Liturgy. With this being said, it deserves the most attention out of everything we do. We should never just show up to “do Mass.” When the Mass becomes routine to us, we need to re-evaluate the importance