I recently saw this question posed on Musicademy’s Facebook page. It’s a fascinating and, I think, a good exercise in vision-casting and dreaming. Nobody has an infinite budget, but over a number of years, a good size church should spend a significant part of their budget (my suggestion is 10%) to support and grow their music department.
Here are some of my favorite responses so far from both of our Facebook pages: (I’ve put my wish list at the bottom)
John Hirst ~ Budget for the worship team – sorry I don’t understand the concept 🙂
Steve Emery ~ Aviom or similar, iPads all round with full ‘Planning Center Online’ subscription.
Instruments all setup for team ready to go, paid for by budget rather than team members
Guitar – mid/top end Taylor
Elec – Gibson and Fender Strat
Keys – Nord stage 2 and Korg workstation
Drums – Gretsch with range of cymbals
Colin Eccles ~ Doughnuts and coffee to bless everyone for turning up for practice night! Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm – doughnuts! 🙂
James Livingstone ~ Employ every member of the team who want to dedicate their days to improving the team, writing songs, increasing their skills etc… iPads all around with “OnSong” installed so that everyone can be linked during sets, with an endless list of chord sheets at the point of a finger…
Holidays and events for the team to gel together…
Various different style worship albums for individuals to be encouraged/uplifted plus to create a diversity of the music and song selection of the team
Paul Arnold ~ Well…first I would buy a permanent place to worship in rather than renting from the council. Allowing dedicated space for the musicians so that we won’t need to hire roadies to set up and pack down each week.
Then – decent spec PA system, digital desk (just one flick of an iPad type) with loads of channels and Mics so that we can play in tonnes of different formats (choir, band, big band, etc). Training for everyone on their particular gifts and on worship leading. Team building sessions. Then whatever spec instrument/rig people feel they need to do the job well. Buy enough time for all to have a day in the week for practise. Invest in a decent monitor system and iPads with “OnSong” or similar for all.
Mentoring and training for all the young people in the church who want to develop their gifts in that direction.
Dave Billington ~ Pizza. Engineering courses for sound techs. Humility courses for the lead guitar players. Amps that only go up to 9, not 11. Earplugs. Sniper tranquilizer-dart training for the stage monitor techs whenever they are alerted to a tambourine in the congregation.
Chuck Summer ~ This! 🙂
Mark Cole ~ Here is my response ~ I’ve got to say that I’ve been blessed and I’ve had many of these at one time or another.
- Free music lessons (for those who need or want them) from the top Christian players in town.
- Weekly honorariums for the band and singers.
- Top quality stage lighting.
- iPads with forScore and Onsong apps with iPad stands.
- Once a year seminars with top worship guests.
- Paid sound-men.
- Top quality in-ear wireless monitors system.
- A good quality Taylor acoustic guitar.
- Top keyboards for the piano and synth players (Roland, Yamaha or Nord).
- New Mac laptop for synth players
- Great multi-screen system for lyrics (front and back).
- Top quality drum booth and kit with a regular paid maintenance guy.
- Wireless mics for the singers.
- Hire a great Christian producer and record a worship CD every other year.
- Do an all-expenses-paid overseas music missions trip every two years.
Question: What does your wish list look like?
should be spent on employing musicians and lessons to make them the best they can be. this goes for soundcrews as well. you get what you pay for unfortunately.
waste of money to spend it on instruments.
most musicians aren’t good enough to maximize the potential of the instrument they already have.
Not sure how I’d use it. I’ve never had a single dime of a budget to work with, so I haven’t thought about it. But I’ll tell you, I would not buy any instruments for anyone. They’ll have to bring their own. And if they won’t they can sit in the audience or go wherever else they want.
Hey Dave.. that sounds a little harsh.. I’m a big believer in the church buying a drum kit, keyboard, synth, and if possible a couple of good guitar amps.. I agree that personal items like guitars should come from the players since most would prefer that anyway..