Ever play the game telephone? You know the one where you have a big group of people and someone tells the first person a secret and it is whispered person to person until it gets to the end? Did it ever end up being the same phrase you started with? What starts out “the sky is blue” ends up “i like the zoo”.
Worship teams are great at playing this game in real life. Some people call it telephone. Others call it church gossip or triangulation. Getting info or sharing info with everyone but the people involved is never a helpful activity in a creative ministry. The ironic part, is that it usually happens with out people even realizing it.
Let me give you a scenario… You’re at worship rehearsal and time comes to share prayer requests. Then someone says “have you heard what’s going on with Tom? (fictitious bass player)”. Everyone leans forward to hear the details. “I heard from my friend Sandy who talked to one of Tom’s co-workers and they said that Tom got called into the CEO’s office for a closed door meeting…. We really need to pray for him! That usually only happens when someone is in a lot of trouble. Also we need to keep this confidential. Tom doesn’t know we know anything…” Immediately, everyone is concerned and prays for Tom.
At first pass that sounds ok. Here is a band member, that everyone cares about, who might be in some trouble. People are concerned and it seems logical to share whatever information is available so we can pray accurately…. right? Not always… The reason this can be so unhealthy is because the information rarely stops being shared when it is supposed to. Confidential doesn’t really mean much in a church or in a ministry setting. In the same way concerns are shared in one setting, they will be shared in outside settings as a prayer request, as a concern and as something that needs to be kept quiet. There is also the tendency for the information to change each time it is shared. Before we know what has happened, the entire team is under the impression that Tom is going to be fired for having done something really bad. How can a team undo all of the (well intentioned) misinformation that was spread about Tom? What happens when Tom finds out everyone mistakenly thought he was doing something bad? What happens when everyone finds out Tom actually got a great promotion and that nothing was wrong at all?
This kind of stuff happens in worship teams periodically. It is just part of working with people… So how do you stop things before they get out of hand? Simple…. DISCONNECT THE TELEPHONE!
Remind your team that information that does not build up the team will only break it down. Encourage people to personally share what they are going through instead of passing the info through others. Reinforce the go-to principle which tells people to go to the person you’ve heard is struggling to find out if they are ok, instead of just passing the info on. Lastly, remind people that unless they are not part of the problem or part of the solution, they have no reason to share information about someone else.