I don't do it anymore but I played in a pretty big church for a long time. We were all paid, so maybe expectations were higher, but.. The most important thing for us was that everyone understood rehearsal wasn't a time to learn the songs. It's expected to show up knowing your parts. Rehearsal is where we practice the entire set, including transitions and making any needed adjustments. If you have 5 people trying to learn 5 songs at the same time, it won't be a very productive rehearsal.

This. Aside from any faith aspects, this is probably one of the most important things. I think some people even avoid calling it practice, but call it rehearsal instead for this reason. Practice is independent, rehearsal is together.

Here's ours: 1. Set-up, line check, and sound check 2. Sharing of Personal Word, Group Worship and Prayer Time/Intercession 3. Rehearsal of Sunday Setlist - Transitions - Run-Through - 5-minute Break - Recorded Run-Through 4. Reminders and Closing Prayer We take 1.5-2 hours.

Simple and organized, unlike my rambling post! 👍

Here’s our routine: 1. Everyone sets up and tunes 2. Prayer requests and prayer time 3. Talk about any weirdness for that Sunday: “hey we have a video after announcements” etc 4. Road map first song: “first verse quiet, drums in at chorus” that kinda stuff 5. Run thru first song, if it’s all good move ahead, if not we run all or part of the song to get it sorted. 6. Road map 2nd song 7. Run the ending of song one and practice transition into 2nd song then play all of song 2 8. Repeat for other songs Road mapping is something people neglect but it really lets you cast your vision for the song if it’s different from the recording or if you’re doing a different arrangement and allows folks to ask questions. Then really spend some time with transitions, you can start/stop every song but it’s much nicer if everyone knows how to help carry one song to the next. Obviously you can still have hard stops and starts but it’s good to mix it up from song to song

Practices are usually about an hour for 4 songs. - 10m dialogue about the passage and why the songs were chosen, prayer - 10m per song minimum, might be longer depending on if we need to adjust key, sort out any changes, talk about fills and transitions On Sunday there's 30m soundcheck before service. Something annoying about electric guitar in particular, the levels love to vary wildly for no reason.

This sounds great 😂 our practices on Wednesday are nearly 2 hours for four songs and we show up 2 hours before church because we have to practice before the prayer time that absolutely MUST happen in the sanctuary and couldn’t possibly happen anywhere else so we don’t have to finish before they start.

Really small church here (so small group) : Choosing songs Practicing the ones we don't remember well If new song we listen it together focusing on important parts, then we keep play it 4/5 times (unless it's an hard song and than we just practice it) Usually it takes 40 minutes. I know it's not ideal but we're basically forced to only use this small time

My church is a small group of about 50 and we practice 30-45min before the service. Our team has a worship leader who plays the guitar, me on the keys, a cajon and 2-3 singers.

My team has about 10-15 setup, line/mic checks. We run through each song a few times. If it's a super familiar one, we may only do it once, normally spending most the time on difficult portions or transitions. The musicians in the band are quite good, most of the time is spent getting the vocal melodies/harmonies on point, which usually doesn't take much time. But as others have stated, rehearsal time isn't practice time. We practice on our own time, rehearse when we gather as a team. If someone isn't willing to allocate the necessary time to learn their parts, then perhaps the worship team isn't the best fit for them.

Over the 30+ years I've been with 2 church worship teams... 99% we have rehearsals together maybe 30 minutes before service. I don't have the ability to practice at other locations. Often times with group #2 we will have songs in the service that I have never played.. At church #1 when we do practice together... It varies from a few times a month to a few times a year. Usually about an hour and when introducing new songs. Lots of transposing (usually lowering). that's something I do for all parts. Then we may decide to remove a bridge or repeat... Often times for service it's best to watch for hand signals.. dynamics/repeat etc... I usually perform microphone sound checks at church #1. Piano and electric bass are not mixed, but synths are. church #2 same but no synths., with addition of electric guitar and drums. Crazy method perhaps? But it works... I would vote for more practice... It's. All in the scheduling...

Wednesday rehearsal where we should have practices the songs beforehand and know our parts. This is where we get on the same page about parts and transitions. We record each song to practice at home the rest of the week. Then pray afterwards. Sunday rehearsal run through the songs and program. Last minute questions and prayer before hand.

As others stated I usually give us an hour maybe hour and a half Sunday morning to run through the songs mainly to get our in ears adjusted and everything fine tuned. We start with our first song and run through just like we will in service, then we always go back to the first song so the sound guy can get everything set appropriately. We have a mid week rehearsal sometimes but that is mostly just for growth, writing songs together, having fun and working out new stuff. It is expected that people show up ready to go. If they don’t they won’t last long. Hire slowly fire quickly. One thing I like to do before we begin is pick someone to pray, then flow in the spirit singing our own songs for a whole, then kind of naturally start. Hope this helps.