I used to choose songs the week before, night before or even sometimes the morning of our weekly worship service. I used to think that was the way to do it because I could get a feel for where the Holy Spirit was leading that week. Over time I have come to learn that, while you always need to be flexible to change songs, having a long range method of planning songs works much better.
So I thought I’d share a little bit of how we choose songs for our services.
1. Choosing a set for a season- There are literally hundreds of thousands of worship songs that you could use at any given time. We try to bring that down to a list of about 90 songs that we will use for a season. This gives us a manageable list to be able to look at and choose from. We try to make sure that the songs in the list have a variety of keys, tempos, and can be sung by a variety of people. The set is a suggestion that helps keep us focused, however if a song fits well in a particular service that is not in our set, we’ll go ahead and use it. At the end of a season (3-4 months) we will look at the songs and see what new ones we want to add, or which ones we need to give a rest for a while. (see organizing your worship libraries)
2. Lectionary and Worship Planner- Our preachers choose their sermons from the lectionary scriptures. This means at any point in the future I know the scriptures that will be used on that Sunday. Our pastors choose the scripture and sermon titles at least 3-4 months out. I might not know exactly where the sermon is going, but I have a good idea of a general direction. We will then look at our songs for the season and choose ones that match the overall message for that week. We also use the Music and Worship Planner from the Methodist Church. It contains the lectionary scriptures, along with hymn and contemporary song suggestions for each week. We might not have the specific songs each week, but they help us find other songs that we know, that would fit with the service.
3. The White Board- I installed a 6×4 foot white board in my office. We will write up 4-8 weeks worth of dates on the board. Then using inspiration from the worship planner, scriptures, sermon title, and prayer we will begin filling in songs for each Sunday. We try to make sure that there are no more than one new song each week, there is a variety speed, and variety of leaders for the songs. Recently we have been trying to include an original song, and a hymn in each list.
4. The Monthly Rehearsal- Creating our songlists this way also helps with our big monthly rehearsal. We can look at the upcoming weeks and pick out the new songs, or unfamiliar ones and use that rehearsal to work over those. Since we can only really do 4-5 songs at the rehearsal that helps keep us from choosing too many new ones. Weekly we rehearse for about an hour before the service. We’ll go over the songs we are about to sing, then review some of the up coming songs.
So that’s how we do it. How do you choose your songlists?
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This past Sunday was an interesting one. I thought that the band and vocals sounded great, were tight and was over all an awesome Sunday. Unfortunately there were many other events this weekend that hindered our Sunday morning attendance. I do have to give props to our ladies who do the stage decorations each week. When I arrived at the church 3 years ago all we had was the black curtain background. This Easter will mark one full year of using colors in different ways to decorate the stage. They don’t really use elaborate props but have come up with a quick and easy system to add some color and a different focus depending on the week. Hopefully Ill put a post up next week showing how we do our stage.
