A few months ago we talked about how to choose songs for your setlist. Now we have five more things to consider when planning your worship set:

THEME

Not every church gathering is going to have a theme or even a subject focus. Many pastors I’ve served under are still forming their sermons on Thursday for the coming Sunday. However, if you do have a theme, it’s powerful to plan songs with the same theme to create touch points with the sermon. For example, if the sermon is on grace, at least a couple of songs with a grace theme, like “Your Grace Is Enough”, will help connect worship to the teaching. You can search for songs by theme at www.WorshipTogether.com.

Dear church music gear swiper,

This is a plea. I am calling on your sense of kindness and compassion. Please stop swiping gear from different worship venues without letting someone know or bringing the item back once you are done.

When I was rehearsing for worship last Wednesday night I realized that the monitors weren’t working, so I went to the soundboard to investigate. I noticed you had swiped 2 cables that connected the soundboard to the monitor sends on the snake.

I corralled one of the students who helps out with sound and blamed him for the swipe. He assured me that it was you and he went and swiped the 2 cables back that I needed from where you left them!

Have you ever had your pastor or a church leader approach you after a service asking why you have the same people up there every week? Little do they know, the reason everything has been flowing so well lately is because the band finally starting to gel. We all know that leading becomes a whole lot easier when your band knows what it means when you are stomping your foot for a build or throwing your guitar neck up to signal the end of a song.

I was chatting with a friend who is a worship leader the other day and he was telling me about a guy at his church that approached him about helping out in worship. My friend informed him that there was a pretty big rotation of musicians for Sunday morning, but that the church could really use some help at a small recovery ministry that met on Friday evenings.

After spending a day “praying about it”, the guy told my friend that he would not be able to do the Friday ministry and emphasized that he really wanted to play on Sunday morning.

You’ve probably had similar experiences. There’s the musician in your church that is certain that if he/she could only play with the band, their playing would certainly take worship to a whole new level!

I read an article recently about a study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study showed participants video clips from classical performances and were asked to pick the best performers. The catch was some of the participants were given video clips with sound, while others were given video clips without sound. A third group was given audio only clips. In other words, some volunteers could only hear the music. Some could see the musicians and hear the music. And some could only see the musicians — they heard nothing.

The results were quite surprising. Only the group that had video clips without sound were able to successfully pick the actual winning performances…

A few weeks ago, we talked about resisting the temptation to immediately change everything when stepping into a new role as worship leader or worship director in our post, Put Down The Hammer. This time I wanted to expand on the idea of serving people and talk about the idea of being a pastor of people instead of programs.

Any leader in a growing church will tell you their most pressing, on-going need, is volunteer recruitment. If you are a small group pastor, you are looking for group leaders. If you are a youth pastor, you probably need youth workers and someone to drive a van. If you are a worship pastor, you are looking for musicians, singers, sound techs, lighting tech, etc…

I grew up on the coast. Being so close to the ocean, I spent a lot of my time on the sandy shores of the beach. When you grow up around water and it’s all you know you are sometimes tempted to take chances that really aren’t the smartest decisions. When hurricanes were off the coast creating massive swells you’d head out to surf or bodyboard. When there was a strong under toe and they posted “No Swimming” signs, you’d still swim, because those were meant for tourists and people who didn’t grow up with the ocean as their swimming pool!
However, there was one thing you didn’t do… you didn’t become shark bait. If there were sharks spotted in the area, you didn’t get in the water. It was an easy decision and one that no one ever questioned….

What if your church couldn’t pay you for leading worship, would you do it anyway? Would there be a noticeable difference in the quality of the worship?

This question has generated much discussion here on the blog. Many of you have commented with strong opinions on the idea of getting paid to lead worship or any other type of ministry. Seems like this is a topic that needs to be fleshed out further…

Social media has been a terrific discovery for sharing information and keeping large numbers of people up to date on current and future happenings. Christians have fully embraced the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for personal and ministry applications.

Like any other technology, social media outlets are amoral. What we choose to do with them will determine whether they bring hope or discouragement. The danger of social media is that often we are willing to post a comment or information that we would never share with someone face to face…

If you are a worship leader, chances are there are people who have helped you get to where you are. It may have been a music instructor or another leader who gave you an opportunity. It might have been an encouraging or prophetic word spoken to you. Whoever it was, you would not be doing what you’re doing today had it not been for those people.

There are gifted young people in our churches who are waiting for someone to help them develop or give them an opportunity. Of all the things I’ve been a part of in ministry, there is nothing more rewarding than helping a young person follow his or her passion in ministry…