How I Put A Worship Set Together

There are so many ways a worship leader determines what his/her church should sing when they meet. Mine is not a tried and true way but it’s a way that works best for me. I’m not only writing this so other worship leaders can read and learn, I also write this so my church can learn what goes in to the process as we ready ourselves for the next time we meet.

I like to get my pastor’s sermon ideas as soon as I can. Getting to know what he has planned for us to learn about God is a great way to start determining what we need to be singing. He normally sends me his series list a few months in advance. That gives me plenty of time to determine the themes and ideas we need to be looking at to prepare our songs.

After getting sermon series’, we break it down to each message’s theme and what scriptures will be used. This also helps in deciding what songs to use by theme and scripture. I take one week at a time, read over the scriptures thoroughly to familiarize myself with the word as well as keeping in mind the theme he’s going for.

After I feel I have a good handle on the scripture or at least the main scripture, I get on our church’s planning center and pull up that week’s plan. I start with the first song in the master list and work my way through the whole song list adding EVERY song I think will fit with the message, themes, and scriptures. It could easily be a list of ten or fifteen songs. Obviously we’re not going to use that many songs. After I have all the songs that will fit, I start with the first song and go through each one with a fine tooth comb.

This is the hard part. There are a few filters I go through with the songs to find the ones that will fit. The first one is prayer. I pray over each song. believe it or not, I can get a good feeling about whether a song needs to stay or go just by asking God if He wants us singing that song or not.

After they get through that filter, I look at

• lyrics, and how well they match the theme
• tempos, how many fast, how many are slow, how can I build a set that will take us on a journey
• keys, how can we flow from one song to another with good transitions
• style, because our church uses many styles, I have to make them fit well
• Lastly, do these songs support and groove, and fit together like a good puzzle.

If there is a song that seems it supports the message but one of these factors is off, I generally see if it might make the next message in the same series. I want the songs, to take us on a journey, flow well and support the message and play off one another.

I will admittedly say I also have to like the song. Although this is hardly ever the case, every once in a while, after looking through the song list, I may decide, I’m just not in the mood to play that certain song. Yes sometimes, that’s a mistake but I rarely use the “I’m not in the mood” excuse. It’s a moving factor. I like to stick with the factors I can nail down which are the ones I listed above.

Brian Doerksen said in his book, Make Love, Make War, that he has to be able to worship with a song before he can lead it. I highly agree. If I’m just not into a song, I can’t necessarily lead. I would be doing my church a disservice trying to lead a song I myself can’t be moved by. But please understand, I don’t take that judgement lightly. I pray over it for some time before I discard it. I ask God to move me with it, allow the song to work on me. Then after some time, I can’t jive with it, out it goes.

Everything I do in preparation to putting song lists together is bathed in prayer. I don’t throw songs together cause they are the ones I wanna sing, or enjoy playing. Will they speak? Will they move someone? Will they share the gospel? Will they worship God? Will they encourage? How will these songs affect our church? Theses are questions I ask before leading them.

This is how I prepare. Would love to know how you prepare your church to worship.