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Ask these 3 Questions to Create a Dynamic Worship Service Flow

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Have you been there before?

After leading a powerful worship set, you come to the end of the final song. It’s a quiet moment of worship and the congregation fully engaged and focused on God, when . . .

. . . the “announcements guy” comes out with a big laugh and smile, and sets a completely different tone from the one you just created.

On their own, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about either of these worship service elements. But back to back in your worship service, the light and fun announcement time quickly jerks the congregation out of the moment like going from 1st gear to 3rd gear without pushing in the clutch.

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Ask this Question Before You Finalize Your Worship Set for Sunday

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Developing a Music Plan is one of your most important roles each week.  I’m not just talking about selecting the set list. That’s only part of it.

I’m talking about creating a plan for how the music that you have selected is going to fit into the overall flow of the worship order, help create moments of life transformation, empower members of your team to step up to new levels of leading, and engage your congregation in passionate worship. You know… the easy stuff – ha!

The songs are important, but it’s your Music Plan that will pull all the pieces together and make for a powerful worship set each week.

At The Journey, we ask Five Questions each week to help us develop our plan, and over the next few weeks we’ll dive into each of these (and the system and purpose behind them).

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Why your church doesn’t sing… and what you can do to fix it (Part 4)

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I admit it… I may be the most un-hip worship leader on the planet.

This became immediately clear when I stopped by a local high school recently and I saw up-close what pop-culture looks like. If that’s hip, then I’m not!

Hip is a hot topic in worship circles these days and must of the new music coming out for churches reflects it. Worship Leaders are wrestling with the question of whether certain styles of music for congregational worship are just keeping with the times, or creating a culture of congregational onlookers and worship team performers?

Recently I kicked off this new series about what has become one of the major issues facing worship leaders and churches today: the decline of congregational singing.

Let’s face it… more and more congregations are singing “less and less”.

This new series is about identifying what’s keep YOUR congregation from singing and helping you remove the roadblocks to genuine worship engagement in your services. We’ve already talked about music being to high and too hard. And today we’re going to look at the third reason your congregation isn’t singing…

LAST CHANCE: ENDS OCTOBER 31

Recently in the Worship Leader Gold Network Monthly Leadership and Strategy Call I talked about this topic of congregational singing and taught 7 important lessons from John Wesley for how to encourage your congregation to sing.

Gain access to that Leadership Session and instantly receive $813.20 in FREE Bonus resources when you join Worship Leader Gold TODAY! Plus, receive additional coaching sessions, dozens of Ministry and Leadership Book summaries, and much, much more in your personalized Worship Leader Gold Hub. I’ve put the complete details in the PS below, so keep reading to learn more!

REASON #3: THE MUSIC IS TOO HIP I grew up in the 80’s, so that puts me on the back side of thirty-something. I’m married with two kids who roll their eyes at my jokes. I have a full-time job, a yard to mow and a shaven head by necessity rather than stylistic choice.

And while I am a musician, and desperately trying to hold on to some of the “cool” I think I once had, I find more and more that I’ve become… normal. And guess what… so are most of the people in my congregation. I would venture to say that’s the case for most worship leaders. There’s nothing wrong with being hip… I wish I was more hip.
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Report: Christmas Coming Early this Year?

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Have you seen the news headlines this week?

It seems Christmas is coming early this year (or at least Christmas shopping is!).  More and more stores are planning to open their doors for “Black Friday” before the Thanksgiving turkey has even been carved on Thursday.

Now – whether you’re for it, against it, or could care less, it does tell us one thing.  Read more

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Two Questions to Make Your Service Better this Sunday

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I just have a minute this morning, but wanted to share a quick leadership lesson I taught to a group of Top-Notch Pastors last week at an event I spoke at.

Here goes…

Question: Do you want your services to be better this week than they were last week?  

(I know… silly question).

Of course you do… we all want to see our services improve (i.e. better musically, better transitions, less distractions, more opportunity for life-transformation).

Here’s the thing:

The key to making THIS Sunday’s service better is to look at LAST Sunday’s service first.  At The Journey, we call this the Service Debrief.  Here’s what you do. Read more

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3 Things You Should Do TODAY to Prepare for Christmas

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Merry Christmas!

That’s what the over-sized Snowman in Home Depot said two weeks ago when I walked in.

My family and I just laughed. The Christmas trees, snowmen and blow-up lawn Santas were right there beside the ghosts, witches and Halloween candy.

I bet you’ve seen the same thing, too!

And while it may seem strange to see Christmas decorations out SO early, it’s NOT too early to start planning your Christmas services. Read more

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The Most Important Words You’ll Say this Sunday

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It’s 30 seconds to service start time.  The pre-service music is playing. You and your worship team take the stage. You’ve worked hard to prepare for this moment… selecting and memorizing music, leading rehearsal, arranging the slides in ProPresenter, and even one last time through the music at sound check this morning.

A final check to make sure you’re instrument is tuned. You give a thumbs up to your team to let them know you’re ready for a great opening worship song.  The lights come up and…

As a worship leader you pour your heart into preparing the music, but do you take time to think about what you will say before the music even begins? Read more

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3 Lessons Your Church Can Learn from Disney – Part 3

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One of the most compelling stories that I recently heard on a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the world’s most creative destinations — Walt Disney World — centers around a problem that every Worship Leader and Pastor faces each week.

Here’s the story told to us by the Disney Leadership Team: Read more

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Three Steps to Creating the Right Flow in Your Worship Set

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For the last 3 weeks we’ve been talking about the importance of developing your Music Plan…  Specifically the FIVE QUESTIONS you should ask each week in preparing your plan.

And today, we’re going to talk about one of the most important elements of your music plan — one that we ALL DO EVERY WEEK.

But first . . . a quick reminder that selecting songs is only part of the music plan you need to build each week.

We’re talking about creating a plan for how the music that you have selected is going to fit into the overall flow of the worship order, help create moments of life transformation, empower members of your team to step up to new levels of leading, and engage your congregation in passionate worship.

We’ve already hit on three of these BIG IDEAS in this series, but today, I want to share with you three important steps to answer question #4: Read more

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Five Steps to Develop Your Music Plan – Part 3

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“Don’t just sing songs . . . create moments!” That’s the advice that I received several years ago while attending a Tom Jackson’s Expressive Worship Conference.

I couldn’t agree more. In fact one of our core values here at The Journey has always been to not just ‘execute the service’, but to create moments of life-transformation in our worship services. It’s not enough to just play good music or teach a good message. We need to plan our services so that there are intentional moments where people can connect with God and experience life transformation.

This idea — creating moments — is central to the third question that you want to ask in preparing your music plan each week.

Here’s the question:

How can we create a moment of life-transformation in the time that we have?  Read more