Worship Service Song Templates: Strategic Song Selection

What you are reading is my synthesis and practical application from years of reading more books about worship than I care to admit, reading Worship Leader Magazine almost from the beginning, reading some worship blogs, attending a few worship conferences, and leading worship. I suppose only a Worship Leader with a BS in Math and a MS in Systems Management would come up with a structured approach like this. Lest you think all I do is hole up and write computer programs that crunch numbers; I do write and/or arrange worship songs and build cigar box guitars (more on that in a future blog!).

We basically have a template for the Normal Sunday and a template for Communion Sunday. We depart from, or alter, the templates for special services (Advent/Christmas, Easter, Baptism, …).

Normal Sunday
Song Category / Order / Song Title and No
Opener ____ / ____________________
GITS Father ____ / ____________________
GITS Son ____ / ____________________

Sermon

Holy Spirit ____ / ____________________
Prayer/RTG/REO ____ / ____________________
Communion ____ / ____________________
Closer(Believe/Trust) ____ / ____________________
(Serve/Obey)/(Ev/Missions)

Communion Sunday
Song Category / Order / Song Title and Number
Opener ____ / ____________________
GITS Father ____ / ____________________
GITS Son ____ / ____________________

Sermon

Holy Spirit ____ / ____________________
Repentance ____ / ____________________
Communion ____ / ____________________
Closer(Believe/Trust) ____ / ____________________

It’s as simple as filling in the blanks from the Playlist we have organized by categories.

The opener and closer are fixed in the order and the other songs vary depending on the worship leader’s preference. Of the songs planned at least one song will be a hymn. At one time we left the Closer subcategory choice open, but discovered, in an analysis of our song use over about six month period, that all the worship leaders (me included) gravitated to their favorite categories and pretty much ignored evangelism/mission songs. As a result, we rotate the subcategories of closer songs to provide consistent coverage of each subcategory.

Some of you may be uncomfortable with what appears to be a regimented and uncreative approach to song selection for a worship service. Using the templates is where the fun begins because the hard work has already been done. That was the strategic investment in our future: choosing categories that reflect topics we believe need to be emphasized regularly, seeing what songs we had that meet the categories, and finding new songs to address the shortfalls we discovered.

We plan sets three weeks at a time to coincide with a rotating worship leader/team schedule. We typically do a new song three weeks in a row to establish it. It’s not unusual for me to plan all three services at once instead of sequentially. I often, but not always, plug in the three hymns first, then add songs that are new but need repetition, then work on filling in the holes left. It’s kind of like putting together a puzzle, you sort out the pieces first to avoid wasting time (our play list by categories), do the corners and edges (the hymns), then easy to assemble features (new songs that need repetition), and then fill in the rest. I leave the sky, water, or any other big expanse of the same color to my wife!!!

We don’t worry about trying to connect with the pastor’s sermon, but it’s rare when we don’t have a song following the sermon that doesn’t connect. Often I find I couldn’t have done better if I had tried advance based on the actual song that ended up connecting. The plan is not set in concrete, and on occasion I change one of the response songs on the fly when I really feel led.

The other guys on the team that also lead worship have questioned this approach to song planning and we have talked a lot about it over the years, but I believe they have come to find it helpful in planning worship services and evaluating new songs. After going to worship services at other churches and evaluating the songs used in worship, they have often shared insightful comments that reveal that they get it . I remember completing a lengthy set of worship songs at a major worship conference and when reflecting back on it realized the name of Jesus never came up and there was little about him in the content of the songs. In Christian worship this shouldn’t happen, but it did, because the worship leader had no plan do otherwise. Our goal is to serve the congregation by choosing songs that go beyond next Sunday, we want to choose songs they can live by through the good times and bad.

What do you think? Feel free to weigh in.

Next up I’m going to go through all the song categories one at a time in more detail and get practical by including examples of the songs we are currently using in each one. If you have been checking out my Sunday set lists, you already have an idea of what some of them are!