Years ago, I led worship for a new contemporary service. One of the goals of each service was to have a cohesive flow. There was an overarching theme wound through each service, and we incorporated it in fun ways. My job as the worship leader was to pick songs that fit with the theme.
Some weeks it was pretty easy. I would find tons of songs on a certain topic. Then the next week there would be a topic that was next to impossible to find songs for. Some weeks I just picked a few “filler” songs.
The weeks when it worked, it worked so well. It was beautiful how well it would come together.
I wish that worship could always flow so well.
It is very difficult to coordinate everything. Many worship leaders would love to have the songs in a cohesive flow with the theme. The problem is, they don’t usually know what that theme is.
There’s a new service that just started at my church. It’s a small, intimate, coffee-house kind of service. It’s mainly led by a team of volunteers. Many weeks, we have no idea who’s even preaching. It’s hard to plan a seamless service when you don’t even know who’s showing up that Sunday. The worship leader is left with no choice. He has to pick songs.
I ran across this article by Michael Gungor, a musician I am coming to greatly respect. He speaks of the “concept album,” an album with a cohesive flow and theme throughout. Rather than random musical snippets that have nothing to do with each other, each song is connected together.
I would love to have a cohesive service again; one where the elements are all tied together. But I know how difficult this is, and I applaud all the worship leaders that do their best, having no idea what’s coming up that week.
I’ve never led worship before but I love sitting in a service and feel that connective flow.
I agree!
You would think that leadership would be wise to know what you are speaking of and to work better with each other to get that flow. I know it would help everyone to know what the purpose of objective of the upcoming messages are about.
Yup. Unfortunately, trying to communicate the message and theme to everyone who needs to know is a difficult thing. My church is pretty big, and communication is tricky. When it works though, it’s awesome.
I think about these kind of things. I sometimes wonder why the preacher and music person act like they haven’t talked all week. I wonder who is responsible for the directiin of the entire service. I wonder why….lots of things.
Oh, me too. But I’ve been in that worship leader position, and sometimes the pastor hasn’t written the sermon until Friday or Saturday. I needed to pick music way before then. It is frustrating that the pastor is often on a totally different wavelength then the worship leader.
This is cool- I’ve never thought about how the responsibility of picking the songs is a big deal and can totally affect how the whole service feels.
Yeah… no pressure. 🙂