Today I’ll move into a discussion of how I go about planning a worship service. And that’s all it is: a discussion of how I plan worship, not a position paper on how worship should be planned. This topic is a little difficult to codify because in many ways planning worship is kind of like a chicken-and-the-egg process. Which comes first? Well, I know what comes first (that’s what this post covers); it’s more difficult to determine what comes after that. So I’ll just mention some of the things that go into my thought process as I look at planning worship on a week-to-week basis.
Many churches use the team approach to planning worship very successfully. We haven’t used that approach in any of the churches I have served, but it’s one I am carefully and prayerfully considering right now. A lot of time and effort will be necessary on the front end to educate the members of the team on what exactly worship is, what belongs and what doesn’t belong in a worship service, etc.
The first thing I do when I begin to prepare a worship service is pray. That may seem kind of obvious, but it’s a crucial starting point. Without spending time in conversation with God it’s difficult to plan a service of worship to Him. I rarely finish a worship service in one sitting. Meetings intervene, or phone calls interrupt. But for me that’s fine. While I don’t relish interruptions, I don’t mind not finishing the planning for a worship in one sitting. That’s because the ideas that first begin to make their way to paper need time to mature and develop. Rarely will what makes it onto paper in the initial planning stages be the way it ends up in the actual service. So each time I return to planning a service I pray. I pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. I pray that God will continue to teach me more about Himself and what that means for worship. When I finish a worship service and before I submit it to the Pastor for input and final approval, I pray and offer not only the worship service itself but the whole process of planning corporate worship to God as an act of worship.
The role of prayer in planning worship cannot be understated. And so that’s where I begin.
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