Congregational Songs – New Songs for Corporate Worship

Planning a Corporate Worship Service

January 19, 2011

I sat down recently with Jamie Mosley, pastor of Redeemer Church, a 4-month old church plant in Hendersonville, TN. Jamie was part of our staff here at Grace before he was called to become the pastor of Redeemer, one of two churches that Grace planted in 2010.

He asked me to chat with him about how I would go about planning a worship service. As pastor, he desires to cast vision for his worship leaders that will help them lead his congregation in both God-centered, theologically rich songs and a flow of worship that leads the worshipers somewhere that makes sense. As usual, I can’t come up with this stuff until someone asks me the question. Then I can’t seem to shut up. Through our conversation, I was taken back to the nuts and bolts of how I have learned to plan a worship service over the years.

I’ll spread this over several posts so that I can keep each piece somewhat succinct. The first thing I remember is this: there is a vertical and a horizontal grid, or an “x” and a “y” axis that I have in my mind as I’m choosing songs to sing. The “x” or horizontal axis is the theme – what passage of scripture is my pastor preaching on this week? What will he be emphasizing from the text? The “y” or vertical axis is the natural flow of a worshiper in the presence of God. This can be several things based on different passages in Scripture, but the most common I’ve found is exemplified in Isaiah 6:1-5 when Isaiah has a vision of the Lord. In this passage, he sees the Lord and spends four verses describing the scene. This is the first vertical column: declaration of the majesty, character and deeds of the Lord.

Then, in verse five, Isaiah responds, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips…” This is the second vertical column: response to the majesty, character, and deeds of the Lord. This includes gratitude, wonder and confession interchangeably.

I believe the order of these vertical axes to be very important. Here’s why: if we begin with our response, what are we responding to? Our worship can become very “us” centered if we are singing about what we will do or are doing without first reminding ourselves of Who God is. Once we have sung a song or two about His greatness (with declarative song choices that are based on what the theme is for that particular service), then it is much more natural and, prayerfully, powerful to respond!

So, to put it together – in choosing which songs to sing and where to place them within a service, I first consider the theme and choose songs that lead toward it. Then I place the songs in the service in the order that makes sense for the worshiper – declarations of God’s character and deeds, then our response. Now of course, some songs will have a mixture of both, but most will lean more heavily in one way or the other, giving me a handle with which to place them.

Next post: What about tempo?

Filed under: Leading Worship,Planning a Worship Service