Congregational Songs – New Songs for Corporate Worship

Planning a Corporate Worship Service: Congregational Response

February 20, 2011

After the preaching of the Word at Grace each week, we spend a few minutes allowing the congregation to respond in various ways to what they’ve just heard and in ways that we are always called to respond to God’s gracious lordship over our lives. We have tried many different things over the years to lead people in responding – spanning from singing a responsive song congregationally to spending a few moments in silent reflection.

There are many good ways for those planning a worship service to call people to respond to God. At Grace, we’ve landed on spending a few minutes after the sermon doing the following:

1. Calling people to prayerful response: whether they stay in their seat or come to kneel at the altar, we encourage everyone to spend a few minutes prayerfully responding to the Word while I play a soft guitar in the background (nothing too melodic – it distracts the musical folks!).
2. Giving everyone a chance to pray with someone: we have several people stand at the front during this time each week to receive and pray with anyone who would like to about anything that is going on in their lives. Scott, our pastor, always says, “I never want someone to come to church and not get the opportunity to pray with someone.”
3. Giving everyone a chance to give their tithes and offerings: it makes sense to us to include this in the congregational response time. Giving our money to God’s work through the church is a response to His lordship over our finances.
4. Singing briefly after everyone has had a chance to respond in ways 1-3: after a few minutes (most weeks), I ask everyone to stand and sing one of the choruses of a song we sang previously in the service. I usually base my choice on what our pastor actually preaches in his sermon. I pick the one that fits the best as a musical response to the Word.

Then Scott gives a benediction – a final word sending us all out into the world for the week – and we sing a final song.

Next week: out of the vast array of songs out there, how do I go about choosing the ones that our church should sing?

Filed under: Leading Worship,Planning a Worship Service