We’ve all been in worship services that sucked.
Matter of fact, I’ve led enough of those worship services to get my PHD.
Over the years I’ve learned that crafting a great worship set isn’t just about choosing hit songs. It takes a special kind of process.
I used to think worship was all about me. As long as I picked my favorite songs in my favorite keys, worship would be heavenly. Until it wasn’t.
Until people were staring at me like I was from Mars.
4 Aspects Of An Effective Worship Set
Powerful worship has many facets. One of the most important is your setlist. Here’s my philosophy for a great one:
1. Accessible – An effective worship set is accessible to the people you’re trying to reach. If you have a congregation of 75 year old women, dub step isn’t going to cut. That’s not accessible to that particular demographic.
Become a student of the people in your congregation. What songs and style will make it easy for people to connect with God?
2. Simple – There’s a fine line between simple and simplistic. We want to declare robust truth and solid theology, but we don’t want people to be primarily thinking. Thoughts must lead to physical expression.
If worship were all about theology, we wouldn’t need to sing. Singing engages our entire being. It helps us pour out our hearts to the lover of our soul.
3. True – In the midst of our pluralistic society, it’s never been more important to align ourselves with truth. That’s another reason why worship is so important. We’re declaring the truth that our minds may disagree with in the moment. We’re shaping people’s theology. We’re teaching them the word in our worship sets.
If you’ve never thought theology was important, it’s time for a change. You’re a theologian, worship leader.
4. Space – Worship isn’t just about singing truth, though. It’s a relationship with Jesus. If I knew all the facts about my wife but never expressed how I felt, it wouldn’t be a healthy relationship. In the same way, worship involves emotion, connection, love, and adoration.
Question: What was your worship set this past weekend? Did it involve these 4 steps? Why or why not? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Opening Song:
-I Will Worship (Worthy Of My Praise)
Worship Set:
-Open The Eyes of My Heart
-How Great Thou Art
-I Exalt Thee
Closing Song:
-Our God’s Alive
For most of the set I went a little old school this week. I knew that in June we would be working on some new songs, I didn’t have a full band this week, so I wanted to keep it *Simple, *Accessible, but leave *Space to worship as people felt lead. Honestly, it didn’t work out so well this week. The strumming patterns of the three worship songs are so uniquely different that it was difficult to seamlessly transition. SO it actually ended up being a little more Jesus Culture setting my own rhythms instead of classic and old school. I like worship to put people in an emotional head space to reflect better upon the message, so this is another aspect I look at when planning a set. I will definitely take these 4 notes into consideration as I begin planning this Sunday.
Love the old school songs!
Prelude: Glorious
Processional: Majesty /He is exalted
Pre-reading: He is Lord
Post-Message: Crown Him with many crowns
Holy Holy,holy,holy – Hillsong arr.
H.C. Exalted (Yahweh)
Closing: Praise the Father , praise the Son
Recessional: Alive in us
We don’t have worship sets as such, but songs interspersed through the service. I have to always think carefully about accessibility – not easy, when we have a diverse age mix and musical preferences, so when possible I like to have a mix of styles – hence the mix of hymn, older contemporary ( the familiarity keeps these favourites for many in the congregation) and the newer ones which our band personally prefer ( so we tend to do these as features – we sing as people enter and leave, and also during the distribution of communion) We celebrated Ascension on Sunday – and I think this was an effective mix. Not sure I fully agree with you re the thinking – I find that the songs that get a great response are quite wordy ( I’ve been doing a lot of Getty & Townend contemporary hymns lately) – as much I might try to move to congregation to a more emotional heart response, if they worship primarily through the intellect, then I need to work with that eg lets sing songs focussing on the details of what the Lord has done and how amazing he is, allowing the Holy Spirit to stir their emotions.So mixing a ‘detail ‘ song with a simple one like ‘For all You’ve done’ works best for us.
Our set was influenced by celebrating Pentecost Sunday.
Give Him Praises
Cover the Earth
Spirit Break Out
Jesus Reigns-planet shakers
Choir sang “Come Holy Spirit medley” by Israel Houghton
Overall, I think we are seeing more participation in worship than ever. Of course this is a very subjective test. Some people worship less expressively than others, but I sense that there is an ease right now to get people to follow, especially in our second service. The first service is very fickle and I have learned to not base my feeling of success on that service or I would be in a bad place many Sundays.. Ha! As our team is flowing together better, creating space is not as scary for me. And it has impacted the services in very positive ways.
Thanks for your post. Good stuff, as always!
Amanda, I haven’t lead any of these songs before. Favorite song?
This past week we did “Jesus Messiah”, “Before the throne of God” and “He is Lord”. We didn’t allow enough time for “He is Lord” so we ended up cutting it in the second service. The worship leader told a great story from a hospital visit he experienced the previous week about a man who was hours from standing “before the throne” but by God’s grace ended up being allowed more time on earth. Really helped people to worship. Our congregation sang that song like they never had before. We closed this past week with “You Revive Me” off of White Flag. It allowed people a lot of space and I think I learned a lot about giving little but important direction in those moments.
I really enjoy pairing songs together. I found that Redman’s “Fires” fits very well with Tomlin’s “Forever”. We’re doing that this week. Prelude: “Oh Our Lord” off of Baloche’s new album (loving this song). We’re bringing back “You Revive me” at the top of the service this week for some continuity between weeks. Going into “Fires/Forever” and then finishing with the London Hillsong arrangement of “How Great is Our God”. Planning to allow some space for meditation and prayer during the intro to “How Great…”
A few weeks ago we did Selah’s “Standing on the promises” Medley with Jadon Lavik’s arrangement of “Come Thou Fount”. That was a good time! Very joyful – great arrangements – yet true, accessible and God honoring.
Love your posts David!
Thanks so much for the time you spend crafting these. Very helpful!
Thank you Chuck! You’ve given me some great song ideas here. This is why I love the comments. I learn so much!
Set List:
Lord We Worship You (original)
One Thing Remains (Bethel/Passion)
Holy Spirit (Torwalt)
Set A Fire (United Pursuit)
Love this post, David! For me, one of the most overlooked aspects of leading a good worship set is the key the songs are in. First, they’ve got to be in a singable key for both guys and ladies. For instance, the recordings of One Thing Remains by Bethel, Passion and CFN are in B but I’ve found that my congregation doesn’t do well with the “guys sing high, girls sing” low dynamic. So I put it in G where the guys sing lower and the girls never go over a high D note. All the musicians (including me) like to play it B but who cares – its not about us!
I’m also a real stickler for key continuity. If the opening song is in G, I don’t want the next song to be in a key that’s not complimentary. It’s not a law – I’ve just found it helps the set flow. Switching from E to C can be awkward and if I want the people to stay engaged, I don’t want to do anything to distract or draw attention away from worship.
Jamie, these are great tips. I love how your focus is on serving people. Would you say ‘G’ is the best guy/girl key?
I don’t think of it in terms of keys as much as I think of where is the note where most people stop singing because it gets too high or low. I’ve found that the ladies tend to either shift to alto or drop out when the melody goes above a D note. Most guys seem to be able to belt it out in unison with the ladies up until a high E or G and then they’ll sing an octave below or quit trying. I don’t want them to have to think about where they sing, I want them to be lost in how easy it is to worship! It does seem that we do a lot in G, E and D though because of these note guidelines I try to adhere to.
I heard Chris Tomlin say once that he writes his songs in high keys in order to encourage people to belt it out and sing at the top of their lungs. I guess it works different ways for different people 🙂
What we do is try to construct a set like this: Introductory Song >> Praise & Thanksgiving Song >> Engaging Song(s) >> Intimate Song. (Response Song). We don’t always have this long ofcourse, but our typical Sunday set is 4-5 songs so we really consider the types of songs and the journey of the worshipper / congregation, with the whole goal being to lead people into the presence of God. Entering his gates with Thanksgiving, His courts with Praise etc.. and into the Holy of Holies with reverance. I like what you said about space, we try to plan and prepare a set but we know which songs lean themselves well to improvisation or instrumental parts – giving people room to engage with God and sing from their hearts. We’ve gone to the extent of grouping our songs on a table of those above catagories, so when we plan a worship set, we can look through the different songs and how they best fit. It’s a journey. We’re leading them somewhere. Keeping in mind that most songs can fit into more than one catagory, depending on how you deliver it. We also consider keys and whether we need to switch instruments etc so that we can keep a flow going as best as possible. It’s not so much a concern for us to keep them in the same key, but just to work on those transitions. We try to have a male and female vocalist whenever possible so that if it’s too high for the ladies for example, they can follow the female worship leader’s harmonies.
I could read these worship blogs all night, there’s a whole world of it out there! But I landed on your blog David. Good stuff.
Jessie, thanks for the encouragement and for leaving a comment! I love how intentional you are with your worship service prep. Keep up the good work!