Five Elements to Remember When Planning a Service
As a leader in worship, I plan hundreds of services every year. It could be the normal Sunday worship service, funeral, wedding, concerts, revivals, or even grand special events like a patriotic service or our Christmas Celebration production. With each one of these, there are core commonalities that are crucial for success when it comes to planning each one with effectiveness. One of my favorite quotes says, “The world will, in a large part, judge our message based on the care we take in presenting it.” Whether you’re planning for a children’s camp rally or a senior adult revival, the message we have to share is the greatest on earth and deserves our best care when it comes to presenting that message. Therefore, when it comes to planning, here are some guidelines to remember.
1. IT’S ALL ABOUT CONNECTION
When thinking through songs, moments, or elements that you want to include in the service, always think how they are going to connect to the culture of your church. The buzzword right now around the church world is relevant. Churches are doing everything they can to be more relevant, yet it’s crucial to understand that relevance is building a bridge between Christ and culture. Therefore, before you know how to connect, you have to know your culture. Use that knowledge to plan things that will connect them on deeper levels than just tempo and style. When you choose a song, choose a song that connects. When preaching a sermon, preach in a way that connects the congregation to the truth. It’s all about connection.
2. START AT THE END
I always start at the end in my planning. A good question to ask yourself is “What do I want the people thinking about when they leave the service?” If you don’t have a destination, you’re not going to have the tools to navigate properly. Other questions are, “What is the theme of the Pastor’s message?” “What will the Pastor’s last point be?” “Where will the minds and heart of my people be during this service?” All of these will help you steer the souls of your people correctly.
3. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
This one is similar to #1 but digs deeper into the culture of an audience. For you to connect and minister to a group of people, you have to know a bit of who they are. When I go lead as a guest for a church, I first ask a lot of questions about the culture, including asking for about 3–5 weeks worth of service orders. By this, I can learn a lot about the culture and how to connect to them. The location, date, season, or any other factors will play a part. You can take the same group of people, and put them in the same room, but have one service on a Sunday morning at 9am, and another on Friday night at 7pm, and that same group of people will react differently. Bottom line is; think through the people and setting to best know how to plan.
4. STRONG ELEMENTS + SMOOTH TRANSITIONS + SPECIFIC ORDER = SOLID FLOW
This point probably needs it’s own blog post because of the importance of this idea of elements, transitions and flow. But let me quickly clarify each idea and then let’s briefly discuss them.
ELEMENTS: The individual pieces and parts of a particular service (songs, announcements, offering, message, etc).
TRANSITIONS: The transfer from element to element.
FLOW: The compilation of multiple elements, each accompanied by connective transitions, to create an organic whole.
Elements: People want to have a radical (deep, multi-layer, texture), organic (feel like it’s unexpected and spontaneous), experience (engaging and connective) together. When you start to compile the individual elements of a service, think through each one in both the power of that individual moment, and the bigger picture you are using that moment to build upon. Both angles are crucial in the power and placement of each element. Don’t ever get to a point when you are analyzing the elements of your service and you start saying, “it’ll work” or “it’s good enough.” One of my favorite quotes by Derric Johnson is, “If better is possible, good is not enough.” Don’t have any “throw-away” element. If you find you have one of those in your service, do just that . . . throw it away.
Transitions: I really believe that the difference in a good service and a great service (from a programming and production point of view) comes down to transitions. Momentum in a service can be lost so quickly with a bad transition creating even just a little dead time. I think of transitions like a relay race. You have a race (service), individual runners (elements), a team (the leaders that are carrying each element of the service) speed of pace (pacing of timelines), baton (the moment/platform) and the most crucial part….the passing of the baton from one runner to the next (the transitions). The most crucial thing about transition is smoothness and pace of handoff. At the precise moment when two relay runners meet to hand off the baton, both runners have to be going the exact same speed for a smooth handoff. The same is true in a worship service. Once the baton is handed off, the leader can take the moment wherever he wants but the handoff needs to be at the same speed. A few months ago, I was a guest leading worship at a church and the stage manager told me that there would be a video right after I prayed. I asked if I could see the beginning of the video and sure enough, the video started with a huge loud opening sequence. If I had not checked the video, and ended the prayer in a solemn moment of prayer and reflection, that video would have been so abrupt and very awkward transition. However, since I knew where I needed to get the people in the moment, I ended the prayer in an energetic and celebratory way so that the start of the video felt like it built off the energy of the room.
Flow: When it comes to flow, I would encourage you to think of it like a timeline or a journey. What is the spiritual timeline? Tempo timeline? Emotional timeline? Energy timeline? Musical timeline? If you step back and figure this out, you will be able to find a creative and interesting path to lead your people down. The opposite, and what I would NOT recommend, would be getting into a rut of always having the same template and working from there.
5. Plan for the 80%/20% Rule
Please like what they know. Sure, they are open to new things but only to a limit. When they know something, they feel secure, engaged, and connected. We have an 80%/20% rule at First|Worship which means we do 80% familiar and 20% new. This helps keep a right balance for people of all ages and stages. Just a side note here . . . we never do a new congregational worship song to open a service. I want people to be “all in” immediately, and when you do a new song at the top of the service, you are not helping yourself when it comes to relations, energy, and engagement.
