Worship Planning As a Team

Worship Planning as a Team

Who:

The ideal team size is 4-5 people. This allows the team to build trust and work nimbly together. Too many people slows down the exchange of ideas and can lead to getting off task. Teams should include:

pastor (s)

worship/music leader,

weird-creative person - think kooky VBS enthusiast

person in your target demographic

someone who watches the same TV shows, listens to the same music, consumes the same web content, and is not so overly churched that they have lost touch with their peers

Note: There will be other staff/volunteers who relate to this team who need to know what has been planned but do not need to attend. They include tech teams, band, choir, slide creators, ushers, communion stewards, drama teams, children’s ministry and others.

When:

It is best to meet on Mondays if possible so that Sunday’s worship is still fresh in people’s minds and to allow for enough lead time to attend to the next Sunday’s plans. Meetings may last one to two hours depending on the church season, and whether or not the team is getting ready for the start of the next series.

Resources:

Prayer, prayer, prayer. Invite the Holy Spirit to be present and inspiring the work of the team.
Bible. Several translations are helpful.
Pastor’s preaching plan. Ideally six months or longer. What are the series? When do they start and end? What scripture will be used? Overall themes. Plan gets more and more detailed the closer it is. Keep in mind not only liturgical seasons but also cultural and school.
Creativity. Don’t be afraid of the over the top ideas. They lead to some of the most inspiring and memorable worship experiences.
By all means have at least one lap top on hand so that the team can quickly check public school schedule, football schedule, important cultural events, google image ideas, find song lyrics, reference video clips, etc.
Demographics of your congregation and your neighborhood – what are they looking for from worship? How do we disciple them well?

What :

1)How the team spends its time each week will vary based on series, church year, how intricate each service is. Usually the team will address three Sundays (possibly more each week).

2)Previous Sunday –

i)quick review of what worked, what didn’t, what can be applied to the future

3)Next Sunday –

i)review of what has been planned

ii)tweaks needing to be made

iii)any outstanding tasks or issues that need to be settled

4)Two Sundays out –

i)deeper discussion of the scripture text

ii)decide on bottom line

iii)brainstorm image, metaphor, service elements to support message

iv)poke at what is not clear or what questions might arise from worship attendees

5)Future Sundays –

i)what is the next series?

ii)does it have a theme? does each sermon have a bottom line?

iii)what are the scriptures?

iv)always be planning/ thinking two or three series out from the present

Preacher work:

Bring them good stuff. The deeper you can go into what you want to cover, the better work your team can do. If you only know ‘we need some gospels’, you will have too much territory to cover to be efficient. If you know you want to look at an issue like ‘shame’, give your team some scriptures or biblical images or stories you might use to preach that topic.
The key would be to get to a bottom line for each proposed sermon before you come into the room. This may change of course, since you are working ahead. It will speed up all your work to have wrestled with development of a bottom line
Your job is also to hold the team accountable.
If the music person isn’t contributing or isn’t on time with their work, call it out.
If the team is not being honest about feedback, call them on it. Preaching is very personal, it takes a great deal of humility to be open to feedback, it may hurt at first but God will use this to build you up as a preacher.(See resource book Thanks for the Feedback)This is a critical loop that will build excellence in worship.
This group should have permission to speak the truth in love, and model it. You should also be pushing the team to build excellence in their gifts to the process. So give them training – spend the money and the time, and share share share what you are reading and learning with each other.
Do spiritual work together as well as fellowship together; read a book, pray for each other, do a quick mission project together
Celebrate the wins and learn from (and don’t be afraid to be playful with) the ‘fails’

You try it –

Plan a 4 week series on either – the book of Jonah or the following lectionary texts from Colossians –

Colossians 1:1-14, 1:15-28, 2:6-15 and 3:1-11

Series theme:

Bottom line for sermon #1:

Bottom line for sermon #2:

Bottom line for sermon #3:

Bottom line for sermon #4:

Culturally Relevant Theme/ Image/Metaphor

Other interesting ideas, add-ons, worship service elements

Resources needed/Staff or Volunteers

Sarah Calvert Melissa Dunlap