Planning Worship Service

[NacDan]

Here at our lil Vineyard, we've come up with a formula for choosing songs for our P&W service. We developed a formula in the pursuit of the "Flow" everyone wants in the service. The basic idea is to take the worshippers on a journey to meet with God. One of the most basic of Vineyard worship principles is that the "worshipper is to come with the expectancy of meeting God" -Bill Jackson, The Quest for the Radical Middle. Our basic "worship" journey goes like this:

1) Invitation to worship - Calling all the congregants into the service
2) Invitation to God - We want God to be part of this!
3) Praise & Worship - God, You are so GOOD!
4) Grace & Healing - Foundation of Christianity.
5) Devotional - Thank you God for everything. If you say "Go", I will Go!

This is our basic P&W service. We're also working on different 'journeys'; services that focus more on one aspect of worship or another. Examples, a healing service...a devotional service...etc...

How do y'all go about picking out the songs for your P&W service?

NacDan

 

[fiveinjuly]

That is an interesting format. When I was on a p&w thing in a youth group, we just kind of picked songs that we thought would get the kids into it or whatever new song that our singer had written.

 

[keyz]

How do y'all go about picking out the songs for your P&W service?

It's weird how we pick songs. This past weekend when we picked songs we all gathered together and started flipping through my book. When we'd see a song we thought would be good, we would pull it. I think after we got done with the book we had 20 or so picked. We usually do 5 songs for a service. I also go to a Vineyard church here, and we usually have a time for ministry at the end and that is when the 5th song is played. Whenever we do pick songs we really ask God to guide us in our picking. Sometimes God will lay something on our hearts earlier in the week and we will have a strong sense that we should play such and such a song. I just got back from playing at our Saturday night service and the format for this week kind of looked like this for the song line up.


1.) "Meet With Me" - God we desire to worship you and we come to meet with you. Open our hearts and reveal yourself to us. (that actually ties in with expectancy I guess.)

2.) "40" - It's a U2 song from Psalms 40 and the Micah Tawlks Band re-did a new version. If you read Psalms 40 it goes, "I waited patienty for the Lord, he heard my cry, brought me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay." So I think that song kind of tied with number one. We played both songs in the same key so they kind of tied together.

3.) "You are God" - You've probably heard this song. "you are God of the heavens and God of the earth." What God is to us. Who he is.

4.) "Holy Spirit Take Control" - This song is a very simple song that was introduced by someone from our church and it basically goes as the title says. This was the song before the message and it was also an invitation of God to take control of the service and to lead and guide.

5.) "Facedown" - This was the ministry song. The song is a new song by Matt Redman and it talks about being face to the ground in the glory of God.


To tell you the truth. The line up looks different every week. We try not to just pick songs that will get everyone to 'have a good time'. Our goal is to meet with God and let his glory shine around and let his name be praised and worshipped. We try to go by a similar format but at the same time we are all for letting God have free reign.

I think tomorrow morning we will do some swapping. I've recently had a death in the family, and a girl friend of mine and her brother (they both play guitar and bass in the band) lost a close friend due to suicide. We've been really torn to pieces and we are going to do a song "Kiss the Son" tomorrow. It's a beautiul song that expresses how we will still worship God even though we will be torn down. We have a strong sense that God will somehow use it. We don't know though yet. We'll see what it brings.

Basically, we try to see what God wants to do with the weekend and we will pick songs from there. Sometimes we will start off with a very slow song and at times we will start off very fast. Today we started slow and then builded. It happens in so many different ways. God is something else huh? hehe.

 

[NacDan]

It's weird how we pick songs. This past weekend when we picked songs we all gathered together and started flipping through my book. When we'd see a song we thought would be good, we would pull it. I think after we got done with the book we had 20 or so picked. We usually do 5 songs for a service. I also go to a Vineyard church here, and we usually have a time for ministry at the end and that is when the 5th song is played. Whenever we do pick songs we really ask God to guide us in our picking. Sometimes God will lay something on our hearts earlier in the week and we will have a strong sense that we should play such and such a song. I just got back from playing at our Saturday night service and the format for this week kind of looked like this for the song line up.


1.) "Meet With Me" - God we desire to worship you and we come to meet with you. Open our hearts and reveal yourself to us. (that actually ties in with expectancy I guess.)

2.) "40" - It's a U2 song from Psalms 40 and the Micah Tawlks Band re-did a new version. If you read Psalms 40 it goes, "I waited patienty for the Lord, he heard my cry, brought me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay." So I think that song kind of tied with number one. We played both songs in the same key so they kind of tied together.

3.) "You are God" - You've probably heard this song. "you are God of the heavens and God of the earth." What God is to us. Who he is.

4.) "Holy Spirit Take Control" - This song is a very simple song that was introduced by someone from our church and it basically goes as the title says. This was the song before the message and it was also an invitation of God to take control of the service and to lead and guide.

5.) "Facedown" - This was the ministry song. The song is a new song by Matt Redman and it talks about being face to the ground in the glory of God.


To tell you the truth. The line up looks different every week. We try not to just pick songs that will get everyone to 'have a good time'. Our goal is to meet with God and let his glory shine around and let his name be praised and worshipped. We try to go by a similar format but at the same time we are all for letting God have free reign.

I think tomorrow morning we will do some swapping. I've recently had a death in the family, and a girl friend of mine and her brother (they both play guitar and bass in the band) lost a close friend due to suicide. We've been really torn to pieces and we are going to do a song "Kiss the Son" tomorrow. It's a beautiul song that expresses how we will still worship God even though we will be torn down. We have a strong sense that God will somehow use it. We don't know though yet. We'll see what it brings.

Basically, we try to see what God wants to do with the weekend and we will pick songs from there. Sometimes we will start off with a very slow song and at times we will start off very fast. Today we started slow and then builded. It happens in so many different ways. God is something else huh? hehe.

BEAUTIFUL! One thing I noticed in your song selection in this post is that it very closely follows our "formula"! Did you notice that too?

My condolences for you lost. I'll be praying for you and your families.

Danny

 

[holyrokker]

Interesting - "mainline" demoninations have been doing this for hundreds of years.

Here's a link to a Lutheran Church and their "Order of Service" http://www.stjameslaf.org/order_of_service.htm