Worship service planning in a media-saturated age
With more songs, videos, and service resources than ever, effective worship leaders rely on a clear philosophy, a cohesive team, and an efficient process to plan with intention. This article highlights how several churches collaborate, adapt to changing communities, and learn new approaches while keeping the goal of helping people find God at the center.
- Strong planning systems help teams focus each weekend around a single biblical truth and a cohesive service.
- Collaboration and shared resources can raise quality and reduce the burden on individual churches.
- Healthy worship leadership stays flexible, revisiting philosophy as churches grow and contexts change.
By Jennifer Taylor
CCLI’s database covers more than 150,000 songs, and iTunes features more than 3 million. Inexpensive equipment allows almost anyone to create a video, and thousands of DVDs offer clips (and inspiration!) for the latest Heroes or Desperate Housewives sermon series.
In this media surplus, effective worship leaders get their bearings with things found singly: a ministry philosophy, a cohesive team, an efficient process. These elements, so much bigger than a song or a Sunday, make service planning more intentional and less difficult.
From this foundation, these worship leaders work successfully with senior ministers, craft a variety of services, and even find the courage to try something new.
Collaboration in Colorado
As Community Christian Church of Naperville, Illinois, launched new sites around the Chicago area, CCC leaders developed a process to focus each weekend—its adult worship services, its children’s programming, and even its small groups—around just one biblical truth, or “Big Idea.”
This big idea took off. Today churches of every size incorporate Community’s methods into planning their own services, and the February release of The Big Idea: Focus the Message—Multiply the Impact continues to share principles behind the process.
Although the book provides plenty of coaching, Michael Eckstine learned the system as a participant. Eckstine served as creative arts pastor at Jacob’s Well Church, Thornton, Colorado, until this spring; the church is one of several launched by the NewThing Network, an organization affiliated with Community Christian and committed to developing reproducing churches.
Each of the NewThing plants, from Reunion Christian Church in downtown Boston to Jacob’s Well in suburban Denver, uses the Big Idea method to collaboratively plan their services. Worship leaders from each church participate together in weekly conference calls to brainstorm songs, suggest original video ideas, develop service orders, and more.
“The goal is creating a service to help people find God,” says Eckstine. “The huge payoff is learning from each other and creating something better than any of us could develop individually.”
In addition to higher-impact weekend services, the team’s synergy and advance planning also allow these churches to have better-quality resources.
“Not all of us have video crews or lots of volunteers,” Eckstine says. “But when one church creates something and shares it, we all benefit.”
Although the conference calls are currently limited to worship leaders from NewThing’s plants, the network accepts applications to join its affiliate program. Participating churches can view an extranet Web site with creative content posted in real time during the brainstorming sessions, and also receive access to a library of sermon outlines, videos, and worship plans.
Speaking to the Bones
Life Journey Christian Church of Bakersfield, California, another NewThing plant, also participated in the weekly calls until changes at the church led to a new strategy.
“We were the classic suburban church plant meeting in a movie theater,” says David Limiero, lead pastor. “But a year after our launch, we began ministering to more of the urban community. When our lease ended in the theater, we intentionally relocated to a warehouse closer to the center of town.”
This transition affected not only the location of Life Journey’s weekly worship, but its planning and philosophy as well. Although he remains a fan of NewThing’s team-oriented approach, Limiero ended the collaboration in early 2005.
“I realized the group we’re reaching now is quite different demographically from the groups other NewThing churches are reaching,” he says. “Our services need to reach people who are emotionally broken or living in poverty.”
To accomplish this goal, Limiero references an unlikely source—the book of Ezekiel. “Two questions frame everything we do,” he says. “Are we faithfully speaking ‘to the bones’ by sharing God’s Word? And how are we partnering with God to bring life or ‘breath’ to the people?”
Limiero still uses the Big Idea process to apply these questions, but now the brainstorming team is Life Journey volunteers.
“The first Sunday of each month we brainstorm the next month,” he says. “I always ask the group what questions people may bring to the service and what change or decision we want them to make.”
Often, the team plans Communion as an opportunity to reflect on that theme. Life Journey’s current building includes an area with two large wooden crosses and a table; many weeks, after 10 to 15 minutes of musical worship, Limiero or another leader invites people to visit the table and take Communion on their own, as a couple, or with their small group.
“After the service issues a challenge to change a behavior or make a choice, this becomes an even more meaningful time,” Limiero says. “I’m still learning to ‘speak to the bones,’ but we consider the whole service to be the message—my sermon is just one part.”
The Both/And Church
Ryan Christian is another leader learning new skills. When Richland Hills (Texas) Church of Christ, where he’s served as praise and worship minister since 1997, added an instrumental service in February, Christian applauded the move but also faced a steep learning curve. “I totally support the decision, but it’s definitely stretching me,” he says.
Richland Hills’s process for its a cappella services remains largely unchanged. Christian remains the primary planner and meets weekly with Rick Atchley, the senior minister, to discuss key Scriptures and ideas. A team leader for each group of 12 vocalists communicates scheduling and service details and leads rehearsals for upcoming weeks. Vocalists serve one week on (singing at both the Wednesday night and Sunday morning services) with two weeks off, and each team member memorizes all music.
Meanwhile, a band and separate team of vocalists now practice each Thursday night for the Saturday evening instrumental service. Christian’s learning to play guitar, and the church recently hired another worship leader to assist with adult and youth services.
In the midst of these changes, the church has responded well. At times the affectionately named “Both/And Chorus” will sing for all the services, and concerns that church members would stop singing with instruments playing quickly proved unfounded.
“In one of the first Saturday services people sang so enthusiastically that they didn’t hear the band’s key change,” Christian says. “We have a lot of learning to do, but we’re enjoying the process.”
Something Completely Different
Every service at LifeSpring Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, includes instruments, but worship minister Tim Neuenschwander also understands major change. Since joining the staff 10 years ago, Tim has worked with young adults, seniors, ministry staff, and elders to develop four unique worship services in LifeSpring’s original building and another at its second campus across town.
“We created an alternative Sunday night service called ‘The Gathering,’” Neuenschwander says. “After that, our two traditional services wanted to combine into one. Then a third team planned a contemporary service in the time slot that opened up. Today we have four distinct styles happening every weekend.”
He plans and leads two services and works with volunteers who lead the others. Neuenschwander allows these leaders great freedom in designing the services, and regularly shares books, magazines, and CDs of new music for them to consider.
“I review their service orders and make suggestions, but we encourage these leaders to make it their own,” he says.
LifeSpring subscribes to many of the programs offered by CCLI, WorshipLeader.com, and others; the lyric sheets, chord charts, and mp3s they offer make life much easier for this multitasking church.
“And,” he says, “the admin help is huge.” His assistant prepares worship slides, lead sheets, and more for each weekend.
The strategy requires a lot of work, but Neuenschwander believes it succeeds because LifeSpring’s leaders listened to members at critical moments and remain open to new ideas.
“We’re constantly revisiting our philosophy, especially as we launch new sites and grow in racial diversity,” he says. “This could all be completely different in five years.”
Jennifer Taylor, a CHRISTIAN STANDARD contributing editor, writes from her home outside Nashville, Tennessee. See her blog at www.christianstandard.com.
