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THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF WORSHIP PLANNING
A Crash Course in Collected Wisdom from 100 Congregations

Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Calvin Symposium on Worship 2001

SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES

PROVERB 1:   Broad (lay) participation in worship planning and leading can be fabulous, provided there is provision for training, learning, growth, and a shared commitment to the deep meaning and purpose of Christian worship. Worship planning requires more than good intentions.

Goal:   build learning into every process
Strategies

1. annual worship planners/leaders retreat
2. monthly worship committee discussions re article, book, video
3. weekly worship planning discussions re article, book, video
   (recommend James Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, InterVarsity, 1997; articles from Reformed Worship)
4. common presentations in adult and children's education (we learn when we need to teach)
5. attend a worship conference with your whole worship committee—as many are this week

PROVERB 2:   Worship planners and leaders need more than skills and understanding of worship; they also need pastoral virtues.  

They are spiritual leaders, not just technicians. In the early church they would be office-bearers, when offices had more to do with worship leadership than attending meetings. We need to constantly call attention to this aspect of the job. Here is a list of virtues for the worship planners and leaders for starting a discussion in your church (have your committee work on editing and adding to this list, realizing that none of us has all these virtues). The goal here is to lift up these virtues and to aspire to embody them collectively.

• compassion for the congregation's needs, and concern about how those needs are addressed in worship
• discernment about who is gifted to lead worship, and in what way
• cooperativeness for working on a team of people who are involved in planning and leading worship
• knowledge of God's word, and which portions of God's word are especially important for a given congregation to hear (and when and why and how)
• wisdom to understand the psychological and theological issues that are involved when there is conflict about worship
• patience when the congregation is slow to participate fully in certain acts of worship
• imagination to generate ideas about which songs, scripts, prayers, and elements will engage a congregation with the power and meaning of a given scriptural theme
• discipline to avoid too much innovation. Planning worship is different from putting on an art fair or writing poetry. When we plan worship, we are planning something for a community's use. No community can sustain endless innovation. No community can truly pray with words that are entirely unfamiliar or are creative for their own sake.

PROVERB 3:   Begin worship planning with prayer, scripture reading, and reflection on the needs of the congregation, and rich will be your spiritual rewards.

Spiritual Perspectives	Weekly Planning	Considering the Big Picture
Planning proverbs 1-3	Planning proverbs 4-10	Planning proverbs 11-16