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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

CONSIDERING THE BIG PICTURE

PROVERB 11:   Music gets too much attention in most congregations (ouch—painful for a musician to admit).
We need to attend more to how scripture is read, how thoughtfully we prepare for prayer, how hospitably we celebrate the sacraments. Put music in its place—a significant, but not all-encompassing place.

PROVERB 12:   Music is soul food. God's people need a balanced diet. Spiritually speaking, we are what we sing. Most congregations really know only 200 songs or hymns. Be fussy about what makes it into your diet.

Song Diet Evaluation Sheet

Theme	Newly Written	Long-Loved	More Contemplative	More Exuberant	Simple, Accessible	Complex, Challenging
Praise (25)
Penitence (10)
Word of God (6)
Dedication/Offering (10)
Baptism (6)
Lord's Supper (6)
Blessing/Dismissal (6)
Advent/Christmas/Epiphany (20)
Lent(10)
Holy Week (8)
Easter (6)
Ascension (5)
Pentecost/Holy Spirit (6)
Morning and Evening (4)
Special Occasions (4)
Creation/Providence (10)
Redemption/Salvation (10)
Church/Mission (10)
Forgiveness/Healing (10)
Prayer (10)
Home and Family (10)
Society/Justice (10)
New Creation/Hope (10)

• Suppose there are 20,000 songs available. You are then identifying the top 1% of extant resources. We have the luxury of being very, very picky.
• Suppose that 3/4 of all congregation songs/hymns/canticles sung should be from your list of 200. That is, most of what you do can be familiar, but some will be new and challenging.
• Suppose that no more than 10 of these 200 might change in a given year, and that at least 5 should change. Our core repertoire should constantly grow, but not too fast.
• Make sure that there are at least a dozen songs on the list that could be sung at a funeral, or at a time of congregational crisis.

PROVERB 13:   Promote overall congregational health with good models for organizing people and communication. Don't neglect tasks of supervision and evaluation—which should primarily function to encourage and support the weekly planners and leaders.

FUNCTIONS:	Worship Leadership	Nuts and Bolts of Weekly Worship Planning (selecting participants, choosing music, preparing prayers, order of service, etc.)	Specific Supervision of Worship	Ultimate Supervision of Worship (decisions about number and identity of each service, overall philosophy, etc.)
Example 1	Pastor, Organist	Pastor	Worship Committee	Council/Session/Board—only talk about worship when it's a problem
Example 2	Worship Teams + preacher (5 teams on a rotating basis)	Worship Teams (same team who leads, plans the service)	None—has been disbanded	Council: Little—only talk about worship when it's a problem
Examples generated in this session . . .

PROVERB 14:   Worship planners are stewards of gifts given to members of the congregation.

Generate lists of spiritually gifted leaders. Chart their involvement. Look for people, especially young people, who could be encouraged to develop those gifts.

People/Gifts Inventory (sample)

Name	Phone	Particular gifts (prayer, scripture reading, drama, musical instrument, etc).	Services in which they participated this year	Notes, Comments
Jorge Maldez
Mary Smith
Antonio Langham
Okke Van Spee

PROVERB 15:   Worship requires thoughtful spiritually-informed evaluation—not surveys of popular opinions and tastes.

Questions for Council, Worship Committee Discussions
Note focus not on mechanics of worship, but on larger issues. These larger issues will generate discussions of mechanics and techniques, but then they will be tied to a larger purpose.

• Which services, acts of worship have been particularly spiritually nourishing?
• How have we done in really living into scripture in recent services?
• How have we done in praying—honestly, redemptively, expansively?
• How have we done in extending hospitality in our worship?

THE LAST PROVERB:   The nuts and bolts are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.  

Hone the ability to work hard, and then to set aside worry, to engage in worship, to enjoy and glorify God:

“We have stuck to founding, building singing, ringing, to vestments, incense burning, and to all the additional preparations for divine worship up to the point that we consider this preparation the real, main divine worship and do not know how to speak of any other. And we are acting as wisely as the man who wants to build a house and spends all his goods on the scaffolding and never, as long as he lives, gets far enough along to lay one stone of his house.”
—Martin Luther (E. Plass, What Luther Says, Concordia, 1959, vol. 1, p. 302).

“We have stuck to Powerpoint, sound systems, children's messages, drama skits, and seekerfriendliness up to the point that we consider this all the real divine worship, and we do not know how to speak of any other. We are acting as wisely as the one who wants to surf the internet, but spends all available resources on a big monitor, and so has none left over for internet service, and thus never has the chance to actually get online.”
—anonymous, January 2001