Worship length and no. of songs

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Loeffler on March 5, 2012 at 9:56pm

I personally believe that you must leave time for the Holy Spirit to move, it's supposeed to all about and for God so we need to give Him what time He wants.

We probably never do any song exactly the way we practice, I've tought our team to look at me and follow what I do so it flows and they do a great job of that, also my wife is on the team and does prophetic song or words so I also am in tune to what God is going to do through her, I step back from the mic and then she knows that if God wants to use her it is time.

So we have no set time and never limit what God is doing, yet all is done in order, kind of unique because I am Senior pastor and Worship leader, so this would have to be worked out with your Pastor if you are not both.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on March 6, 2012 at 4:51am

How tightly you "script" anything may depend on the mentality of your church, your worship team, your pastoral leaders -- and the abilities of the projectionist (assuming such a person projects words on a screen, such as we do for one of our two services).  I once had a lady who could sense unerringly where I was going to go at the pivotal points between verse, chorus and bridge, and had the next words up in advance [aided by ProPresenter], ready to go!  But alas, no more; in my present locale we have PowerPoint, which was designed [apparently] by a CPA rather than a musician; and the operator brooks no variance from whatever we decide at warm-up rehearsal.  So if the Spirit moves, He moves during the rehearsal in anticipation of the service!  The advantage of this more scripted approach is that it never crashes (unless I forget to look at the screen and run the chorus twice when it's time for the bridge, at which you see a furious flipping of slides to catch up).  If I do want to run a chorus more times I put all the words on the last slide.

That ProPresenter was like a dream.  It had a library, so you could look up songs during the service itself -- even edit them -- and it displayed all of the slides of a song on one screen, with labels below, so you could point and click on any slide and project it directly without having to perform any gymnastics.  We went years without seeing a menu on the big screen. 

Of course, you have the musicians -- if you're going to flow with the Spirit, or even with your spirit (remember, this is a nondenominational site, and there are lots around here who believe the Spirit moves with or without a script), it's good to have musicians who can go with you, who can change parts of songs, change tempo, change key on the spot and enjoy doing it.  If you get everybody growling with your Holy Spirit changes, you've just defeated what the Spirit is trying to do.  The beauty of having a screen (deftly operated) is that the people in the congregation don't worry about getting those changes precise, and will flow with you with very little or no "training in spontaneity."

Whatever brings life, joy, understanding and good singing to your congregation would seem best!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Loeffler on March 6, 2012 at 5:08am

We use Power point and, Praise God, the operator watches me as does the team and skips to where it needs to be, not perfect but we are a small church and everybody understands, so the flow is great.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matthew Stahlmann on March 6, 2012 at 5:58am

I agree with giving the Spirit time.  We have a very basic service outline.  Worship, announcements/offering, word.  This past sunday my friend (AKA Worship Leader, AKA Associate Pastor) saw a simmering in the congregation and I watched him sit and wait to see where it went.  Discerning in the Spirit himself.  It was his message to preach that day but he was ready to put it aside if the spirit dictated.  There is a schedule but it's not set in stone and we are not slaves to it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Loeffler on March 6, 2012 at 3:25pm

Ours is simular, the main difference is that we have a powerpoint slide between each song to let people know they can bring their tithes and offerings up at any time during worship as part of our worship, this works out great, no break in the worship and better flow from worship to the Word, Our announcement time is usually very short as to not break up the flow. I tryed announcements at the begining but that didn't work because to many people come late, and at the end some people are in to much of a hurry to leave esspecially if we have a good alter call, so we have kept announcments inbetween but as short as possible.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Wilhelm Olivier on March 8, 2012 at 9:17am

Some really good input here, we are a bit traditional in the three praise songs (the worship leader then prays for and releases the children to childrens church) and three worship songs BUT our worship leaders and musicians are very adept to engaging changes they sense the Holy Spirit making.  A few Sundays ago we had this amazing 10 mins of just string instruments worshiping God with no vocals. Totally spontaneous awesome stuff.  We flow with the cutting of instruments to acapella and back again and even those times of absolute silence. No law to how many times a song, chorus or bridge is sung.  All this time the intercessors are at the back of the church praying for the worship leaders and musicians, we need to connect with God.  Allocated time on the program is about 45 mins but often goes an hour and on days when Gods requires we have gone the whole service.  We are grateful for our pastor who is very open to the move of the Holy Spirit during praise and worship.  Even in this there is a sense of order and progression.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Loeffler on March 8, 2012 at 6:00pm

Praise God, it sounds like you have some great services.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Doug Barker on March 12, 2012 at 5:49pm

open with 3 upbeat songs

greeting time

offering (we do song during offering)

2 more worship songs,first one is usually upbeat and then bring it down to a worshipful style song

sermon

praise song...one we have already done in the service

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mark Levigne on March 12, 2012 at 8:20pm

Being an ad-hoc band with 'no home' and playing out at other churches....  we do what we're asked when we're asked but it normally consists of:

- upbeat opener; get 'em on their feet

- three songs in the main set

     - two upbeat

     - one slighlty/more slower

- offertory or special song that supports the message/theme of

- post message reflection song/songs (two, three maybe)

- exit song

     - depending upon the messsage upbeat or quiet/reflective

 

Again, it all depends upon the message and what we're asked to do.  Variety is good. ;-)

 

     Mark

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page