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A Plan for Planning Worship
Too many heads can bring chaos.
Church Central

Topics:	Planning, Teamwork, Worship planning, Worship service
Filters:	Pastor, Worship, Worship leader
References:	None
Date Added:	January 06, 2010

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Can teams plan worship? Yes—and no.

I have been planning (or trying to plan) worship for over 40 years. In that time I've seen some very dysfunctional worship committees.

Once, many years ago, a well-intentioned (junior) pastor thought it would be good to get some creative people in the room and just "think outside the box" (perhaps the scariest four words in the English language!). He attended several of the weekly worship planning meetings. Those in the room will likely never forget the first of them. The pastor brought a boom box into the room and played a recording that he particularly liked. His assumption was that the slightly off-kilter treatment of this particular artist would help make everyone more inventive.

From there it was all downhill. Sure, the committee came up with scores of really creative ideas. But these ideas made no sense when combined into the same service. It was like playing a game of Scrabble.

That creative team lasted one year. But they did finally come up with a plan that worked—and have been using it ever since:

What's the plan?

One person creates the overview for the service based on the theme or lectionary or desires of the preaching pastor.
The draft is sent to other creatives for suggestions that might enhance the basic plan.
A second draft is created (incorporating the doables from the previously mentioned suggestions) for the pastor to approve or revise.
A third draft is created with the required changes.
The creatives who help implement the worship services start designing the "moments" (graphics, videos, musical treatments, and testimonies from congregants) that will fit within the context of the service as a whole.
The result is brought in for the "players," who examine the details and look for any potential bumps in the plan.
The plan is debriefed the following week to get immediate feedback on the process and implementation.

Having planned more than a thousand worship services, I promise that this works. Take it from a man with many scars: "it takes a village" only when someone is actually willing to be in charge and keep the village moving forward!

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S Park

November 23, 2011 12:18pm

A lesson well learned, because there's nothing worse than something created by a committee. Unless done the right way, as described above by Doug L. I've been in corporate communications for over 30 years, and can attest that 1) having a framework (e.g., theme or lectionary), and 2) letting a single person create the initial draft or outline, is critical to success. (And I'd add that that single person needs to have a certain level of knowledge and skill about the types of media to be used and the various audiences participating.) And regarding "thinking outside the box," my experience has been that those who say they want everyone to think "outside the box" either have their own agenda, and/or don't know the first thing about the discipline, knowledge and and skill associated with any type of creative work (including planning a worship service).