When it comes to traditional music, the job of picking worship music can be pretty easy. For churches that follow the lectionary (the series of prescribed readings for each Sunday), you can often find accompanying lists of hymns that fit with the various readings, giving you plenty to choose from. Many denominations also publish their own resources with suggested hymns for each week. On top of that, all the hymns used typically come from the hymnal – and nearly every denomination publishes their own hymnal with content that they consider theologically sound.

That’s all well and good for churches using a traditional liturgical format, but at Journey our style is non-liturgical. It keeps our worship fresh but it makes choosing songs a bit more of a challenge. Here’s what that process looks like at Journey:

• A couple of years ago, I completely overhauled our music library. We use Planning Center so all of our music is stored online where we can keep it organized and accessible to the worship team. I spent a couple of months pouring through every song’s lyrics and categorizing them first by their function (if it served as an invocation, statement of faith, confession of sins, etc) and second my their theological content. I did what happens at the denominational level when creating a new hymnal – the doctrine in each song is reviewed and cataloged. It’s important to note that before this time, I was not just blindly throwing songs together or using songs with doctrine that was questionable, but I took the time to go deeper into the songs and sort them by the theology they contained.
• If at all possible, I try to weave the theme of the message throughout all the songs. At Journey, we don’t follow the Lectionary. We don’t believe it’s wrong to follow it, we just take the approach of doing more message series than having every week be its own thing. While we feel this is a more effective way for us to present God’s word in our setting, it makes choosing songs a lot more time-consuming. Now, instead of choosing songs around a specific scripture passage, they’re often picked around a theme. Some themes are easy, such as love, forgiveness, or The Power of God. Others are more challenging, like building Christ-like relationships or dealing with doubt. When there are no songs that fit directly with a given theme, then I look to its place in the service (perhaps a song asking God to open our ears to His word before the message instead of a thematic song)
• Lastly, it’s important that those leading worship understand why we sing what we do. I’ve worked a lot with the worship team the last few months to really understand our whole process so they can see the bigger picture of the service. Helping them to understand why we’re singing the particular songs chosen for that week help them to pass that meaning on to the congregation. By associating scripture and deeper meaning to the songs we do, our worship experience is taken to a new level and it moves it from being a series of songs on either side of a message to one flowing experience with a common thread woven through.

It takes a lot more work to pick songs for our style of worship, but I think it’s totally worth it! Of course, you can also be this intentional about picking music for more traditional styles of worship as well. The more thought and preparation you put into your overall worship service, the more God can bless and use your preparation to impact his people!

We’re not in a series for the month of May, which always makes things a challenge because there are so many directions you can go on any given week. This week, so focused on a series of passages throughout scripture about God’s love for us – that unconditional love that will never fail. Every once in a while, we need a reminder of that love that surrounds us throughout all the ups and downs of life.

Today’s Worship

• Glory to God Forever by Steve Fee
• Sing Along by Sixteen Cities
• From the Inside Out by Joel Houston
• The Message
• Enough by Chris Tomlin
• Offerings and Prayers
• Unchanging by Chris Tomlin

This post is part of the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com. See what other churches did today!

I read blogs. Lots and lots of blogs! Google Reader is my blog reader of choice and I was recently looking at my blog reading stats. I’m always adding new blogs and removing older ones that have been abandoned or otherwise stopped being helpful, so the total count changes, but right now there are 169 blogs that I’m following. Most are related to things like church, worship, leadership, and technology – but some are just for fun.

One of the things I use a lot in Google Reader is the ability to star posts to save for later. Since I have such a large volume of “stuff” to wade through, I usually skim the headlines and read what catches my eye. If a post seems really helpful or I think I might be able to use it somewhere, I star it.

Here’s a list of the things I starred this week. Maybe you’ll find some of them useful like I did!

24 Logical Fallacies: A cool poster and definition of 24 different “logical fallacies” we all use when we’re arguing, even if we don’t realize it. I would love to be able to commit these to memory so when I’m tempted to use one I’d realize it and stop. Or I would notice when someone else is using one…

Silence in Corporate Worship: What we worship leaders should know about using silence in corporate worship – something that’s far too often under-utilized in our high-energy worship services.

It All Starts With “This” and “Why”: Knowing the “why” behind your “this” helps us find and direct our driving force in our lives.

Bible Art Printables: I’m a big fan of well-done creative typography. These would be cool to print as posters and hang them around the church or office.

7 Ways to Prayer for Your Prayer Life: I love the idea of praying for your prayer life and the seven ideas here are great starting points for growing your prayers from the “God I want…” prayers (or wishes masquerading as prayers) to something more meaningful.

The Basic Assumptions of Evolution: Anyone who knows me well knows that I love apologetics. I love reading about the logic, philosophy and science behind both sides of the arguments. This is part of a series refuting Theistic Evolution.

I’ve had this blog for over 5 years and it’s gone pretty much unnoticed for most of that time. But in the last month or so I’ve been inundated with more visits than I’ve ever had before. Thanks to getting some articles of mine republished on TheWorshipCommunity.com,  ChurchLeaders.com, WorshipIdeas.com and Musicademy.com, my readership has grown tremendously in the past few weeks. It’s both exciting and humbling at the same time to realize that my audience is growing. 

But what I really want to know is who are you? There are way more readers of my blog than those who comment or interact with me online. So let’s get to know one another! Leave a comment below telling me who you are, where you’re from and, if you’re involved with a church, what’s your role there – are you a worshipper in the pew or are you on staff in some capacity (or something in between)?

I’d love to get to know you and what you do – it’ll help me focus my writing to (hopefully) be even more helpful for you!

There’s one last place I think we should look as I wrap up this Spring Cleaning at Church series and that’s our equipment. We’ve already taken a look at our buildings, our style, our digital spaces and our music. Now, let’s take a look at all the equipment that keeps things going and make sure it’s ready to take on the rest of the year.

As the church continues to become more and more reliant on equipment and technology, the need to keep it running smoothly grows! The obvious things to check not just in springtime but throughout the year are important things like your computers, network equipment, auditorium speakers and other obviously vital pieces of equipment. But there are others that slip by which you should keep an eye on:

• Audio and Video Cables. These take a beating, especially at a church like ours that’s portable and sets up and breaks down each week. Do yourself a favor and pick up an audio cable tester (I have this one) and regularly check your cables. The price you pay for the tester beats having a bad cord in the mix that suddenly causes problems during the service. I haven’t gotten a video cable tester yet, but regularly inspect the cables for wear and make sure the connections are secure.
• The Projector(s). Clean the air filter at least once a year, if not two or three times depending on where it’s located and how often it’s used. Ours gets setup and put away each week, so another thing to keep an eye on is keeping the lens clean and fingerprint free (not that fingers should ever touch the lens in the first place, but it does happen). While you’re messing with the projector, take a look at where the bulb life is and see if it’s time to start thinking about a new bulb. They’re not cheap but they have come down in price in the past few years. If you’re getting close to the end of the bulb’s life expectancy, it’s time to pick up a replacement. Remember: projector bulbs only seem to go out on Sunday mornings right when you need them. 
• Musical Instruments. Is it time for new drum heads? Does the piano need tuning? Keep all the church musical equipment in top shape to make it last as long as possible.
• Clean all your equipment. Give your computer and audio equipment a spray with some compressed air to remove any dust bunnies that have taken up residence. Clean your computer screens and keyboards – they’re gross! If it’s used for or at church, take the time to keep it working and running smoothly. Your congregation sacrificed and donated to be able to purchase the church’s equipment – it’s your job to take care of it and make it last!

That wraps up the series on Spring Cleaning at Church. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but a good start! Are there any important areas I missed or other things that need to be addressed? Leave a comment below!