Pray

Welcome to part 1 of an 11 part series called How To Plan A Worship Service from Start to Finish.

Over the next several videos, we will look at 11 steps you can use to plan an effective worship service that honors God and encourages people to experience His presence through worship.

Now this isn’t the only way to plan a worship service – I realize everyone’s context is different.

But I believe these 11 steps will be effective in helping you plan a worship service no matter what size church you have, what style of music you use, how many people you have on your team, or how long you’ve been leading.

Here we go!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to download “Top 5 Resources To Use When Planning Worship” a free download produced by the Free Will Baptist Music Commission.

We’ve put a link in the description.

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Planning a worship service is no small thing and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It has eternal significance. But that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult or burdensome.

So whether you’re a lay leader, who has been asked to lead the singing, a pastor who has no musical training, a part-time music director, or a full time worship leader, these steps will simplify the process of planning worship and with the help of the Holy Spirit will enable you to confidently prepare a quality worship service each week.

Before we jump into the first step, there’s something you should know about worship leading.

God wants you to be a worshiper before he wants you to be a worship leader. AW Tozer says it like this: “God wants worshipers before he wants workers.”

So before you begin planning a worship service – take a minute to evaluate your heart. Give God your worship and surrender your will to His.

Okay here’s the first step in planning a worship service:

1. Pray

The first and most important step you must take when planning a worship service is: Pray.

While this may be stating the obvious for some, this step is too important to just assume that everyone will spend time seeking the Lord before they begin planning worship.

And let’s be honest, if you’ve been planning worship for any length of time, you know how easy it is to forget this step – to plan in your own strength and fall back on what has worked in the past.

This is why prayer is an important first step for every worship leader.

Worship is about God and for God and we must earnestly seek His face in order to hear from Him and plan the service that He wants – not the one we want.

So when you pray, ask the Lord for these things:

1. Pray for clean hands and a pure heart. Psalm 24:3-5 says

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Pray the Lord would give you clean hands and a pure heart. Confess your sin to the Lord, humble yourself – so that you can receive His blessing and righteousness, and ascend to His holy hill.

2. Secondly, ask for clarity about what you should and shouldn’t sing.

Ask the Lord to give you wisdom as you plan – wisdom to know what songs to sing, what scriptures to use and how to best coordinate each element to bring glory to His name. If we ask, the Holy Spirit will guide our thoughts, and help us with this process.

3. Third, pray that Jesus would be lifted up because of this service. Pray that you and others on the team would be hidden behind the cross of Christ – so that Jesus alone, can be worshiped.
4. And fourth, pray that Jesus would draw all men to himself. Worship is a powerful tool of the gospel and during worship, Jesus can and does remind us of His goodness, restore relationships, convict us of sin, and encourage us to continue on in the faith.

So, pray to that end.

Prayer is vital when it comes to planning worship. May the Lord help us to never plan a service without first seeking His face in prayer.

And just one more thing about prayer:

Prayer is not just the first step, it’s every step.

So as you walk through the rest of these steps, pray continually.

At our church we have several core values and prayer is one of them – we say it like this:

We pray as if everything depends on it, because it does.

So step 1 for planning a worship service from start to finish: Pray.

Thanks for watching part 1 of this 11 part series: How To Plan A Worship Service From Start To Finish. I hope you’ll watch the rest of the videos and let us know what you think in the comments.

If you want to go deeper on this topic, we’ve put some additional links in the description.

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