Plan The Transitions

I believe one of the most important but overlooked parts of a worship service are the transitions. How you get from one element to another will largely determine the flow of the service and help make your services as distraction-free as possible.

In this video, we’ll look at 6 transitions you can use in planning worship and how to create a seamless worship experience each week.

Welcome to part 8 of an 11 part series called How To Plan A Worship Service from Start to Finish.

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If you missed any of the other videos, I encourage you watch them on our YouTube channel or at fwbworship.com.

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.

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The eighth step to take when planning a worship service is: Plan the Transitions.

You might assume that because all the songs are ready, you’re ready for the service? But not quite, I want to encourage you to think about and plan the transitions.

One of the most neglected aspects of planning worship is the transitions during worship.

Most worship leaders spend all their time picking out songs, rehearsing, making sure the lyrics are correct, dialing in the sound, working with their team – but they rarely ever give thought to what is going to happen in the time between the songs, or before the songs begin.

I’m guilty of this too.

I have often focused all my attention on getting the arrangement, and the band and the vocals just right.

And then once the service started, I would have a small panic attack at the end of the first song when it hit me for the first time, “I don’t know how to get from this song to the next one!”

What am I going to say?

What are we going to play?

Will the band know when to come in?

What’s the first words of the next song?

Will those lyrics ever show up on the back screen?

If you’ve been leading worship for any length of time, you have probably had some of these same panic attacks – or maybe all of them!

And often we then make the situation worse by trying to ad-lib or think on your feet – and just say whatever comes to our minds!

This is usually a recipe for a train wreck, saying something that is theologically incorrect, or at least saying or doing something that becomes a distraction in worship.

Several years ago, I was leading and I didn’t fully think through what I wanted to say between songs – I was making a transition from one song to another song and I wanted to encourage the congregation to sing, but I said something like “and now I want you to sing loud out of your mouths!”

This blunder and thousands like it from worship leaders all over the world, could have been prevented had I only planned my transitions.

Here are several options you can use to help you make a seamless transition from one song to another.

1. First of all, scripture

You will never go wrong with using scripture as a part of your service. In fact, most of us don’t use enough scripture!

Many of the songs we sing are based on scripture and some of them are directly from scripture.

Find out what scriptures the songs you’ve planned are based on. Google is an excellent resource for this. Just search for the title of the song with scripture after it and you’ll find all kinds of scriptures that song supports. Pick one and use it to introduce the song or close out the song.

You can memorize the scripture and quote it.

You could have one of your other team members read it from the Bible.

You could put it on the screen or in the bulletin and have the congregation read it aloud with you.

No matter how you decide to use scripture in worship, be sure to communicate with your team exactly what is going to happen and when they need to stop the previous song and start the next one.

in rehearsal, I usually give our team a key phrase from the passage I’m reading that indicates to them it’s time to play the intro of the next song.

2. Another transition option is a musical transition

Using a musical element will keep the service connected while allowing for a transition to take place.

For example, you could highlight one instrument (like a guitar or saxophone or piano) to play the chorus or intro of the next song as a solo.

You could also have the band play a pre-written transition together. Many hymnals have pre written transitions that sound great when changing from key to key.

Another musical transition you could use is key change. I talked about this more in the previous video – so be sure to check out part 7 of this series if you haven’t yet.

3. A third transition option is video.

There are several places online that offer inexpensive videos you can use to enhance the worship experience and keep the congregation focused.

Some of these videos tell stories or use dramatic readings of scripture or talk about a specific attribute of God.

WorshipHouseMedia, IgniterMedia, Floodgate Productions, Shift Worship and Motion Worship are just some of the many places where you can find videos to use in worship. We’ve put links to these in the description.

4. A fourth transition option is prayer.

An intentional prayer between songs can help the congregation keep their focus on God during a transition.

You could pray, or have one of your team members pray. You could also ask your pastor or other leader to pray during the transition.

One of my favorite ways to incorporate prayer is to ask the congregation to spend a few moments in private prayer thanking the Lord for all He’s done.

A prayer doesn’t have to be totally scripted, but having a clear roadmap for the prayer, will keep you from rambling and ensure that the prayer stays on point throughout the transition.

5. A fifth option to use in transitions is silence.

Silence is Biblical and it’s a powerful way to draw people toward God. Lamentations 3:26 says: “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

But everyone knows the difference between planned silence and silence that happens because “we don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.” That’s awkward silence and causes people to be distracted.

If you use silence in worship – make sure that it’s intentional and appropriate for the moment.

Planned silence gives the congregation an opportunity to be still in His presence – to remove all the noise – and hear from God.

6. The sixth transition option is a word of encouragement, testimony or exhortation.

This seems to be the go-to transition element for most worship leaders – but usually it’s done on the spur of the moment and therefore not as effective as it could be.

If you decide to make a verbal transition between songs and verbal transitions are something that your pastor is okay with and work in your context, make sure you plan it out – so that you say everything you should and nothing you shouldn’t.

I don’t usually script my verbal transitions, but I practice them several times out loud, to make sure they make sense and communicate what I feel like the Lord wants to communicate through me.

If you are new to leading worship or anxious about speaking in public, I strongly recommend scripting your verbal transition out so you can get used to speaking in that way.

Some examples of verbal transitions you or someone on your team could make are:

1. A testimony about what the Lord is doing in your life.
2. Something that you are learning.
3. Something that the Lord showed you in scripture.
4. Something that happened in the life of your church that is applicable in the moment.
5. An answered prayer.
6. A song story (the story behind the song)
7. An exhortation to sing out or give praise to God. or
8. A word of encouragement to the church.

Now you may be thinking – what about just letting the Holy Spirt lead – and doing what He says to do?

You should follow the Spirit’s leading, but don’t fall into the mindset that He only speaks on Sunday morning.

He can speak to you just as clearly on Tuesday, when you plan as he can on Sunday.

And if you have a clear plan in place – that will enable you to better hear from Him when He does speak on Sundays.

One other thing to consider for verbal transitions is to keep it short. This is not a time to preach a sermon. Your pastor will handle that. Just make your point and move on to the next song.

I hope you see the importance of planning transitions in worship.

Here are just a few other thoughts about transitions.

1. Prayer and Scripture – are not by-products of worship they should never be used just to get from one song to another song. They are an essential part of worship and you should incorporate them in every service you lead.
2. Don’t forget about the non- music related transitions? When does the choir go on stage? When do they go off? When is the offering and who is leading that? Where do the announcements fall in the service?

Be intentional to think through every transition and then make sure everyone is on the same page so that you can eliminate awkward silence or misunderstandings about who is supposed to do what.

3. Be sure to communicate your transitions to your entire team – that includes the sound guy and any other tech personnel.

I’ll dive deep into this on the next video.

4. And finally practice your transitions. I’ll have much more on that in video 10! I hope you’ll watch.

Now I get it – transitions are not really exciting but they are the glue that holds the service together.

Transitions in worship are important because they keep the attention of the congregation focused on God, on who He is and what He’s done.

When the congregation is thinking about why something’s not happening, or laughing (inwardly) because of a mistake, or when they feel awkward because what’s happening on stage is awkward – all of these become distractions to worship. They cause people to lose focus.

When distractions happen people aren’t thinking about God, they’re thinking about their surroundings.

Most distractions can be eliminated with proper planning – which includes planning your transitions.

Thanks for watching part 8 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 below.

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