Planning Effective Worship That Flows
As a part of my Online Worship Leadership Training Course, I teach on Planning Effective Corporate Worship that Flows. Below is part of the content from that session. I draw important parallels between baking a cake and planning worship. Love to hear your thoughts. Thanks! – Dwayne
1. Choose the right ingredients. The ingredients depend on the kind of cake we plan to bake. For example, if we want to bake a chocolate cake, we will obviously need some cocoa or other chocolate ingredients. And if we want a coconut cake, our recipe probably wouldn’t call for carrots - at least I would hope not! Likewise, as we sit down to plan a worship service, we need to carefully consider what ingredients or elements are actually needed in that service. What is the theme of that particular service? Is there a special emphasis that day? Is the gathering targeted toward lost and unchurched people? Also, what creative elements might we utilize to enhance the service, such as videos, testimonies, prayer stations, or choir “specials”?
2 Sift and whip. The ingredients used for baking often need to be sifted or whipped before they can be added. Our responsibility as worship planners is to “sift out” unnecessary – and potentially distracting – moments within a service. For instance, do we really need to introduce the person or group doing the “special music”? Is it absolutely necessary to explain or “set-up” a particular song before we sing it? (See Freedom NOT to Announce Every Song) Could the praise band exit the stage during a prayer or meditative acapella song (while people’s eyes are closed) to keep down distractions? Read more…
