CREATING A WORSHIP SONG SET
KEEPING STATS AND ROTATING PLAYERS
In baseball, it amazes me how stats are kept on everything. How many pitches thrown in a game, in a series, in a season and in a career. How many fly balls are caught, how many base hits are made, how many fouls. They probably even keep numbers on how many times a pitcher spits or something silly like that. Stats are kept so that progress, growth, and success of teams and players can be tracked and recorded.
What if we thought about worship song sets the same way?
I had the privilege of serving under a worship leader about 10 years ago who had been at his Church for a long time (which is very rare for those in ministry) and who is currently still serving there. While I was there I noticed two things about the song sets he chose. The first is this congregation sang out loudly and enthusiastically. The second is that from week to week it seemed to be the same songs and the same pairing of those songs.
I got curious and one afternoon went through two years worth of old song sets and started putting them together into a spreadsheet. I wanted to see if it just "felt" like we did the same songs over and over again or if we "actually did." As I compiled the list of songs and dates, little did I realize that I was creating a tool that would be immensely helpful to me as a worship leader afterwards. In looking at another worship leader's song sets I noticed patterns. There was a tendency to string certain songs together either because of key, tempo, or thematic content. I also noticed which songs felt tired or still unfamiliar because they were new.
After seeing the patterns of someone else, it made me aware that I needed to keep track of the song sets that I was putting together so that I could be more intentional over the long haul of my own time in ministry.
Here are some tips on how Excel has helped me in my planning:
The Rookies. New music is fun and exciting, and if you're like me, there are almost always more songs on my play list that I want to introduce than there are weeks in the year. It's easy to hear about an upcoming sermon and think "I have the perfect song for that" and after a couple months realize that there is a whole list of songs the congregation has sung only once or twice. Keeping an eye on the new songs you've introduced helps you reinforce them enough to make them part of your culture and your church's worship hymnody. Rookies need consistent game time to help them grow into a player that helps bring home the win for the team.
Hint: I heard Tim Hughes give this tip a long time ago and it's worked pretty well. Introduce a song as part of the pre-service iTunes playlist for a couple weeks. Then do it as an pre-service opener when people are usually coming in and sitting down. Then introduce it in the service for two weeks in a row. Give it a rest the third week, and then bring it back the fourth week. That means they have possibly heard it five or six times in four weeks. Typically if we have done a song about 6 times it becomes a part of our regular repertoire that we can pull from every other month. I have a separate tab in my spreadsheet for new music, so I can see how many new songs I've introduced each year. Over the last few years, my magic number has been 19 new songs a year.
The Minor Leaguers. I don't like to admit it, but there are times when I have introduced a song that I loved and it flopped. No one sang for one reason or the other. Sometimes there have been a songs that some people like but the overwhelming majority don't care for. Don't waste your worship gathering time on music that only resonates a little. If after three attempts it becomes apparent that a particular song is not a big league player, send it to the minors and move on.
Exception: In your context there may be a need to stick with a song that only mildly resonates because it helps your congregation transition to wherever you need to lead them musically. In this scenario, you're filling in a vacancy on the team until you can get a better Rookie in his spot. We were a Passion/Tomlin"esque" congregation for a long time and I needed to get our congregation used to singing the faster, rhythmically driven music of Hillsong and Jesus Culture. So we picked our transition song(s) and stuck with it through the complaints and apathy and now we're able to introduce pretty much anything we want.
The Veterans. These are the tried and true players that have done well and are still regularly scoring. This will typically include the rookies from the previous couple of years (not including the minor leaguers). They are usually pretty easy to spot since they're the first songs you think of when a topic comes up.
Caution: Just be aware that since these are the first songs that pop into your mind, there will be a tendency to put certain songs together regularly. If given the option, it's a good idea to pick the best veteran and add a rookie that speaks to the same theme.
The Bench. This is music that has been around the block for a while. It's feeling kind of worn and stale, maybe even downright sad. It doesn't mean that they're bad songs or that genuine worship can't be facilitated by them, but they had a time and place and it's time to take them out of the regular rotation. It also doesn't mean that they should retire, it just means they should be pinch hitters or relief pitchers. Bring them in from time to time but don't make them your main players.
Hint: I've greyed out the titles of songs on our spreadsheet because of the sheer number of dates next to that song. It's obvious that the "grey songs" have played a lot of games. In addition, I think we live in a time where music gets worn out quicker than we think. I once heard a college student remark after attending a very large church that they were "stuck in the 90's". He was barely old enough to know anything about the 90's, but I know the church that he was talking about, and I would classify their music repertoire as being in the 2000-2005 Adult Contemporary range. To help our worship times stay fresh we have a 2/4/6 rule. When putting a set together, try to use as many songs as possible that were written within the last 2 years, then 4, then 6. (Excluding hymnody, but I'll address that)
The Hall of Famers. My analogy will break down a little bit here since Hall of Fame players are retired, but here's the main point. There are some songs that will be around the church indefinitely because they are "the greats". These songs are the timeless hymnody that have stood the test of time and still speak to the hearts of God's people. I make sure that we do at least one of these each week. I my opinion, this music needs to be done for two main reasons. First, your older generation will respect, appreciate, and follow you because you value what they value. Second, the younger generation must not be allowed to have their worship vocabulary stunted or truncated. If we don't do this we rob the young and the old of some very rich worship experiences.
Hint: I almost always update language from old English and place it in our musical context and style. So even though it is the great music of the past, it has been given new clothes to fit today. I also have a separate tab on my spreadsheet with the titles of the songs that make up our hymnody.
A good team needs a combination of all of the above: rookies that bring youth, enthusiasm and new twist, veterans that are familiar and ready to play, and the hall of famers that are a grand slam every time. Know when to send some back to the minor leagues and know who just doesn't make the team in the first place.
An example our weekly line up it would consist of:
(1) Rookie
(1) Hall of Famer
(2-3) Veterans
(1- maybe) off the bench if it really works.