WorshipCentral

Hey Josh,

Thought i would offer an opinion. Usually if i know there is going to be a time of Ministry in a service i am leading worship for, i can find myself looking over the same old songs.

Personally i think that keeping it as simple as possible is one thing to look at. Packing the time with songs may not help people dwell, as they may feel they need to sing, when really they just need, and want, to wait on God. It's about allowing that to happen. Refrains are useful, but again, i would'nt just use refrains.

Instrumental stuff seems to work well when i lead, interspersed with a few songs. Content-wise, usually songs declaring our need for God in our lives, our longing for him to work in us and be with us, and example is 'This is the air i breathe', but this is sometimes predictable, in our church anyway. I usually pray over this a lot when crafting my song list, and end up picking one's that just enable people to dwell and 'chill out' with God.

I hope this helps!

Ben

hey ben

yeah thats great thanks. We actually do exactly what you said quite alot!! I love all that kind of worship (the chill out stuff), and it really works well at my church, so if you have any more of those kinda songs i'd love to hear about them

Thanks alot

Josh

Hi Josh

At our church (rightly or wrongly!) we plan our songs for ministry based all around the talk, we try and help unpack the topic or use songs that will emphasise what God is wanting to say through His word and try and help enable a platform for people to start to respond to it and work out what it means for them. We feel it helps people on the worship journey and makes the service fit together as a whole package all going towards the common goal.

Another thing to slot in that I've heard some churches do.........

Is co-leading. basically one leader plans it all, and the other one is there to lead some songs, but this means that should the main leader want to receive prayer the other one can lead some worship still!

we co-lead at ours and find it mega helpful it takes the pressure off just one person and it stops the foucus being on one person.....and yeah many times Sim has had to leave to try and sort his life out.... oh no wait thats me! :P :)

Yes when I said some churches......I meant St G's!

ahhhh I see what you did now! ;)

yeah co leadings a great way of doing worship. of course there always needs to be someone actually in charge!

Yeah thanks thats great. The problem can be juat finding songs that we know and the congregation know. in my opinion ministry times arent the right times to be confusing people with new songs! simple ones are ok though. Are there any in particular that you find really powerful??

Yep Josh, it seems the norm in many churches to do it the way our churches seem to, i'm not sure what the best way to plan ministry times is, whether doing what we are similar to or a bit more of what Chris does at his church, planninig around the sermon. Which is pretty much also what i do aswell thinking about it, but just leaning toward a more 'general' stance to the content of the songs, again just keeping it simple.

I'm actually really interested in what people have to say about this topic.

I have co-lead before in a mid-week evening service we had. The aim of the night was to seek God about different areas of our churches ministry, actually this particular night was focused on youthwork. It was great to have some-one else alongside, took a lot of pressure off and i pretty much echo all the benfits above.

Ben

Thanks Ben. it is a really interesting topic. i think because the ministry times tend to be the most full on times in gods spirit it can be hard to try and have worship in the conventional way (ie everyone singing along to the song that we're leading). During these times as musicians we're very much playing in the background, and (I find) we're either singing songs that god uses to help what he is doing in people, or we are inviting god to come in even more power. Maybe to remember that during these times a large number of people aren't actually singing the songs we're playing opens us up to a whole bunch of stuff that normally wouldn't be suitable for worship (eg slightly more complex songs). Not sure though. Im typing my thought process here!

I often have found that during ministry times (in my church anyway) its never really about what the speaker spoke about. God has his own agenda that often kinda takes over! I recon speaking to the preacher is a good idea, and trust that god has spoken into him or her, meaning that their alter call (or whatever) will be in line with his agenda. Overall though i think that having your band just know a whole heap of ministry-time-ish songs and instrumentals and letting the spirit guide you is always the best bet.

Josh