Worship Musician Magazine February 2021 | Page 36

Towards the end of my vocational worship ministry at my last church , I gave more ‘ setplanning autonomy ’ to the leaders who wanted it . But I could have done so much more to build up that team of worship leaders .
Each of the three approaches to planning songs in multiple worship leader settings has benefits and drawbacks , but they each work as long as you have these next few MWL practices in place .
2 . COMMON MASTER SONG LIST For modern churches , the songs they sing are their liturgical book - the language of their gathered worship . And when that ‘ book ’ gets overgrown , the church suffers from not knowing its own liturgy . If you don ' t have a central worship ministry leader overseeing song management , it ' s up to you . Encourage your team of leaders to create an agreed-upon list of songs that each of you must plan from .
There might be particular songs that only one specific leader incorporates . That ' s OK if at least half the songs in that standard list can be led by every leader . As your team of multiple worship leaders works to create a unified song list , you ' ll likely have to cull the number of songs significantly . You need an appropriate number of songs that allow you to rotate them often enough to be remembered but infrequent enough to remain fresh . Anything else , and your church is mouthing the words or running on autopilot . But now we ' re creeping into the next healthy practice for MWL churches . More on this in a moment .
Besides creating this common song list , your team of worship leaders must agree on guidelines for adding songs . Otherwise , unfamiliar tunes overpopulate the master song list . And that brings us to the next practice of healthy MWL churches .
3 . SONG ROTATION PLAN Besides a standard master list , multiple worship leaders also need to stick to a rotation plan . The ideal song rotation policy can be summed up in five words : Rotate Fewer Songs , More Often . This is more complex than it seems because not every song gets rotated in at the same rate .
Well-known songs become tired or passé if over-scheduled . And for newer songs to catch on , they need a much higher rotation in the first three months than most leaders are willing to give . So , think about this : if only one of the leaders ' owns ' a particular new song , it can be three or more weeks before the congregation experiences that song again . They ' ll keep relearning it each time it ' s scheduled .
You need to create rotation guidelines . Like , how often can a new song be introduced , who decides which new songs are introduced , and what ' s the process for teaching new music to the congregation . If an MWL church doesn ' t have a ‘ top-dog ’ leader for the ministry , the leadership team should appoint a ‘ song manager .’ This person oversees the rotation of songs and enforces the new song guidelines .
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