I not only lead worship, but I'm also a DJ in the wedding industry, and the comment that people will only engage (sing along with/dance to) songs that they know is 100% true. If you want your congregation to sing a certain song on Christmas Eve or on Easter that's not in normal rotation, you better put that song into your rotation for at least a month before those services. Six weeks if possible.
When I got to my current Church they had 100 song library and 90% of it was like Shout To The Lord and Trading My Sorrows era. I was directed to update the library and start doing newer stuff. So i cut down to 30 in the library and add a new song about once a month. When I add one, i drop a song to a "bench". We add a bench song to the setlist about once every couple months but stick to our regulars for the rest of our setlists. Once we have a majority of the library as newer ones, ill add one every other month or so. If we do a new song for a couple weeks and it doesnt seem to connect we drop it completely.
The conviction is real with this one! Getting sick of a song and then wondering why people don’t engage.. so me! Thank you guys so much for this reminder and challenge.
Thanks for this! I watched it with my 6 year old daughter/co-worship leader in the Kids' ministry. This gave us good perspective about adding new songs when we think about how we practice at home, sing in multiple services, plus factoring in the ages of our "congregation." Most of the kids that come to class are only hearing a fraction of that! We appreciate the encouragement.
Thank you for your comment ! You bring up a really good point as well. Having four children myself it’s obvious the kids get sick of songs way slower than adults do. So I would say for the children’s ministry I would introduce new songs a lot slower and I would make my library a lot smaller. I think for children’s ministry you could do the same 10 songs for five or six months and be fine. Once a kid learns a worship song it’s so cool because they sing it all day long and it teaches them the great truths of Scripture. So for all the people serving in children’s ministries around the country you are making a huge difference and what you do matters!! Thank you so much for serving
My congregation is a very mixed bunch of ages and walks of life. A considerable number of people ask to have songs from the traditional hymnal citing being able to engage (my interpretation: they have strong experiences connected to an era when a particular style of songs was in vogue) and it kind of irks me. But I find when we do a classic hymn connected to a new one - particularly if we do a mashup - the congregation really connects and that helps the whole worship session.
What a great topic, I have discussed this with the team I used to lead many times. I retired last year after leading for 18 years, I am currently "sick" of every Christian song ever written, even the ones that have not been written yet (Just kidding...sort of). anyways, during team meetings this subject would come up about "doing songs to death" or "doing Old ones" too much. I would compile a list at the end of every year and show the team how many times we actually did each song for that year, and make a list of songs we did the year before that we did not do, and most people were surprises by how many times we actually used each song in a service, because after we all rehearsed the songs (apart and together) played them in multiple services, it felt like we were doing them more than we actually were, and the list helped us see not to ditch a song too soon.also, back to my statement of being sick of every Christian song, Individually listening to them I am very sick of them. However, when arranged in a set of songs that is just right to move peoples hearts to a place of worship, I love them. I could never play Might to Save ever again and be totally happy, but when I would do that song in the right place in a set and the entire congregation engaged and you could feel the room change, I love that song. you are correct, very few people will engage on a new song.
Hahahaha 😂 laughed so hard at your lament. I can totally relate! I recently had to take a Rend collective song out of our church catalogue... and I LOVE Rend Collective. We tried it a couple of times and It just wasn’t a song for our congregation. So, sadly, it needed to go. Thank you for sharing your insights, experience, and knowledge with us all. As a new worship leader, I greatly appreciate and am blessed by the online ministry you guys have here.
Thank you Brandon! For some reason Rend Collective songs are difficult congregationally. We tried a few of their songs to and we had the same experience we only did them once. They’re awesome to listen to but for some reason our church doesn’t grab onto them
With a lot of worship leaders, it seems like the tendency has been to run popular new songs into the ground to the point that they never want to use them again. For example, it's probably been years since I've heard Shout To The Lord. Regarding new songs, I've found that it helps to first teach the congregation the chorus. That gives them something right away that they can sing along with.
The biggest crime in worship world has been abandoning Christian music from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. So much great music that was written before the current fluff era.
Hahah ending was humorous! This was really helpful. I was thinking of introducing a new list of songs at my church because I felt like we’ve been in this 10 song loop. Thought about adding a new song every week for this month, but I was kind of iffy about it. This really helped me dissect it. Thanks guys!
How do you handle musicians or worship leaders burning out and losing passion about the worship music. Not necessarily burnt out on Christ, but on the worship band?
I agree. As a worship team, you are NOT serving the congregation, you are serving God with the congregation. It doesnt matter if there is no "audience" because if you are playing the songs for the right reason... it's just worship with or without onlookers
This was a topic I was thinking about as I was wondering what would be the next song the worship team and i would learn after “The Time has Come”. Thank you Brian and that one guy whose name I forgot already. Forgive for forgetting. But thank you. This’ll be a great 1st step in becoming a better leader and better worship team.
This reminds me of stage design too... because I'm on staff, some of my volunteers have told me that i get sick of our stage 7x faster than they do... because i see it every day. Good thoughts guys - thanks
The average person attending church 1.4 times a month is a nice statistic but you really have to look at your own congregation. Ours is a smaller congregation and certainly everyone doesn't come every week but a large percentage are very regular attendees. I like the concept of 'is the congregation connecting with this song' as a measuring stick.
I LOL'ed at your dirge for the departed song. And I agree with the "sing a new song" idea. But I think we're missing something, too, and I don't know if we can get it back. There are so many traditional songs from my youth-from the "Great Hymns of the Faith" book that always sat in the pews to the Maranatha songs of the 80s-that I still sing to myself when I need strength, encouragement, or a song of praise. I remember these songs because I sang them over and over again over a period of years. But now the cycle is so fast that our songs are becoming a disposable commodity-just another Christian Top 40 cover that will be forgotten a year from now. How do we create classics that people will still love and remember and sing decades from now when our focus is always on the new flavor-of-the-month?
Great video! Can you do a video on what chords a finger pattern to play during prayer time in order to set the mood? Just different options and also could be cool if included other instruments and what they should do. You rock!
Very good video. Even recently I had to make an adjustment. While both the pastor and I are reformed, and both love Sovereign Grace Music songs like "All I have Is Christ", "Behold Our God", "Before the Throne of God Above" etc -- we switched to incorporate more popular songs on the radio like "This is Amazing Grace", "What a Beautiful Name it is", "Great Are you Lord"...CCLI top 100 type stuff because that's what the congregation likes. My own preferences...a worship service that Bob Kauflin or Keith and Kristyn Getty would lead...has to be set aside in order to lead our particular congregation and culture.
Thanks for your comments Jared! It is so hard to set aside our preferences but as you know serving the congregation is the most important thing. What’s cool is that you can figure out ways to incorporate those things that you hold dearly that Add tremendous value to your community and culture. It’s always cool to throw some of those classic songs in, we do before the throne of God sometimes here and it’s always amazing. The lyrics are so rich and deep a fantastic song. We usually do three contemporary songs and one hymn every Sunday. Keeps us balanced and rooted in the history of the Church
I have a question it’s probably a dumb question. Do you have a schedule for when to change guitar strings for acoustic, electric, and bass. I know that over time they “die” and that depends on how much you play. But is there a basic rule of thumb for this?
Why would you let any God inspired song to" die"? I love so many contemporary Christian songs,many are as good as any ever written. Please let's not forget the old worship songs .How great thou art never gets old
Why do we always feel like we have to put a new spin on hymns? It's cute that you changed the timing on that verse and added a pause there, but we're just trying to sing this thing out here.
So good. Great road map to a simple system that keeps the songs that need to be kept, can the ones that have to go and introduce new songs in a timely and WISE manner! Color me impressed. ✅
How do you decide which songs get added? Do you have a secret ballot or something or just let each worship leader have an allocation of selections? Does the Pastor have to approve new songs or have veto?
Question, what database do you use for all your music and how can I ultimately get ride of all my paper music and just have it all in one place online somewhere? Help please
Question for you guys, when you are removing songs from your rotation, so to speak, or “killing them” are you removing them from your catalog in PCO? I’d love to have things more streamlined but would like to know how you are removing them... for example, we recently put together a list of our top 50 most used/favorite songs out of the actual 300+ songs we have our PCO song catalog. It has been working great to work from a smaller list of songs, in so many ways, our rehearsals are more efficient and our congregation is more engaged. From time to time we are adding new songs or pulling an older one out. I set up a set list with those 50 songs, for the quarter and added everyone on our team to that plan so everyone has access to this smaller list of songs we are working from... how do you guys do this, do you only have those 30-50 songs in PCO and delete/add as needed or do you archive them in PCO?
Hi Sharon. We archive them. That way in PCO they won’t show up at all unless you specifically search archived songs. It also keeps them in the database in case you want to pull them back into rotation (just un-archive them). That’s a great idea about making plan if your ‘current songs’ that all your volunteers are scheduled to.
That is super helpful-I don’t think anyone on our team has archived any songs ever. We just started this, this year and are implementing doing everything by quarters so I have the plan with our smaller body of songs we’re working from now set with the date March 31 under a service type tab, for Miscellaneous Set Lists. We’ll do one for each quarter with a separate one for Christmas songs. It seems to be working great as a resource for myself and our other leaders but I’m not sure our team is utilizing it to practice on their own. The other reason we set it up like that is so we are able to pull it up in the Music Stand app and go run through songs easily when we’re working on putting together a set list.
Great video but I had one comment: when you said "we serve the congregation, the people of God", this sorta sounds like the Worship team should play for the people out there when in my point of view is that we should LEAD the people to Worship the Lord of all.... Its worshipping TOGETHER as one body every time we play a chord or sing a note... like you said not everyone may attend church regularly but that shouldn't be a determination on the song option. We are not here to please man but to guide worship to God with our congregation. Of course there are songs that may not click with the congregation but then again not all songs are "congregational" so thats where we work together to choose the right songs to sing with HIS guidance. Please let me know what you think. God bless yall and keep up the great work!
I think people love to be failure with songs. They like to own a song in worship. I always have made sure to play older songs mixed with new and repeat them often. I break it up into 4-5 weeks of sets. same main 3 songs two weeks then 3 common songs the net 3 with others mixed in and even those mixed in repeat a couple of times.
First you spoke about "getting sick of a song". One thing, that could help, is using another music style, another arrangement. The so called secular pop music uses so many different ways. Okay, a Tango or Paso Doble would go too far, but why not some Swing or Twist style or Latin American rhythms? That idea isn't new, I have an old 1960's song book for ballroom bands that suggested to turn a Tango into Cha Cha, a medium Foxtrot into Bounce or a slow fox into Bossa Nova (what is better, than to turn the fox into a kind of pet dog 😉 ). The congregation hasn't to learn a new melody and the band members hasn't to play a song, that became boring. By the way, it hasn't to be like the original or most known version. Sometimes the song is more impressive, when the accompaniment is less, maybe guitar and piano.
People going to church 1.4 times a month? That’s spiritual crisis bro! I wonder why most people are so cold with God these days and can’t live in hollines. 😩
In my church, in Spain, we have 194 songs, lots of them aren't even "for congregation", they are more like "for solo". Maybe how to tell the worship leader when to stop? hahaha And, btw, we aren't even "pro musicians" you know how lots of songs sound in the end hahaha.
Thank you for answering my question! Great thoughts on the topic. I'm borrowing your "song of lament" for the dearly departed songs.
Thanks for the question MSG !!
I not only lead worship, but I'm also a DJ in the wedding industry, and the comment that people will only engage (sing along with/dance to) songs that they know is 100% true. If you want your congregation to sing a certain song on Christmas Eve or on Easter that's not in normal rotation, you better put that song into your rotation for at least a month before those services. Six weeks if possible.
When I got to my current Church they had 100 song library and 90% of it was like Shout To The Lord and Trading My Sorrows era.
I was directed to update the library and start doing newer stuff. So i cut down to 30 in the library and add a new song about once a month. When I add one, i drop a song to a "bench". We add a bench song to the setlist about once every couple months but stick to our regulars for the rest of our setlists.
Once we have a majority of the library as newer ones, ill add one every other month or so. If we do a new song for a couple weeks and it doesnt seem to connect we drop it completely.
That sounds like a very effective plan great job !
The conviction is real with this one! Getting sick of a song and then wondering why people don’t engage.. so me! Thank you guys so much for this reminder and challenge.
Thanks for this! I watched it with my 6 year old daughter/co-worship leader in the Kids' ministry. This gave us good perspective about adding new songs when we think about how we practice at home, sing in multiple services, plus factoring in the ages of our "congregation." Most of the kids that come to class are only hearing a fraction of that! We appreciate the encouragement.
Thank you for your comment ! You bring up a really good point as well. Having four children myself it’s obvious the kids get sick of songs way slower than adults do. So I would say for the children’s ministry I would introduce new songs a lot slower and I would make my library a lot smaller. I think for children’s ministry you could do the same 10 songs for five or six months and be fine. Once a kid learns a worship song it’s so cool because they sing it all day long and it teaches them the great truths of Scripture. So for all the people serving in children’s ministries around the country you are making a huge difference and what you do matters!! Thank you so much for serving
My congregation is a very mixed bunch of ages and walks of life. A considerable number of people ask to have songs from the traditional hymnal citing being able to engage (my interpretation: they have strong experiences connected to an era when a particular style of songs was in vogue) and it kind of irks me. But I find when we do a classic hymn connected to a new one - particularly if we do a mashup - the congregation really connects and that helps the whole worship session.
What a great topic, I have discussed this with the team I used to lead many times. I retired last year after leading for 18 years, I am currently "sick" of every Christian song ever written, even the ones that have not been written yet (Just kidding...sort of). anyways, during team meetings this subject would come up about "doing songs to death" or "doing Old ones" too much. I would compile a list at the end of every year and show the team how many times we actually did each song for that year, and make a list of songs we did the year before that we did not do, and most people were surprises by how many times we actually used each song in a service, because after we all rehearsed the songs (apart and together) played them in multiple services, it felt like we were doing them more than we actually were, and the list helped us see not to ditch a song too soon.also, back to my statement of being sick of every Christian song, Individually listening to them I am very sick of them. However, when arranged in a set of songs that is just right to move peoples hearts to a place of worship, I love them. I could never play Might to Save ever again and be totally happy, but when I would do that song in the right place in a set and the entire congregation engaged and you could feel the room change, I love that song. you are correct, very few people will engage on a new song.
Just FYI, I love your tutorials and acoustic song lessons. I have a secret crush on your skillset! ❤😊
I love these videos I look forward to Worship Leader Wednesday every week! 😂
Hahahaha 😂 laughed so hard at your lament. I can totally relate! I recently had to take a Rend collective song out of our church catalogue... and I LOVE Rend Collective. We tried it a couple of times and It just wasn’t a song for our congregation. So, sadly, it needed to go.
Thank you for sharing your insights, experience, and knowledge with us all. As a new worship leader, I greatly appreciate and am blessed by the online ministry you guys have here.
Thank you Brandon! For some reason Rend Collective songs are difficult congregationally. We tried a few of their songs to and we had the same experience we only did them once. They’re awesome to listen to but for some reason our church doesn’t grab onto them
With a lot of worship leaders, it seems like the tendency has been to run popular new songs into the ground to the point that they never want to use them again. For example, it's probably been years since I've heard Shout To The Lord.
Regarding new songs, I've found that it helps to first teach the congregation the chorus. That gives them something right away that they can sing along with.
Worship leader Wednesday!! Yea!!
The biggest crime in worship world has been abandoning Christian music from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. So much great music that was written before the current fluff era.
Hi guys, great stuff! Could you do a video on how to effectively recruit worship team members and how to let team members go with minimum upset?
Hahah ending was humorous! This was really helpful. I was thinking of introducing a new list of songs at my church because I felt like we’ve been in this 10 song loop. Thought about adding a new song every week for this month, but I was kind of iffy about it. This really helped me dissect it. Thanks guys!
Great video!!!
I love seeing a song click with the congregation but alot of times I does take 4 or 5 plays
I didnt understand the difference of practise and rehearsal thanks for the clarification
How do you handle musicians or worship leaders burning out and losing passion about the worship music. Not necessarily burnt out on Christ, but on the worship band?
It's more about the leader knowing what the spirit wants to say in a song, listen to the voice of God to lead,
I agree. As a worship team, you are NOT serving the congregation, you are serving God with the congregation. It doesnt matter if there is no "audience" because if you are playing the songs for the right reason... it's just worship with or without onlookers
it's sad that the average person is described this way. We need to pray for more passion in our lives and congregations.
This was a topic I was thinking about as I was wondering what would be the next song the worship team and i would learn after “The Time has Come”. Thank you Brian and that one guy whose name I forgot already. Forgive for forgetting. But thank you. This’ll be a great 1st step in becoming a better leader and better worship team.
It's Johnny! It’s Brian... :)
This reminds me of stage design too... because I'm on staff, some of my volunteers have told me that i get sick of our stage 7x faster than they do... because i see it every day. Good thoughts guys - thanks
there is a song in spanish man people love it, every prayer service, almost
PUTUPLAN7 which song?
Its a song about faith.
Con mi fe te alcanzare, con mi fe te tocare, mi milagro recibire y se que transformado yo sere.
Epic ending! Lol God bless and thanks for WLW
The average person attending church 1.4 times a month is a nice statistic but you really have to look at your own congregation. Ours is a smaller congregation and certainly everyone doesn't come every week but a large percentage are very regular attendees. I like the concept of 'is the congregation connecting with this song' as a measuring stick.
I LOL'ed at your dirge for the departed song. And I agree with the "sing a new song" idea. But I think we're missing something, too, and I don't know if we can get it back. There are so many traditional songs from my youth-from the "Great Hymns of the Faith" book that always sat in the pews to the Maranatha songs of the 80s-that I still sing to myself when I need strength, encouragement, or a song of praise. I remember these songs because I sang them over and over again over a period of years. But now the cycle is so fast that our songs are becoming a disposable commodity-just another Christian Top 40 cover that will be forgotten a year from now. How do we create classics that people will still love and remember and sing decades from now when our focus is always on the new flavor-of-the-month?
I'm still not playing Oceans again 😜
Great video! Can you do a video on what chords a finger pattern to play during prayer time in order to set the mood? Just different options and also could be cool if included other instruments and what they should do. You rock!
Can you guys do a like top 5 favorite Easter songs to do?????
Great advice bro
Very good video. Even recently I had to make an adjustment. While both the pastor and I are reformed, and both love Sovereign Grace Music songs like "All I have Is Christ", "Behold Our God", "Before the Throne of God Above" etc -- we switched to incorporate more popular songs on the radio like "This is Amazing Grace", "What a Beautiful Name it is", "Great Are you Lord"...CCLI top 100 type stuff because that's what the congregation likes. My own preferences...a worship service that Bob Kauflin or Keith and Kristyn Getty would lead...has to be set aside in order to lead our particular congregation and culture.
Thanks for your comments Jared! It is so hard to set aside our preferences but as you know serving the congregation is the most important thing. What’s cool is that you can figure out ways to incorporate those things that you hold dearly that Add tremendous value to your community and culture. It’s always cool to throw some of those classic songs in, we do before the throne of God sometimes here and it’s always amazing. The lyrics are so rich and deep a fantastic song. We usually do three contemporary songs and one hymn every Sunday. Keeps us balanced and rooted in the history of the Church
Great Video! I have a question: Do you already did a video on how big should the song catalogue of a church be?
Question, can we get the tab for the closing lament, and I need the CCLI number to pull it into Planning Center.
Lol!!
@@brianmichaelfuller The closing lament sounded a bit like southern rock. You should work on that one
I have a question it’s probably a dumb question. Do you have a schedule for when to change guitar strings for acoustic, electric, and bass. I know that over time they “die” and that depends on how much you play. But is there a basic rule of thumb for this?
Heya😍
Niiice ... this is so good
Great info
Why would you let any God inspired song to" die"? I love so many contemporary Christian songs,many are as good as any ever written. Please let's not forget the old worship songs .How great thou art never gets old
If I hear reckless love one more time! I'm so over it lol
We're running at 300 songs in our PCO catalogue out of which we've played 200 in the past year. Is that too much?
Why do we always feel like we have to put a new spin on hymns? It's cute that you changed the timing on that verse and added a pause there, but we're just trying to sing this thing out here.
Great video
So good. Great road map to a simple system that keeps the songs that need to be kept, can the ones that have to go and introduce new songs in a timely and WISE manner! Color me impressed. ✅
How do you decide which songs get added? Do you have a secret ballot or something or just let each worship leader have an allocation of selections? Does the Pastor have to approve new songs or have veto?
Question, what database do you use for all your music and how can I ultimately get ride of all my paper music and just have it all in one place online somewhere? Help please
Planning Center Online. It will change your life! planning.center
Question for you guys, when you are removing songs from your rotation, so to speak, or “killing them” are you removing them from your catalog in PCO? I’d love to have things more streamlined but would like to know how you are removing them... for example, we recently put together a list of our top 50 most used/favorite songs out of the actual 300+ songs we have our PCO song catalog. It has been working great to work from a smaller list of songs, in so many ways, our rehearsals are more efficient and our congregation is more engaged. From time to time we are adding new songs or pulling an older one out. I set up a set list with those 50 songs, for the quarter and added everyone on our team to that plan so everyone has access to this smaller list of songs we are working from... how do you guys do this, do you only have those 30-50 songs in PCO and delete/add as needed or do you archive them in PCO?
Hi Sharon. We archive them. That way in PCO they won’t show up at all unless you specifically search archived songs. It also keeps them in the database in case you want to pull them back into rotation (just un-archive them).
That’s a great idea about making plan if your ‘current songs’ that all your volunteers are scheduled to.
That is super helpful-I don’t think anyone on our team has archived any songs ever. We just started this, this year and are implementing doing everything by quarters so I have the plan with our smaller body of songs we’re working from now set with the date March 31 under a service type tab, for Miscellaneous Set Lists. We’ll do one for each quarter with a separate one for Christmas songs. It seems to be working great as a resource for myself and our other leaders but I’m not sure our team is utilizing it to practice on their own. The other reason we set it up like that is so we are able to pull it up in the Music Stand app and go run through songs easily when we’re working on putting together a set list.
Hi Sharon, our team is ready to embark on that journey too. :) I’m curious to know what songs made it into your catelog.
Should maybe do some live stream
Great video but I had one comment: when you said "we serve the congregation, the people of God", this sorta sounds like the Worship team should play for the people out there when in my point of view is that we should LEAD the people to Worship the Lord of all.... Its worshipping TOGETHER as one body every time we play a chord or sing a note... like you said not everyone may attend church regularly but that shouldn't be a determination on the song option. We are not here to please man but to guide worship to God with our congregation. Of course there are songs that may not click with the congregation but then again not all songs are "congregational" so thats where we work together to choose the right songs to sing with HIS guidance. Please let me know what you think.
God bless yall and keep up the great work!
I think people love to be failure with songs. They like to own a song in worship. I always have made sure to play older songs mixed with new and repeat them often. I break it up into 4-5 weeks of sets. same main 3 songs two weeks then 3 common songs the net 3 with others mixed in and even those mixed in repeat a couple of times.
First you spoke about "getting sick of a song". One thing, that could help, is using another music style, another arrangement.
The so called secular pop music uses so many different ways. Okay, a Tango or Paso Doble would go too far, but why not some Swing or Twist style or Latin American rhythms?
That idea isn't new, I have an old 1960's song book for ballroom bands that suggested to turn a Tango into Cha Cha, a medium Foxtrot into Bounce or a slow fox into Bossa Nova (what is better, than to turn the fox into a kind of pet dog 😉 ).
The congregation hasn't to learn a new melody and the band members hasn't to play a song, that became boring.
By the way, it hasn't to be like the original or most known version. Sometimes the song is more impressive, when the accompaniment is less, maybe guitar and piano.
Hiiiiiiiiiiii
People going to church 1.4 times a month? That’s spiritual crisis bro! I wonder why most people are so cold with God these days and can’t live in hollines. 😩
In my church, in Spain, we have 194 songs, lots of them aren't even "for congregation", they are more like "for solo". Maybe how to tell the worship leader when to stop? hahaha And, btw, we aren't even "pro musicians" you know how lots of songs sound in the end hahaha.
If you gave me two songs to kill I would kill “good good father” and “good good father”
Yes I killed it again so it would never come back.
Nathaniel Keane why y?
I have resurrected it. Twice. ;)
Just replace it with "You are good, good, ohhh" - King of my heart, lol. One of these days someone will discover what a thesaurus is.
Haha I agree but at least king of my heart is somewhat interesting musically not just an a to asus for like 32 measures
"And if I had a gun, with two bullets, and I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden and Toby, I would shoot Toby twice"
You guys talk about this as if your playing in a bar, trying to hard to get spirit hype
“Reckless Love” isn’t even biblical. God doesn’t have reckless love. He is purposeful.