How to plan awesome set lists // Worship Leader Wednesday 

It’s amazing the number of excellent songs from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s that churches never even touch. Integrity albums are full of these. My church does the same music over and over and over. Let’s bring back more oldies!

Thank you for the video, my formula of picking set lost is always goes like, Call to worship Confession(repentance) Assurance Sending There are many songs out there, new or old that will fit with the theme, this way i make sure that the worship list is always Christ center/ leading people to Christ, as i think our purpose in the worship team is to lead people to Christ.

First step is getting yourself an awesome denim jacket

I appreciate everything you guys do to teach and inspire worship leaders new and experienced. This teaches me when it's not my week to lead, to pray for a humble attitude to still put my heart into the team and ultimately God's church. Thanks and God Bless!

I am glad you guys have committed to continuing this series - I really enjoy hearing your experienced thoughts.

Worship Leader Wednesday Rocks! Fuller is a great balance for you. Thanks for the post!

Love it guys! Keep up the great work!

Man! Finally! Lol been missing these videos. Love the channel!

Thanks for all the great help over the years fellas. "The songs dont really matter that much" love it. Also I'm gonna tell my kids you guys are dan and mick from that pedal show, to keep up with all them memes

We wore out “amazing grace (my chains are gone)” and “how great is our God” years ago

Good solid advice for worship leaders here, who may not have considered some of these issues. All toward putting forth an excellent offering.

Just want to echo a few comments people have made. Come before God in prayer before doing all that is mentioned in the video (apart from maybe looking at who's scheduled to play). Bring the team before God, bring the subject of the service before God, bring the pastor (or preacher) before God and finally bring yourself before God. Ask Him to use you and guide you. Plus, I would also add, have a song or two up your sleeve. In my experience services never go the way I expect, mainly through the move of God in a service. Having back up songs that the band have rehearsed and know well really helps. I always go with the rule "if you have to do 4 songs, plan 6" or the plus 2 rule as I'm now calling it! It also gives you the freedom before the service, if you're not "feeling" a song to drop one and replace with another.

"the songs don't matter much", how true that is, when I was leading I came to the same conclusion and nobody believed me then, so glad someone else figured it out. Another suggestion, I used to keep a spread sheet of all the team members and what songs each member performed on, that way I could look at who I had and see how many songs matched up, I didn't always shoot for a 100% all song match but if we were going to do a new one I would maybe pick all the rest to match with all the members serving that weekend so I knew we would not have to waste time learning songs we already knew. Also, if it was a week would could not rehearse, or summer, I would lean toward picking songs that all members that week have already done so the team could have an easy week. I know we can get so board of the same old songs but most times I found that the church always responded better to the old stuff. Besides, when it comes down to it they are all the same four chords anyways.

Things to do this week.... Cancel Planetshakers "Endless Praise" into "Tis so sweet", DANG I thought it would work!!! Thanks for the tips, LOL!!! Great input, love the topics you guys pick!!!

Would love a video about what to do with original songs!

these are so entertaining

I try and keep within the general theme. We are instructed in John 4:24 to worship in spirit and truth and I think the modern church is more focused on spirit than truth. I think all of the points you made are good for consideration but I would prioritize a little different. People can have an emotional to Enya but that doesn't make it worship. Respect you guys a lot and I am thankful for these videos.

nice jacket!

Weird that there was no mention of just going to God in prayer. That should always be the first step. Asking Him what he wants to do and trusting/following Him in that.

Yeah i did Cornerstone last week, but in retrospect...that octave jump is tough. Probably should have stuck with my sweet spots.

To improve communication and not give an impression of exclusivity, don't use TLA's (I illustrate by example). TLA= three letter acronym, such as PCO.

Over here in China nobody even knows Cornerstone, let alone all those other worship songs by "western" churches. Of course, we have some classics everyone knows and likes - except me, I can't stand them. So my task is mainly taking songs full of violins and pro-level pianos and get them to play with beginner level musicians (piano, drums - cajon, bass, singers and me on the guitar) and make them sound the best we can. And more often than not I find our simple versions to sound waaayyy better than those professional recordings with all their strings, bells and bling-bling. 😂 Yeah, our God does miracles! For the setlist part I keep our choice of songs in the range of 40-50. We generally do 5 songs each Sunday, so we have enough to not get bored but not so much to overwhelm the beginner musicians who all have full-time jobs outside of the church. Exception is special celebration days like christmas and easter, where we add fitting songs, of course.

In a recent documentary about Linda Ronstadt, she said singing the same thing over and over again gets to the point where it sounds like your washing machine. One thing I found helpful in the Episcopal church when I led worship was the readings for the week. I know that's a liturgical thing, but maybe consultation with the pastor about what he/she is preaching about would help. Also consider the bpm. Dropping from 150 bpm to 60 bpm is like a car wreck. Maybe a tune at 90 bpm between them would help. And there are also ccli and other lists on subject matter - redemption, repentance, celebration, magnification, etc. There are also curves in leading (start slow and building or start fast and slow down). And organizing the songs your team knows into keys, bpm, and vocal range can help.

When the worship team is made up of rotation of volunteers worship leader may or may not know which songs will fit best with the team, so it is tougher to do that as a starting point. So, how much should we be involving the players in creating the set list? And, is it a good idea to come into the practice/rehearsal with "Plan B" in case one of the songs, as you say, doesn't come together?

Pray first! I know you guys are being practical, but this shouldn't be skipped. Also, while I agree 98% of the time that original music just isn't good enough for corporate worship, it doesn't have to be as good as Hillsong or whoever to be used by God. I've had several worship leaders who wrote their own material and led it in church, after filtering it through pastors and other musicians just like you recommend. They can end up being even more awesome to OUR congregation because it's a local song! I agree with you that you need to be very careful in this area, and use others to filter what doesn't need to be played, but don't discredit an original just because you don't think it's on par with professionals. Love you guys and everything you do!

How early do you plan Easter songs?

teams? - plural - that's a dream!

I'm a worship leader and I always have trouble creating a setlist for Sunday worship any advice to make a setlist?

@ dylan Spero - LOL. :)

Set a fire is a song in our church that everybody loves but it's so run down for me it's actually hard to lead it

you could also ask Holy Spirit, what he wants to do... just a thought...

I usually just pick the songs I feel the Holy Spirit wants me to lead

Hi guys, i'm not a worship leader, but do play acoustic guitar and vocals at my church for the last year and a half. I just would like to thank you guys for all the awesome advice and perspectives you guys have for worship leaders to consider as being worship leaders for their church. I wish the W leaders at my church would watch some of your videos, i think it could help them to be better in what and how they do/handle things as a W.leader. Like in your videos about adding team members, and just how to treat the whole process from adding new team members, to practices, and to the leading Sunday service worship. I love my church and all the worship leaders, and i realize no one is perfect, and we always must give grace to others, but sometimes it seems like they only want the best people on their team, and only allow the best team members to express their abilities or talents. My thoughts have always been from the start that hey, were not cutting a song for Hillsong or something, we are just here to play and sing for the Lord, with the best of our ability to encourage and lift up the congregation along with us as a team, to hopefully bring their hearts and ours to a posture where we can just worship the Lord fully in Love and adoration for Him. It took me just over a year to make the worship team, we have slot of talent at our church, and i just thank the Lord for helping me to make it. I just love sharing and expressing my Love for the Lord with music about Him. God woke me up from my walk with Him about 4 years ago, i was like a bear in hibernation. But basically He demonstrated to me so many times, and in so many ways about Love, about His Love ,(even through my dog) let me know if you ever want to hear how the Lord did this... and it has been life changing. Its kinda funny that this worship team thing has actually been one of the hardest trials ive gone through since then, and ill be honest, its not fully over yet. But being on the worship teams (we have 4 currently) have brought me some of the greatest joys ive had since God woke me up, but it also has brought some of the greatest pain and hurt as well. Praise the Lord that He has healed me almost fully at this point, and im sure used this to develop me, grow me, and mature me in my faith and trust in HIm. Oh and Brian, i pretty much taught myself and learned how to play guitar from all your videos, i think it was after about just over a year that i was good enough to audition for my churches worship team. No one at my church even attempted to take me under their wing about learning or getting better at playing the guitar or even help a little, i really felt alone, I will be forever grateful for you and your videos, taking individual lessons were too expensive, and would have gone to slowly to get to were i am today, although i know lessons are good. I also thank the Lord for helping me to learn and progress as quickly as i did as well. May the Lord bless you you and continue to do well in this aspect of your ministry helping others, Ill be keeping you guys in my thoughts and prayers. Your Brother in Christ...John L

Would you consider it selfish to ask the WL to change the key (only by a half step) to make it more playable on guitar? I'm the only musician who it really affects, but sometimes that one half step just screws up all my parts. This is a youth event type thing not a sunday service and we have tracks if that makes a difference.

It's great content here. But before going any further in making a setlist First We need to Pray about it and God definitely guides us . And I am surprised you guys didn't mention about praying about the setlist at all, you just talked about the dynamics but left out The Most important thing to start off.

First step over anything in picking your set list shouldn’t be picking songs that best fits your team, yet it should be Prayer..how about praying so the spirit leads you and presents songs to you whether old songs or new songs that will touch the congregation and overall lead them to the presence of God.

What's PCO?

Its a Lauren Daigle song - that's the reason right there. Bring on the haters...

Except if your best player is the bass player....lol.....😁

I don't write a lot, but I would disagree with you about the music you write having to be "as good as" certain popular worship songs. You know your community better than Hillsong, Bethel, and Elevation ever could. If there's a certain word that you feel, and like you guys said, your pastor feels needs to be sung and spoken, then your writing could be a blessing to your local body. I'd much rather sing a song by a member of our congregation than the cool worship song on Christian radio...

I disagree ,same songs week after week is boring, new songs new flavor new worship.. we are having problems with this , it's a very real problem

I usually just pick the songs I feel the Holy Spirit wants me to lead