The Issue of Fear (and the way to avoid it getting its grimy hooks into your #SundaySetlist planning)
My typical planning schedule:
9:00 Read through emails
9:27 Put out a relational fire
10:05 Pull up the topic for the service
10:07 Read the main scriptures
10:08 Sip my French-pressed Pike Place Roast
10:10 Look through the songs I’ve been doing, checking for smoldering embers
10:20 Check my “songs I want to teach” list
10:30 Watch one of them in the New Song Café at worshiptraining.com
10:41 Do a topical/keyword search through the master song list
10:48 Begin assembling songs in groupings
10:59 Hit the wall
Yeah, that’s about right. My Sundays come around with amazing regularity. To complicate matters, I’m thinking about a ton of factors when I pick songs. Did they “work” last time? Am I “feeling” them? Can the band I’ll be leading “pull them off” well? Did I get any “feedback” to encourage (or discourage) using them? Do I feel God’s “yes” to lead them for this particular event?
All good questions.
I’ve been wrestling lately with how to prepare to prepare to lead worship. (that’s not a typo) I mean, how do I get my heart and mind ready before I start planning songs. Indeed, my relationship with Jesus needs to be alive and connected. I get to “live my life before the Lord,” and if I am not “abiding in the vine,” my life, in general, will be wilty and fruitless. (ew)
So to crush those fears, I’m determined never to pick songs until I’ve already sung myself into another realm, where all competing affections and concerns are obliterated, and I’m gazing at His face. I could say it this way: Always lead myself in worship before I prepare to lead others in worship.
It’s “easier” to just sit at my computer and think and look through lists, but the fruit of being in a place where you only care what He thinks, I believe, will be amazing!
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
The Issue of Fear(and the way to avoid it getting its grimy hooks into your #SundaySetlist planning)(Nº 31)
