In this post I wanted to lay out my process for weekend service song selection.

This one is a bit more detailed and specific.

There’s nothing magical here, but I do have a pretty standard, time tested process that I believe helps accomplish the main goal for worship leading -> getting people to sing!

First of course, the song has to be theologically accurate. If it is not true, we won’t sing it!

From there, I have three categories that I file songs in for service selection: Current, Classic and New songs.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the categories:

Current – I keep this list to around 25 songs that the congregation knows well.

Classic – This is for older songs and hymns that are, in fact, classic.

New – This list is shorter, around 10 songs, and is songs we don’t know all the way yet but are good, new songs.

Every week I try to choose at least one song from each category and never more than one New song. This way the songs we sing are well known and have the most potential to have high participation.

I do have an additional list which I call ‘On Deck’ where I put potential songs to introduce. The introduction of new songs is limited to one per 4-6 weeks. Once a song is introduced it goes into the New Song list and I’ll repeat it for a few weeks in a row to try to gain traction as we learn it.

I also have a secret, subliminal process with new songs where I put them on an iPod before the service for at least 3 months before I introduce the song. That way when the song is actually introduced, people say ‘Oh, I know that one’ even if they don’t know how or where they know it is from!

Feel free to use any or all of these suggestions and as always, if you have any questions, let me know!