Frameworks for Worship Teams

Congregational singing is a fundamental part of a service. It’s an opportunity to respond in praise to the Lord before Him and alongside the church. It’s a chance to reaffirm our faith, to learn and teach and to come to the Lord ‘with thankfulness in your hearts to God’ (Col 3:16b). Likewise, the focus is never truly on the band or song leader, but Christ.

There are two guiding frameworks that help us prepare worship music effectively at our church:

Worship and glorify the Lord in excellence

This makes the effort simple - in all our weekly preparation, the goal is to give God our best. That means knowing our music and lyrics well and understanding the message of our songs. Practically that might mean:

  • Finding time throughout the week to rehearse and prepare the songs.

  • Finding regular time to read your bible and commune with the Lord yourself, having time to pray and repent to the Lord.

  • Taking lessons or finding ways to improve on your instrument.

  • Respecting and communicating well with other team members.

  • Arriving to rehearsals on time(!).

Aid our congregation as they commune with the Lord in praise and reflection

This is a fundamental principle in our worship. We are worshiping together with our congregation, helping them to find words and expression within these spiritual songs. There are times to share, encourage and lead within this, but the focus is creating a space and a sound that they can easily engage with. Practically that might mean:

  • Choosing keys that will make a song comfortable for the congregation to sing.

  • Using instrumentation creatively while keeping clarity.

  • Sharing a key piece of scripture or a prayer to aid in our reflection.

What is missing from these frameworks, intriguingly, is any mention of music: style, sound, lyrics, band style. That’s because these are things informed by the particular congregation, instrumentalists available, style of service and other factors. They are not the important part of our worship: The Lord will be glorified in a service of hymns, CCM, large swathes of lyrics or a single refrain chant. But all these decisions are guided by our framework. Best of all, it’s a system that grows trust and gives our church a slightly different colour or perspective to engage with each week.

We have the great blessing of having six ‘worship leaders’ at our church. Each week they will read through the preacher’s notes, the themes and my own suggestions, and choose a selection of songs to guide us through the service. Another great blessing has been the preferences of each worship leader: Some prefer to choose songs that are lyric-rich, some choose songs that are reflective with more space to contemplate what God has convicted them of in this service. We have a tight set of roughly 100 songs (maybe not so tight for some!) that helps us keep a general style and quality to our songs, while still leaving a large space for worship leaders to shape the service. 

What these frameworks DO provide is a practical application of our role as a worship team: To give God our best and to support our congregation in their worship as we praise the Lord together each week.