Choosing set lists can seem such a mysterious thing! If your church has a chunk of time dedicated to singing, as the worship leader HOW do you choose what to do with that block of time? Which songs and in which order?!
From my travels across the globe over ten years, it seems average that most churches embracing ‘modern sung worship’ give about 20-30 minutes in a block to singing. So I’ll base this article on that model…but you can easily apply these thoughts to whatever your unique context is too.
Here are my tips for how to create a great set list!
Take everyone on a journey
Some sets seem random, without thought or planning…probably because they are! A congregation can recognise a great set list, because they enter into it and stop thinking about the set itself. Choosing a set list is a craft and takes practice, principles, prayer and planning (yikes I just used 4 alliterated letters…someone help me now!) Leading worship is like being asked to host a party, or drive a car of friends from A to B. You have a responsibility, and their experience depends on you. Let’s take our responsibility seriously.
It’s not enough to just fill the chunk of time with songs… it matters which songs, in which order, in which keys and when/how you speak to punctuate the music with thoughts or prayers. Worship leaders can make set lists look effortless, but usually that’s not the case…they either worked hard behind the scenes beforehand, or they’ve been doing it for so many years they just ‘know’ what a great set list needs, as it’s become second nature. Your role is to take people on a journey, so it needs to be a path that you are walking intentionally, with a start, a middle and an end. Don’t just string a random bunch of songs together and hope it’ll work. Create a plan in your head for the path you want to take people on in the time you’ve been allocated.
Smooth transitions
Imagine driving a stick-shift/manual car. When driving it, you want your gear changes to be so smooth that the passengers aren’t ‘jolted’ or distracted by them. I see transitions between songs in a set in the same way… you want to move from song to song without people being ‘jolted’ out of the moment of worship. Having a clearly planned set list helps this, as you know exactly what song is next and you can plan a smooth way of getting there. My favourite anology for this is Daniel in the old version of the Karate Kid movie, when Mr Miyagi gets him to drive a car with a glass of water on the hood/bonnet. Daniel has to get so good at smoothly changing gear, so that not a drop of water is spilled. That’s like our job when we move from song to song!
Sometimes you could move musically through the ‘circle of fifths’ from the key you’re in, into the new key (but beware as this can easily sound cheesy). Or you could just pause briefly between songs, making sure that the gap isn’t so long that people wonder what you’re doing. Timing is everything in making people feel comfortable. I love having brief atmospheric moments between songs where either my guitar player (using etheral sounds) or my keys player (using pads) fades out of the current key and fades into the next. Hillsong have really pioneered that method, and I like it a lot.
One of my favorite methods is to put several songs in the same key next to each other, towards the end of the set. That way, I’ll open with a few up tempo songs in different keys (as you don’t want a whole set in one key!). Then the last few songs will all be in the same key, to help people ‘get lost in it’ and not notice as I switch seamlessly from song to song, without any jolts or distractions.
Choose a ‘focus song’ & base the set around it
How do you choose which songs to sing?…
One way is to choose one specific song that you want to use at the meeting. I call that the ‘focus song’ of a set. Perhaps it’s a song that God has really put on your heart or a new song you want to teach. You can use that song as the ‘anchor point’ in the set, then plan the journey of the set around it.
For example. If it’s a new, fast song, about the goodness of God, you could open with a well known song to gather everyone in, then put that new song second. Then the rest of the set could follow the theme of God’s goodness, and our response to it, with songs about his kindness and mercy, and our gratitude. Or if you choose an old hymn about the blood of Jesus as your ‘focus song’, you could pick a few opening upbeat songs about who Jesus is, then move into songs about our need for forgiveness, then do the hymn, then end with a song that celebrates that we are forgiven. Use your ‘focus song’ as a tone-setter for the other songs you select.
Tempos
If you haven’t seen the spoof video created by Northpoint Church in Atlanta (which cracks me up every time I watch it!) you can watch it here:
This hilarious video highlights the preditable ruts that we have gotten into as churches leading ‘modern sung worship’. However, some of these ruts are adopted because…they WORK!
Most musical events on our planet (like a rock concert, a theatre performance, or a choral recital) will start with something upbeat to gather people in and give a sense of energy and expectation. Very few secular bands or musical events where people are require to sing along, would start with a quiet, melancholy song. Church gatherings just seem to work better when worship kicks off with a couple of up tempo songs, as it wakes us all up, gets our attention and gives a sense of corporate energy and excitement about being together. So I’d advise you, epecially if you are just starting out in leading worship, start your set with a couple of up tempo songs. Then I typically like to move into mid-tempo songs, a slow song or two, then usually end with a gradualy build back to an upbeat song.
Yes, this sounds formulaic…but my goal in corporate worship is to help people meet God, and if something “aint broke” I don’t feel the need to fix it just to make it more interesting for me or the band! I think experimentation is crucial, and I like switching things up every now and then…but this pattern just seems to work…so I tend to stick to it overall. If I’m leading at an event with very musical people, or those who want to push the envelope and get out of any predictable patterns then often I’ll switch this stuff around…but typically it just ‘works’ so I’m happy to stay with it.
Begin with who He is and what He’s done
When planning a set, you want people to connect with God on a deep level. But as humans we take a little while to open up, get comfortable and reveal our hearts. It sounds cheesy, but I think set lists work a bit like two people on a dinner date, meeting for the first time or reconnecting after not seeing each other for while. You get to the restaurant and begin with some general conversation about who you are what you do. Then as you feel more comfortable in the surroundings and with the person, you start talking about more personal stuff….things that matter to you and how you feel about them. By the end of an evening, we typically feel way more comfortable expressing our hearts than we did when we walked in the door of the restaurant. Our guard has slowly come down and we engage on a deep level.
Worship is similar – people walk into church with their mind on a hundred things. Maybe they got stuck in traffic, or just yelled at their spouse or kid on the way to church. Their dinner is in the oven. They’re like a person just arriving on a first date, or reconnecting with an old friend. I definitely fall into this category sometimes when I am attending church, rather than leading…I’m sleepy, clutching a cup of coffee and trying to settle my mind from the busyness of the week. People need to be welcomed into sung worship, and shepherded carefully and kindly to remember who God is, what he’s done, and be taken to the place where they let down their guard and sing to him from their heart. It usually takes us all a bit of time from walking in the church door, to being able to enagage intimately with him. This isn’t the case with everyone or every church, but it seems typical of the majority, from all my travels.
So….start the worship set with lyrics that they’ll be able to say and mean. Right at the start of worship people might not be ready to say big, meaningful things like “Jesus I am in love with you” or “I surrender the depths of my heart to you”. When you begin worship, it’s best to stick to things that simply ARE TRUE: who God is, what He’s done… “You are faithful…you are good…you have saved me… You are creator, healer, sustainer…”
After declaring who God is and what He’s done, you can gradually move people to a more deeply connected place, where they begin to tell God how THEY feel… “thank you for saving me…. I don’t deserve your grace… You are my King”… Then finally you can lead people to the most intimate place, where they tell God how much they love him, that he means everything to them and that they are entirely his… But that kind of deep lyric, if sung sincerely, often takes a while for people to be ready to sing…like the date anaolgy! So take people on a gradual journey towards intimacy.
Temple model
Some people compare this sense of gradual journeying in a set, to the Old Testament temple. If you read about it in the Old Testament, or google a map of the Old Testament temple/Tabernacle, you can get a sense of what this is all about.
There was a specific path of pilgrimage for people coming to worship.. It began journeying toward Jerusalem. Their “Psalms of Ascent” as they ascended towards the city, were focussed on who God is and what he’s done, reminding themselves about him. Then as they entered the Temple’s outer courts they repented and washed their hands, symbolising the cleansing God brings to us. They came to the ‘Brasen Altar’ – a fiery altar where they sacrificed animals to make atonement for their sin (repentance). Then they journeyed further in, and reached the ‘Laver’ – a washing basin where they washed themselves (forgiveness and cleansing). After this they were in the ‘inner courts’, coming closer to him step by step. The priests were then allowed further in, to the Holy Place. Specially selected Priests were allowed into the absolute centre of the Temple, known as the Holy of Holies. (Jesus tore the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. So we as his children are now all welcomed in to the most holy place of his presence)
So we see the ‘Temple journey’ of worship from every day life, walking towards Jerusalem, into the Temple courts and finally into the deepest place of God’s presence. Some worship leaders like to use this as a model for choosing sets – entering “His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise”…then moving to repentance…then more intimate worship.
Another great model for the ‘stages’ of worship sets has been written by John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement. I’m not entirely sure where you can get hold of this piece of teaching…if anyone has it, let us all know in the comments section! :)
Test the road yourself
I’d advise you to play the entire set all the way though, by yourself. See how the songs feel next to each other… see if the tempos work, and how it feels to move between the different keys the songs are in. Decide where you’ll talk… don’t talk between every song just because you don’t know what else to do, or you need to fill the silence while you move your capo! If you need something to fill a silent gap while you turn the page in your music book, or move a capo, ask someone in the band, like the keyboard player, to play something in that transition.
Don’t pray too many times in a set..it can get annoying to people if you keep praying between songs when they are trying to engage in a flow! I’d recommend that you pray once if at all, in a set. And I like to limit how much I talk, as I want to get out of the way. I’ll instroduce myself at the start of a set, and pray, then usually only talk one more time in a set… so choose which transition points you want to talk at, and plan what you want to say (not necessarily scripted, but know the key points you want to make, so you don’t ramble!). Play the whole set through on your own, with a timer, including any verbal stuff you want to say or pray. Make sure you are on target with the time length you have for the set.
Know how many songs fit into a time slot
When I’m planning a setlist, I’ll allocate 5 minutes per song. So If someone asks me to lead 30 minutes of worship, I’ll grab a piece of paper and write a list of numbers 1 to 5. At 5 minutes per song, that means about 5 songs, plus 5 minutes total of talking during the set. I always plan my setlists in this ‘numbered’ way
I always begin by writing out these numbers, and looking how many songs I’ll need. If I have a ‘focus song’ I can write in down next to the ‘number’ I want it to occupy in the set list, then I can see what needs to go before and after it. I don’t use chord charts, as I’ve trained myself to not need them. If you ever come look at one of my set lists on stage, you’ll see a numbered list with the song title, the key and sometimes the capo position (like the photo above this post!) That’s all I have on stage, and it works well for me.
(In some worship contexts, like worship and intercession, or ‘soaking times’, or prophetic singing, the 5 minutes per song concept probably won’t work… you might linger for 10 minutes on a single song…Likewise…if you are leading a ‘spontaneous/prophetic’ worship set, you may just want to choose an opening song, to get you started, then allow the Holy Spirit to inspire you on the spot for the rest of the set. This is common in charismatic and pentecostal churches, so I wanted to include a note about it. Sometimes I lead in this way, but it all depends on the context I’m in).
Plan together with your pastor/preacher
This one is a bit of a no-brainer and most worship leaders already do it…but just in case you don’t, I’ll include this point!
The best meetings are those that feel congruent, with all the different elements of the service working in harmony. If worship and teaching are the two key parts of your church gatherings, it makes sense to try and plan the worship set in conjunction with your pastor and/or whoever is preaching. Knowing their topic will help you stick to a relevant theme, and will prepare people for the preaching. Ask your pastor for the theme of the meeting in plenty of time, so that you can think of songs that encapsulate that topic.
I’d also advise you also to sit down with him or her once you have your list, and get feedback on it, and plan together how the worship and preaching will intersect. You might be able to offer each other advice on how to mesh them more effectively… you are team-mates and the more in tune you are, the more seamless the flow of the meeting will be.
Hope these thoughts have been helpful! Let me know in the comments section if you’ve enjoyed reading, and if you would add any other ideas into this conversation!
-Vicky
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