new year, new songs, new plan for your environment

Over the past few years Nate Edmondson and I have tried so many different things when worship planning for fall. Picking songs and planning the worship flow helps set the tone for the rest of the year. In our city fall sets the tone for the rest of the year so it is so important to teach our new stuff early and YES new songs are such a huge deal. When it comes to the worship planning here is what we try to do the first four weeks of the year...

• Plan 8-10 new songs we will add right off the bat at the beginning of the year. // Why this many? We want to add them in slowly over the first 2 months mixed in with other songs our students know. At the beggining of the year everything is new, why not push new songs and new ideas. We also bring in new songs we learned at summer camp...it really works. When it comes to new songs make sure and get input from teens! We are getting old, "How Great is our God" might be your fave but it might not be the best song for teens...if you are planning for a teen environment you better listen to teens.
• Prep the band // practice is a big deal, we work in several huge practice days and make sure to get the band the material so they can be practicing. We also try to get new players we will be rotating in during the year all the new material also.
• Get 4 weeks ahead // we go ahead and plan out our worship sets for four weeks. Planning helps us make sure we are balancing the new and the old. Planning also gives us a chance to really craft the worship set to support the bottom line being communicated by our communicators.