Planning Your Worship Set
Working in Kidmin, I’ve had the unique opportunity to plan not just what we’re teaching, but what we’re singing as well. I’m a church kid, so I’ve heard a lot of church music and my children’s ministry was pretty progressive, so we were singing worship choruses long before other churches were. Some of the hits were, I’ve Got a River of Life, Lord You Are, and I am a CHRISTIAN.
One of the most popular kids songs I remember wasn’t even played at church but at camp. I don’t remember the name, but it was set to the tune Barbara Ann. The lyrics went:
Pick, pick, pick
Pick, pick your nose
Pick, pick, pick,
Pick, pick your nose
Pick, pick, pick,
Pick, pick your nose
Pick your nose
‘til the mucus flows!!
They only played it once, but we sang it all week, and somehow, I still remember it. Ahh… good times.
But when you’re in charge and thinking about the songs you’re going to sing in kids church, you can’t make the mistake of just playing the fun and fast stuff. Our worship has to have a meaning, a purpose, something for kids to learn. It needs to be spirit-led and lead our groups to a connection with God.
The music we pick for our service is the soundtrack of our group’s faith journey. We can’t take that task lightly.
As much as I only want to pick fast and fun songs, those songs don’t express the full range of the human experience. What happens when we’re sad or angry or desperate? If we don’t provide those, we pastor a song, they’ll turn to Adelle or Taylor or Kanye.
And we all know their messages aren’t based in scripture.
So, here’re three things I do to help make my worship set.
At the end, I have a link to a worship planner template I use each week.
1. What am I trying to teach?
Before I ever pick a song or make a worship set, I have to answer the question, “What am I trying to teach?” As much fun as it is to sing about picking your nose, I didn’t really learn much except a nasty habit and earn the ire of my parents. So, before I pick my music, I pick my Bible story and lesson.
The worship set should supplement what we’re learning that day, not distract. That’s not possible with every song or every week, but it should be the goal. So, if I’m teaching about Jesus’ love, I’ll pick something like Your Love for me, Never Give Up , and Reckless Love. Each song talks about Jesus’ love and can support the message.
This is the best way I think to make a worship set list. When everything is aligned, your group will be all the more ready to hear your message and allow God to change them.
2. Start fast end slow
In the earlier point, I listed three songs. Typically, this is how many I sing in a 75 minute service. Sometimes I push it to four or five, but that’s only if I’m focusing specifically on worship or the spirit moves.
The first two songs, Your Love for Me, and Never Give Up, are fast and fun. They still have a strong message, but the moves and words are easy to do and understand. The final song we sing is slow. Usually, I try to pick a song the adults sing in “Big Church” and brings the overall energy of the room down to prepare for what’s next. A lot of times I’ll break up the worship set and put this song at the end for an altar call or call to action. It helps set the mood and reinforce what I taught earlier.
Your set list should bring your group on a journey. First from invitation to celebration and finally to worship. There are times when songs don’t connect or the people don’t engage, but that’s another post to cover. Which brings me to the final point.
3. Plan early and don’t be afraid to change
It would be a mistake to be haphazard with your worship set and just “let the Spirit guide you” during service. Whether you’re doing live music or playing a video, you need to make a plan before you get into the room.
Usually, I will plan my services four to six weeks in advance depending on the curriculum. This includes the worship set. Some curriculums like 252Kids supply songs to sing. This is great, but you’re the pastor of your group and you shouldn’t just accept their suggestions as Bible. Feel free to change things up that work better for your context.
When making my plan, I use a worship planner I created in Excel that helps me track what songs we know, how often we’ve sung them, and when we’ve sung them. Planning Center Services keeps track of some of this information for me, but I’ve found keeping it in a spreadsheet makes it a lot easier to see what I’m doing at a glance.
When picking out my songs for the next few weeks, I like to add a song or two to our repertoire that line up with the overall theme. I’ll sing this new song for two weeks, then take a week off and sing it a third time. By this time the group has “learned it,” and I can move onto other songs.
There are a lot of great places to get good kid’s music. Some of my favorites are
Even though I plan way out, it’s not unusual when I’m doing my prep for that week’s message, that I’ll think another song would be better. It takes some work to make the change, but I can say from experience it’s so worth it. Usually that change is a prompting from the Spirit and makes a big impact on the service.
There are sometimes when new songs are add that bomb… bad.
Usually I'll give it a second week but if it's still bad, I cut it. Don’t sing songs that don’t connect your group to God. That’s the whole reason why we sing.
Making a worship set shouldn’t take a lot of time, but it shouldn’t be an afterthought either. If you put the right amount of time, energy, and prayer, it can be the most dynamic, Spirit-filled, impactful part of your service. I hope and pray that it is.
Get the worship planner I used every week below or on Deeper Kidmin.