Q. How much time do you allow for music in worship? Does it depend on how the Holy Spirit leads you in that service?
A. The question of “how much time” is like a river that flows between two banks. If your church’s philosophy of ministry is speaker-driven communication, this will result in less time for music. If the approach is experiential, this may result in more music. The congregational worship experience for most churches flows somewhere between those banks.
The issue of time and the leading of the Holy Spirit is a common struggle. The good news is that the Holy Spirit knows how to work within time and cultural constraints. The Holy Spirit works with great power, but in our humanity we often feel that we need to do more, to go longer. Longer does not necessarily mean more effective. Many times, longer is less effective as we start to lose the attention of parts of the congregation.
Careful preparation starts with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Many services I plan are done by faith with as much info as I have at the time, asking God to bless it and remembering that flexibility is an essential quality of the servant worship leader. Proverbs 16:1 says, “We humans make plans, but the LORD has the final word,” and Proverbs 16:9 says, “We make our own plans, but the LORD decides where we will go.”
It’s common to underestimate how long it takes to do a song. Very few songs are three minutes. I allow five minutes per song as a rule. It’s important to time your songs. Go through the flow of worship, imagining how these songs connect the congregation in worship and help people to understand the theme, working out natural transitions including keys and song arrangements.
Assuming you don’t talk between songs, then three songs in a live situation generally equals about 13 to 15 minutes. For some music styles, three songs could take 30 minutes. Not timing songs out before the services is like going on a vacation not knowing how much you have to spend. Most often we will go longer than we think, and not due to the Holy Spirit. I’ve found that longer services revealed I had spent less time in preparation.
If my pastor gives me 20 minutes and I feel I’m going to run long, I will cut songs so that I can end on time. It honors God when we keep our word and follow our senior pastor’s leadership.
Time is even more important when doing multiple services! We must care for the people coming to the next service. The parking lot needs time to clear from this service to make room for new people to park, drop off their kids, and get seated. And we must be considerate of those who teach our children. They have to improvise and scramble when services go overtime.
Many times, if we go long at the first service, I cut the closing song. It’s important to sing the closing song, but it’s more important that the childcare workers have enough time to change shifts and for the incoming cars to be able to find parking spots.
Finally, the movement of the Holy Spirit can be like watching a Polaroid picture develop. It’s easy for us to think that we are the person holding the picture, but in reality the Holy Spirit is holding the picture and we’re just a part of the development process.
We have to do the best we can to catch God’s vision and frame the service, and then we must have faith that God will develop it.
Rick Muchow is worship pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California.
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