Over a year ago, a customer in Virginia posted about an outline she'd used for her church's Christmas Eve service and since then we've had over 100 requests for the outline- here it is!  Thank you so much to Debbie Puckett, who can be reached here with any questions.

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A few years ago, I asked a friend to explain what a song meant.  It was a popular worship song that most would remember singing. The words painted a beautiful picture but my friend was unable to tell me what it meant. He was frustrated and so was I.

Someone once asked me what to sing during special times of the year.  After all, there are not many songs that have been written for Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, and the rest of the holidays. Christmas, on the other hand, seems simple when it comes to choosing songs, but has its challenges...

We desire to see the church experience a genuine connection with God during the musical segment of the service.  We will rehearse with the team, spend time in prayer, and try to avoid disruptions. It's called flow.

Calling all Worship Leaders and Worship Service Planners: Has this ever happened to you? After getting the worship service theme or sermon topic to choose songs, you say to yourself "hmmm...what songs can we use this time?" Right now, this may be you while searching for this or next week's songs. So how about giving your planning or someone else's planing an extra boost, as well as helping us on PriaseCharts and PraiseCharts Live?

Skill in leading worship includes how well we begin. Once into a set of songs, worship leaders hit a stride. Most of the time confidence will heighten after a song or two but how does one start strong?

Have you ever wondered why people aren’t singing? When half of the people’s mouths are moving, the other half have their eyes roaming the ceiling tiles. Planning the worship set is one of the critical points in creating an inviting and conducive service in which the congregation can participate. Selecting the right songs for the right message and moment will make all the difference.

It's no surprise to anyone that songs have direction to them. Some songs are vertical, meaning that God is addressed as “you”. There are also songs that are horizontal songs that may speak about God as “he” but are directed to another. The apostle Paul told the Colossians to “sing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16)As worship leaders, we do well to notice the difference between these songs.

We live in an age of vast information. We have more worship topics for discussion and development than can possibly be addressed—even with fifty-two weekends of worship experiences to plan. Liturgical churches use the Christian Calendar to guide their thematic planning. Churches in the Free Church tradition; however, have the challenge of discerning and creating thematic concepts in more independently designed systems. It makes sense to assemble critical information from three gathering points: the culture around us, our congregational life, and the leadership of the church.