An Inside Look at the Process for Creating a Worship Service

Bob Fuchs, Brighton First's Director of Discipleship, attended his first staff meeting a week ago. When the bulletin for the upcoming Sunday worship services was passed around for review, he asked, "How did this get here?" That's a good question. What type of planning goes into conceiving, creating and offering a worship service at Brighton First? And, how, by Wednesday afternoon of the previous week is a member of the church staff able to hold in his/her hand the Sunday worship bulletin.

Please keep in mind that as I describe these steps that all phases of worship design and preparation are held in prayer by myself and the many who contribute to bring relevant and inspiring worship.
Here's the process that brought the worship services of Sunday, March 6. The theme was "Not So Fast to Judgement". 

In late 2015, the worship staff and Brighton First's worship committee began to discuss themes for the Lenten season. They decided that for Lent, it would be good to slow down, to seek to meet God at a slower pace. I took that general goal and began to read through the Gospel of Luke. I intentionally looked for places where Jesus either slowed his pace or asked his disciples to slow down. In Luke 6 Jesus asked the crowd to love their enemies and to not judge. I chose to use this text for one of the weeks in Lent.

By January, the weekly worship themes for Lent were set. Alyssa Tumolo, our staff member who works on promotional graphics, designed our theme logo for Lent. In February, Susan Snow, the music director determined hymns and special music for the worship service. Because the theme was judgement, she introduced the song "Man in the Mirror" to the Young People's Worship Arts Group. The song would open the sermon. Susan also captured videos of the children talking about experiences of judgement. Those would be used during the sermon. Susan chose an invitation to contemplation sung by the choir to follow the sermon.

Also, in February, I wrote the printed prayer used in worship and sent out a draft of the worship order. By mid-February the worship team was actively planning the March 6 worship service in our weekly meetings. Because it was a communion Sunday, we determined the prayers used with communion.

The week before the worship service, our worship host for the week, Carol Kapustka, received information about the theme and scripture. She began preparing the congregational prayer and also a story about judgement that she would share from her life. Missy Setty, our Children's ministry director, received the same information and began to prepare to give the children's message at the 9:30 worship. She gathered books at home and from the school library and took a picture of them. That picture would be on the screens in worship and be the backdrop for her message on not "judging a book by its cover."

On Monday, February 29, the worship staff ran through the worship service once more and discussed timing, transitions and movement of those who would be participating and leading. Susan Snow prepared a technical script for each service and sent it to all worship leaders and the audio/sound technicians.

On March 3, I gathered all the notes and quotes that I had been collecting for this sermon over a two month period and prepared to write. I chose two video interviews that Susan had shot with children telling stories of judgement. I studied the scripture again, in greater detail and wrote out the entire sermon manuscript. I determined what visuals I wanted for the sermon and sent those to Chris Attarian, our media coordinator.

On Friday, Chris worked to finish putting together all the screen slides and videos for worship.

The process of creating this single worship service also included the rehearsal of a the choir, the volunteers who put cards and envelopes in the pew racks, the scheduling of acolytes and ushers and greeters, the liturgists receiving their readings by email, the sanctuary being cleaned, and Nancy Smail purchasing and preparing the communion bread and juice. Two audio/visual technicians ran the sound, lights and screen images at every worship service. Linda Victory designed the worship area for that Sunday. And, of course, the worship bulletin was prepared by our office assistant, Wendy Carmack.

Finally, on the morning of worship at 6:00 I ran through the sermon one more time and prepared a brief outline to preach from. At 7:15 am, worship leaders gathered to talk through the worship service and then to walk through it.

I know that I've missed something and my apologies to those who were not named for their efforts. Consider that worship is not a one time event. Preparation and planning are an on going task. I invite you to pray for the many stages of worship planning and preparation at Brighton First and those who serve God in worship leadership.