Long-Term Planning

A good deal of Pastor Jolicoeur’s conversation in his lesson has to do with long-term planning. If you are only preparing week to week, it is likely that there will be some imbalance in the long-term worship of your church. For example, what is your plan for how often you will take communion? If you don’t plan for communion, you could find a whole year pass without this consistent practice of the early church.

Some guidelines are likely on hand from your broader church denomination. For example, the Wesleyan Church suggests that a church take communion at least quarterly. There are also countless resources to be found for long-term worship planning, not only likely through your church but also online and for purchase.

Long-term planning ensures that you read the Apostle’s Creed at least a few times a year, maybe even the Nicene Creed. When will you have your next baptisms? When will you accept in new members? At least penciling in these activities into your church calendar may just motivate you to be more active in outreach and evangelism.

Does your worship team look like your community? Pastor Jolicoeur suggests that the make-up of your worship team can be aspirational. Let’s say that your community is diverse but your congregation is not. This would seem to be a situation that should change over time. He of course discourages artificiality here. But one can accentuate on the platform (and in leadership) what the makeup of your congregation would ideally be, given its ministry context.

This sort of visioning also can apply to styles of worship. For example, does the music of your worship relate to the people you aspire to be? Does your worship music represent the generations in your congregation? Does your worship style represent the community in which you are located?

One goal for a worship leader is to move a congregation from thinking of worship as one’s own satisfaction to an activity focused on God that is corporate in nature. The corporate nature of worship means that we are as interested in the worship of our neighbor as our own worship. We wouldn’t want to put any unnecessary obstacles in front of others.

Another dimension of long-term planning is the incorporation of the Christian calendar into worship. Preaching already can follow a “lectionary” that ensures the whole of Scripture is engaged over a three year period. You probably know that there is also a Christian calendar that starts with Advent and proceeds through Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.

There may also be seasons of the secular calendar that are significant to your congregation. These can include days like Mother’s Day. One should, of course, be careful to distinguish celebrations of a national or secular nature and those that are distinctively Christian. It is easy enough for our congregations to blur these together in their minds. We wouldn’t want to reinforce confusion in our worship. The hope is to “sanctify” the outside life of our congregations rather than to “secularize” the worship life of the church.