Gangai Victor explains his selection process:

I believe 50% of good worship leading is all about good song selection—the right songs by themselves will influence worship positively and reduce the pressure on the worship leader. So, it goes without saying that dropping the ball on song selection will usually shipwreck the worship!

Constructing an effective set-list requires diligent praying, meticulous planning and prudent prep-work. Here are five habits of worship leaders who deliver effective set-lists consistently:

Habit #1: Listen to worship music… a lot!

As a matter of fact, I only listen to worship music… and no, I don’t miss any other music!

There’s an avalanche of new songs to pick from today—anyone who plays an instrument with a computer + Internet connection can create and release songs. The problem is in navigating the flood of material out there and discarding the low quality stuff to collect the songs that are best suited for your congregation. Some of the best sources of songs are:

• CCLI’s lists of top worship songs is a good place to start finding out songs that are trending around the world
• WorshipTogether is a great collective of songs, videos etc. from a wide variety of worship artists and labels
• Your favorite songwriters/labels who have consistently provided songs for your previous set-lists. Paul Baloche, Matt Redman, Vineyard Music, Chris Tomlin, Israel Houghton, Matt Maher, Tim Hughes, Passion and so on
• Song Discovery CDs from the folks at Worship Leader magazine
• Worship artist channels on YouTube
• WeAreWorship is another excellent resource worth checking out for new and old music

Make listening to new music a consistent habit—but don’t try to keep up with everything that gets released either—that’s a race nobody is going to win! Prioritize a few good and consistent sources and check out others whenever possible.

Lastly, don’t ignore the songs that you might be writing too—be faithful to the craft that God has gifted you with and pursue it joyfully.

Habit #2: Maintain a Song Base

Apart from listening, whenever you come across a song that stands out, add it to your Song Base, which is basically a master list of usable worship songs.

When maintaining the song base, be purposeful—don’t add every ‘nice’ song that you hear. The standard should be as high as possible to add only the best of the best songs—as for me, I probably add just one new song to my base on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

The song base should also be neatly organized with theme, lyrics, chords, preferred key and any other aspect that is important to you.

Habit #3: Care about God

The best set-lists comes out of asking two critical questions, the first one of which is “What do people need to sing to the Lord?”, the key word being ‘need’.

When we place words and prayers into the hearts and mouths of our people through the songs that we select, we should seriously consider if the words are worth singing to the Lord. Are the lyrics authentic, rich in theology, coherent, expressive and reverent? If the answer is not a resounding “yes!”, please pick another song.

Habit #4: Care about people

Here’s the second critical question: “What can people sing to God?”, the key word being ‘can’.

We also need to consider if it’s singable for the average person in the congregation and if it’s playable for our worship team (they are people too!).

Look for songs that are simple, engaging and easy to learn. For example, no matter how beautiful the song is, if I cannot learn it in five listens, it won’t get into my song base.

Simplicity beats complexity any day.

Habit #5: Think fluidity

I’ve explained the various factors to consider when planning the flow between songs in my ebook “Creating Flow—Simple and Practical Songs Transition Ideas”—it’s FREE if you subscribe to my blog, go get it now!

Or better still, you can get “The Worship Kenbook”, which explains in greater detail, most of what I know and practice in worship ministry including song selection—you may have seen it in the list of Top 100 books on worship published by WorshipTheRock.

Okay, shameless sales pitch aside, connecting the songs with prayers, scripture etc. apart from musical concepts like key, tempo and so on is highly significant when putting together a worship set-list and should not be overlooked or ignored. Planning transitions could be the X factor in delivering an engaging, full-of-life worship session, trust me!

Most importantly, we need to spend time in prayer regularly seeking the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and guidance. Remember, prep-work cannot replace prayer and prayer cannot replace prep-work!

Jordan Tracy’s simple explanation of compression will help your sound team:

[Editor’s note: I often have trouble hearing a consistent, strong lead vocal mix in smaller churches – compression fixes this!]

There are fewer tools more mysterious and complicated to an audio engineer than a compressor. A lot of inexperienced engineers can apply a compressor with the wrong settings and end up making everything sound worse. One thing is for sure, if you don’t understand how a compressor works, you can never master the use of one. Before I start I’d like to say that no two audio engineers agree 100% on the proper use of a compressor. It’s my hope that in giving you the definitions and functions of each part of the compressor, it will help you come to your own formulation of how you would like to deploy one.

Purpose
A compressor applies an automatic gain reduction to a signal, with a given ratio above a set threshold. You use a compressor to control a channel that has a high dynamic range to smooth it out. This is an essential tool when mixing vocals or even spoken word. When you get a vocalist or pastor that has a large dynamic range, you can use a compressor to help you not need to ride their fader as much as their voice changes dynamics. Compressors can also be used to smooth out instruments as well as an entire mix. The possibilities are endless on how you can use a compressor.

Threshold
The threshold is the first and arguably the most important setting on a compressor. It is the spot that you set for when the compressor will kick in. Your compressor will not do anything until the signal reaches that threshold.

Ratio
The Ratio is the amount that the unit will compress or reduce the signal after it passed the threshold. Ratios are measured as 2:1, 3:1, 5:1, 10:1, and anywhere in between. The 1 in the ratio is the signal that is unchanged, and the first number in front of it determines how much will be reduced. So if the ratio is 2:1, the signal will be reduced by 2, if the ratio is 5:1, the signal will be reduced by 5, and so on.

Knee
The function of the knee, is to tell the compressor how to transition from the unchanged signal to the compressed signal once it has passed the threshold. A soft knee is a smooth and gradual transition from uncompressed to compressed. A hard knee is a more noticeable switch from uncompressed to compressed. Generally speaking a softer knee would be great for spoken word or vocalists, and a hard knee is used for kick drum or bass.

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Jake Jacobs offers tips to keep your voice healthy:

As singers, we have the benefit of carrying our instrument with us everywhere we go. The down-side is… We take our instrument EVERYWHERE we go; we don’t have the luxury of throwing it into a case for a week while we get over the flu. Like athletes, our voices are best utilized and conditioned for endurance when we take care of our bodies and warm-up before every vocal workout. Here are some tools we can have in our belt to assist us in maintaining healthy vocals. Some of these methods can be used in conjunction with methods you currently use, while others are methods that really should replace potentially bad habits.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

“If your throat hurts or you feel like you’re losing your voice, whisper!” – is hands-down, the worst advice… EVER! It may seem to make sense, like “If you have an injured ankle, you shouldn’t run.”; thinking that if you could favor the object that is injured by engaging in a less strenuous activity – you would certainly be helping the healing process, right? Actually, this couldn’t be farther from the truth when it comes to the voice. When we whisper, we are forcing air through our vocal chords like wind through the blades of grass between our thumbs (remember being a kid?). The problem is that when we whisper, we ARE creating and shaping sounds. When the air passes rapidly across the vocal folds to create a whisper, what we’re hearing is the sibilant “high pitch” of air whisping through the vocal folds. This method is downright dangerous for vocal health… so don’t do it. Opt to grab a pen & paper, or at the very most talk quietly. Another habit to avoid is clearing your throat (“a-HEM!)… this is considered a traumatic vibration to your vocal chords.

ONE, TWO, THREE, STRETCH!

You’ve probably been taught in the past to roll your head around your neck like a bobble-head toy to stretch those hyoid muscles. Well, don’t. While that technique may end up stretching some important muscles, you may lose the benefit of ALSO stretching the much needed suprahyoid muscles under the chin and jaw. A more appropriate stretching exercise would be to tilt the head straight back, open your mouth really wide, close your mouth, and swallow once or twice really deeply and slowly. Then, to stretch your trapezius (back of neck), tilt your chin to your sternum, then move slowly to the left and right until you can easily see your shoulders.

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