Anyone who is part of a local church worship team can be a candidate to lead at SotC worship nights. All musicians who lead SotC nights are people who come recommended by the pastors of a church house. This way, a church host doesn’t have to hunt down or sort through musicians, they simply check in with the designated SotC leader (often the worship pastor), to see who will be serving that particular month. The worship pastors know their team more than anyone anyway, and they’ll know who is ready for what responsibilities.

This leads to our next point—the wonderful thing about SotC is that if you are a worship pastor but don’t have the capacity to lead personally at a SotC event, this is a great opportunity to empower someone else from your team to show up and represent your church house! Maybe you have a vocalist or a keyboard player who’s been looking for an outlet to play more. This would be the perfect opportunity for them.

It depends on how many churches are sharing the stage on a particular night, but we have found that a total of 9 songs works out great, (5 up front, intermission of communion and prayer, closing out with 4 songs) with a song or two in the back pocket if it’s looking like people want to linger longer. This ends up being at about 2 songs per church (if we have 4 churches represented on stage), with one church maybe doing an extra song or so. Ultimately these kinds of decisions are totally up to you. All of these suggestions are simply that, helpful suggestions.

The hosting church’s designated SotC coordinator (often the worship pastor, or whoever the worship pastor appoints for this role), receives a list of 3-5 song titles and keys from each participating worship leader. After looking at all the song options collectively from 4 or so different worship leaders, the coordinator, out of those 3-5 songs from each worship leader, selects maybe 2 per church house. Having all the worship leaders provide 3-5 song options, allows the coordinator to have some options for matching keys, style, or flow for the evening.

If you are the setlist coordinator, it is important to know your audience. While you do want to select songs that reflect the character of any specific church house, the reality is also that some songs are more popular while others are not as well known. To ensure maximum singability, the coordinator of the setlist should consider making sure there are plenty of songs people will know, while also selecting a few that could serve as new songs people will be introduced to! That’s part of the fun of these nights, coming away with some new songs to sing!

The goal is to keep things REALLY simple. Musicians and leaders coming to serve at SotC worship night should not expect the perfect mix or sound. There is no rehearsal so there is very little time to iron out all the details. So right out the gate, it’s important everyone knows that they will probably have to compromise and be a team player. This isn’t a concert, this is a casual worship night with family. Having said that, do the best with what you have. If you have enough in-ears for every single musician, wonderful. Make sure you have all of that setup during the week so that you aren’t figuring out those needs the night of. Maybe you only have in-ear capabilities for 5 people but there are 8 on stage. Prioritize people who really do need to hear themselves and others, such as someone playing Cajon, keys, or guitar. Often vocalists who are not playing an instrument can at least hear well enough through the house even without in-ears. Remember, this is an acoustic worship night, so it’s not going to be drastically difficult to hear things.

There is much room for creativity in this, but we have found the following to work out really well:

Opening from one of the church pastors (Call to worship, short word of encouragement that sheds light on growing in unity as the big C Church). (5 minutes)
SONG 1, SONG 2, SONG 3, SONG 4, SONG 5 (35 minutes)
Time of prayer for the churches (maybe you have the leaders and pastors all taking turns praying over each other, or maybe you invite the whole room to break off into smaller groups and prayer for the needs of the local churches. Or maybe it’s both!). Follow the leading of the Spirit! (15 minutes)
SONG 6, SONG 7, SONG 8, SONG 9. (30 minutes)
Closing prayer from another church pastor/leader. (3 minutes)
Announcements & Dismissal (2 minutes)

This ends up being a total of 90 minutes, but is simply a guideline. Maybe your community wants to go much longer, maybe your community gets done sooner. The whole point is to make these nights as accessible as possible, so get to know the needs of your people. Maybe you have a high percentage of young people who want to go later into the night. Maybe you have a bunch of families with children who need to get to bed, so you cut it shorter.

Before we dive into the responsibilities of a hosting church, please note that any church can host, if they have the facility for it. Hosting doesn’t have to be the same church every single time. Right now since SotC is in its early stages, it’s consistently been the same church hosting all four, quarterly events, but these nights are designed with such simplicity that any church could take on this role even if they wanted to host any number of times.

A hosting church is responsible for making sure they have a worship pastor or designated coordinator to oversee the scheduling of musicians and pastors for the night. This person is also the one who organizes the general setlist by grabbing song titles, keys and charts from each church and puts them into Planning Center for everyone serving that night to have access to the general flow. The worship pastor or designated leader of the hosting church is also the one who communicates all the tech needs to the musicians and ensures they have a tech team able to carry out all the needs for the night (including someone to help run slides/lyrics).

The hosting church is also responsible for providing the communion elements for everyone during the intermission portion of these nights, as well as some type of refreshment to be had before or after. For example, Radiant Church Ann Arbor typically provides cookies and beverages after the worship, while the Well Church provides finger food and horderves before worship. How simple or extravagant your church wants to get with this is totally up to you. If a hosting church needs financial aid for these portions, you are more than welcome to set up a donation box on the refreshment table for people coming to be able to give back! We have found that adding a bit of a food element to these nights really aids in some of the fellowship and relationships that can form at these nights!

Lastly, the hosting church should make sure their bathrooms, entryways, and exits are accessible to all people, including people in a wheelchair.

No. The beauty of these nights is that any particular church house doesn’t need to serve at all four, quarterly SotC events. You could have your team serve at even just one SotC event per year, and then attend all the rest as guests / congregational participants. Or, perhaps your team really loves being involved in the leading of SotC nights and has the capacity for it, you could play at several. As long as every church who wants to serve is also getting an opportunity to, how often you and your worship team participate in leading is totally up to you!