Create Mini-Sets

If you’re like me, you probably begin the process of selecting a worship set by either opening your worship song program and looking over the entire list of songs or perhaps you use the tried and true method of taking all of your hard copy song sheets and spreading them out all over the floor. No matter what method you use the goal is to find the right songs that reflect God’s heart for the worship set and that flow well together.

The more you develop worship sets and get use to picking out songs you will begin to notice that certain songs group really well together. Perhaps it’s the similar or complimentary musical key of songs, the tempo or themes that allows the songs to flow together. Many times it’s a combination of these factors. When songs connect together in this way I call them mini-sets. These mini-sets usually consist of either two or three songs grouped together.

When you discover these mini-sets, it’s a good idea to take note of the song titles, along with the key, tempo and/or theme that help blend them together. This way you’ll have a future reference point for the next time you’re creating a set where these songs may work well together. A helpful facet of identifying “mini-sets” is that often, two or more mini-sets will end up combining to create the entire worship song set. For example:

Mini-Set 1: “Glorious” (C) – Paul Baloche, “Mighty to Save” (G) – Reuben Morgan, “Hungry” (C) – Kathryn Scott
… combined with …
Mini–Set 2: “Treasure” (G) – Jared Anderson, “Revelation Song” (G) – Jamie Lee Riddle

A final thought; I often find that the “song sets” I create have a certain season of time where they are fresh, relevant and capture God’s heart for that time. Once I begin to sense that the songs are getting a little overused or somewhat stale I begin looking to find new mini-sets with different song combinations.