Let Scripture craft worship services for you

Show Notes

✅ Enroll in your first FREE worship course! https://studyworship.mykajabi.com/freecourse

What is Study Worship?

"Let us offer to God acceptable worship."

Caleb: 00:00

If you're a worship leader, you know that worship services do not craft themselves, but you can let scripture craft worship services for you. And if you do this, then you can be sure that your services are rooted in Scripture because they come from Scripture. You can be confident that God is the primary actor in your service, because it's His Word that guides every step. And you can lead worship anxiety free because if God is the primary actor in worship, then your worship service is not dependent upon you, upon your personality, upon your musical performance or upon your cunning. So if all this sounds good to you, keep listening because I'm going to walk you through the seven steps you can take to let scripture craft worship services for you.

Caleb: 00:54

Before I reveal the first step, however, I want to introduce myself. So if you don't know me, my name is Caleb Peterson. I'm the worship leader at King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. And I created this channel because I love to study worship and I want to study worship with people like you. So if after watching this video, you want to study worship with me, there are three ways you can do so.

Caleb: 01:20

First, you can subscribe to this channel so you'll be notified whenever I put out a video essay like this. Second, you can comment your response to my video in the comment section below. I'd love to hear your own insights into the topics that I bring up and field any questions that you may have. And then third, click the link in the description below, which will take you to a page where you can enroll in your first free Theology of Worship course, How to Write a Biblical Theology of Worship. Now let's get back to the topic at hand.

Caleb: 01:55

The first step you need to take to let scripture craft worship services for you is to pray. Now this may seem like the most easy and simple step, but it is the one that I tend to skip the most to my own detriment. Crafting a worship service should not be done in isolation. It should be done in communion with God. Scripture is living and active because God is living and active.

Caleb: 02:25

So if you want to learn how scripture can craft worship services for you, you need to be in constant communion with the God who's speaking the words of scripture. So I would suggest at the beginning of when you come to start crafting a service, pray, ask the Lord to be with you on that journey, ask him for insight into his word, and to guide you to know what he would like to see done in the service that coming Sunday. Step number two, you need to read the sermon text of the service. If you're fortunate to have a pastor who plans well ahead of time for service, then get that sermon text from him so you can read through it and do your own little mini study before the service. Now, for the sake of this video, I'm going to walk you through an example service, which is the service that I crafted for the January in 2025.

Caleb: 03:28

And my pastor chose the sermon text Hebrews thirteen:five. Let me read it for you now. Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. All right, so we just read the sermon text. Now we need to go on to step three, which is to consider what the sermon text reveals about God.

Caleb: 03:54

Now there are two ways that you can do this. The first way, and probably the easiest way, is just to go back to your pastor and ask him, hey, what does this sermon text reveal about God? He's probably already done his study and he may have already developed kind of the main point of his sermon, which hopefully draws that out. Now, the second way that you can do this is just to read through the text itself and see if it says anything directly about God. Now, this particular passage does that.

Caleb: 04:29

It's very clear. This one says, God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So to summarize that, what this text reveals about God is His faithfulness toward His people. Now, fourth step is to find a Psalm that reveals the same thing about God. Now, this particular sermon text makes that step a little bit easier, because if you read on to the next verse, it actually quotes directly from a Psalm.

Caleb: 05:00

So Hebrews thirteen:six reads, So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? And this short quote comes from Psalm 118, which apparently the author of Hebrews agrees that this Psalm basically reveals the same thing about God that the sermon text does. So we're going to go back to Psalm 118 and read through it.

Caleb: 05:30

Now I know already that Psalm 118 is a fairly long Psalm, and that that quote that we found in Hebrews 13 is early on in the Psalm. So all I'm going to read for you here for the sake of this video is verses one through seven. Let's walk through it. It reads, Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let Israel say his steadfast love endures forever.

Caleb: 05:59

Let the house of Aaron say his steadfast love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say his steadfast love endures forever. Out of my distress, I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side, I will not fear.

Caleb: 06:19

What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. All right, so that's the Psalm that reveals the same thing about God that our sermon text does. So now we're ready for the next step.

Caleb: 06:37

Step number five is to divide the Psalm into its constituent parts. Most translations do this for you already, but you can go in and separate other verses if it seems like a particular verse has a whole thought in and of itself, or if you want that particular verse to be highlighted in your service. Basically, these constituent parts are going to act as the pillars throughout your service. So they're going to be the outline of your service, if you will. So to use Psalm 118 as an example, the first four verses harp on the steadfast love of God, that particularly that his steadfast love endures forever.

Caleb: 07:27

So I see that all as one constituent part. So that's verses one through four on its own. And then we get to verse five, and it says, Out of my distress I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. So I'm going to see that as its own part, this section where the psalmist at least is talking about a moment when he called out to the Lord in his distress.

Caleb: 07:54

And then verses six and seven are I'm going to call another constituent part where like this confident testimony that God really truly is on his side and that he will not fear. So that's its own part. Now for my service, the church that I lead service at, we only do three songs prior to the sermon. So that's kind of three parts of the service, if you will. And so I've found the three parts that are going to kind of be the basis of my service, and I'm going to leave it there.

Caleb: 08:32

If you have a longer service, you can keep on reading and add more of the parts or you can divide it further from there. But once you've divided the Psalm into its constituent parts, you can go on to step six. Step six is to pair each part of the Psalm with a song or other worship element. All right. So like in Psalm 118 verses one through four are talking about the steadfast love of God.

Caleb: 09:03

So then I'm going to think what song is about the steadfast love of God. And there are many. I'm not going to go in the whole process of what I do to find songs. But the first step that I always do is I already go to the song database of songs we've already sung in the service. And from there, I found the hymn, The Love of God, written by Frederick Martin Lehman.

Caleb: 09:32

You might know this hymn, the chorus reads, Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure the saints and angels song. All right. So that's the song that I'm going to pair with the first part of the Psalm, which is verses one through four. And then I go to the next part of the Psalm, which is talking about calling out to the Lord out of distress. And I think, what's a good song that calls out to the Lord in distress, out of distress?

Caleb: 10:06

And so the song that I chose for this particular service was Lord, I Need You, written in part by Matt Meyer. It starts, Lord, I come, I confess bowing here, I find my rest. Without you, I fall apart. You're the one that guides my heart. All right.

Caleb: 10:26

So that's the second part of the Psalm. And then I go to the third part of the Psalm, which is a confident declaration that God is with you, that he's by your side, that man can do nothing to you because God is your refuge. And so I chose the song, A Mighty Fortress written by Martin Luther, which begins, A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing, our helper, he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. So that's step six, you're going to pair each part with a song. You can also choose other elements.

Caleb: 11:02

So instead of choosing a song, you can find a written prayer that goes along with it. You can insert an exhortation. You can insert a creed or a confession. There are many things that you can do, but find some other element of worship that pairs nicely with that particular part of the Psalm. And then once you've done that, you're on to step seven, which is basically laying out your order of service.

Caleb: 11:32

So when you come to the service, you're basically going to read through the Psalm while inserting songs or other worship elements along the way. So that's how you can let scripture craft worship services for you. You have a treasure trove of pre written service orders that I encourage you to avail yourself of. If this helped you, let me know by liking this video. If you have any questions, leave those in the comments below.

Caleb: 12:05

I would love to hear your thoughts on this method on whether you're going to implement this in your next service, or if you have any difficulties using it, would love to come alongside you and help with that. If you would like to continue studying worship with me, subscribe to this channel or go to the description and click the link there to enroll in your first free Theology of Worship course, where I teach you how to write a biblical theology of worship in five steps with just your Bible. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.