Pre-service music

Just a quick survey for my ministry friends...  What do you play for pre-service music at your church.

Last Sunday our list looked like this

1. Gotta Serve somebody  Nicole Nordemon
2. The Blessing John Waller 
3. Lone Ranger   Nate Sallie 
4. Stars (acoustic)  Switchfoot 
5. This is who I am  Third Day 
6. I'm letting go   Francesca Battistelli 
7. What I've done  Lincoln Park 
8. How great is our God   Hillsong London 
9. Let go of me  Nate Sallie 
10. Sometimes you can't make it on your own   U2 
11. Take me  (I'll take you there)  Mike Farris 
12. My soul longs for you   Misty Edwards
13. Today is the day  Lincoln Brewster 
14. Change  Taylor Swift   
15.  Revelation  Third Day

 This changes every week, no two weeks are the same... and some weeks we just throw on the Rippintons for a cool jazz feel... what do you do?

Comments

[Calvin Ellington]

You spelled Linkin Park wrong, Itunes will say its Lincoln but on their band website it is spelled Linkin.

Play Mute Math!

[ProperGander News]

It varies, but here's a sampling:

"Revival in Belfast" Robin Mark
"Revivial in Belfast II" Robin Mark
"Come Heal This Land" Robin Mark
"God in This City" Chris Tomlin
Various Hillsong United or Delirious
The occasional Johnny Cash or Mahalia Jackson

[Fred F. McKinnon]

Hmm ... I'm never paying much attention to that, so can't say for sure. I know I'll often hear Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone, Jesus Paid It All, and a few others, but not sure ... maybe our tech gurus who manage that will post!

[Matthew Daniel]

It's been a while since I made a pre-service mix, but mine would usually include 30 mins of the following:

Any fast songs I'm about to introduce to the church
Any popular stuff (non-cheesy) from Christian radio
Any old fast songs that I'm about to pull back into rotation that new folks might not be familiar with

[shannon lewis]

Well, I lead for youth, so:
UnderOath, Emery, Anberlin, Norma Jean, Family Force 5, Secret & Whisper... that sort of stuff, usually

[milepost13]

I let our audio techs pick the songs...our only stipulation is that they are high energy.

[Gerald Skarzynski]

Everyday is Saturday night but I can't wait for Sunday morning.

[Mike Mahoney]

I guess you're talking about recorded music? We don't generally use that pre-service. The band goes up about fifteen to twenty minutes before service and we just play. Nothing scripted, sometimes a song, sometimes just noodling or improvising. Usually it's just instrumental, but maybe the last five minutes the singers will come and join in. It's a good warm-up for everyone.

We do select a "preservice song" that we play at 10:30 on the dot. Usually people notice it's louder and more coherent (hopefuilly) and come to their seats. If we are doing a new song that week, that will generally be the preservice song.

[Paul J.]

I leave it up to whatever sound guy is running things that day. But sometimes, if we're introducing a new song, I'll have them play that one during the five minute countdown...

[Jeff M. Miller]

We're a VERY blended church musically, so on a typical Sunday we might go from Crowder or United to a good ol' hymn (in traditional style no less).

Because of this, I've created an iTunes playlist of a couple hundred diverse songs on my MacBook and we just set it on shuffle. I refresh this list every month or so.

If we're introducing a new song, I get my sound techs to pull that song up and play it in the final 5 minutes before starting. Hopefully, that makes it a little bit more recognizable when we try to teach it.

[Alastair]

Haven't really listened to the music they play prior to the service... next time I will.

[Eric Frisch]

Ours changes from week to week... but it's mostly stuff that I'm hoping to teach to our congregation in the next few weeks. I figure a little "subliminal advertising" never hurts ;-)

[MandoRon]

Lately, my church has been leaving it to the sound guy to bring an ipod and play whatever.

When I ran sound this Sunday, I was in a hip-hop mood.

- Keys to the Kingdom by Group 1 Crew
- Live Out Loud by Group 1 Crew
- Forgive Me by Group 1 Crew
- Movin' by Group 1 Crew
- Love is a Beautiful Thing by Group 1 Crew
- Wake Up by KJ-52
- Who's Gonna Save My Soul by Gnarls Barkley
- Weight of the World (off a Relevant podcast) by Pigeon John
- New Design by Thousand Foot Krutch
- Diverse City by Toby Mac
- Prizm by Pax217
- Feel the Funk by Forty Days Tempted

[steff]

We use current worship CDs but we only play the fast songs.

[klampert]

I like the ambient music for that part...no words...like electronic or world music

[Randy]

Our Sound Guy plays a variety of contemporary Christian songs. Gerald, I'd like to hear more about how your band plays songs before the service. I tried a "walk-in" song for a while just before service time, but it had mixed results. For one thing, the other worship leaders didn't do it on their weeks so it was confusing to the congregation.

But I really miss that opportunity to do either a new song for congregational singing or just something the band will do to stretch ourselves. People are always asking for tunes they know during the service, so I try not to introduce too many new ones there. But the band ( me in particular ) would go nuts doing the same old songs over and over.

Perhaps pre-service songs done by the Worship team would need to end at least 5 minutes before service so people don't think the singing portion has actually begun.