Keith,
I believe variety in worship is difficult because we enjoy knowing the"routine." Too many want to feel comfortable and variety takes us out of our comfort zone. Of course, variety for the sake of variety can send us down the same path or failure in our worship service as a common routine that becomes boring. You bring a freshness to your singing and and your and some might easily forget your level of proficiency. One thing I think we might need to be careful of is trying to copy or be artificial in our leading. Your message in your workshop to vary dynamics and tempo is an important message. I have often fallen victim of leading the certain songs loud and fast pace with no variety because I hear how much better everyone sounds when they are supporting and "getting with" the singing. You reminded everyone (thanfully) that support has to happen at the soft levels. The important thing in leading the song is recognizing that tempo and variety can bring emphasis to certain ideas and words leading to greater understanding in the worship. This might change from time to time depending on what comes out in your thoughts on a given day. One of my favorite songs of the past is If That Isn't Love. Sometimes when I am leading this song, I will use a tempo alteration or a dynamic alteration to bring emphasis to Jesus leaving heaven and knowing His destiny and other times "even in death He remembered." Saying this, I seem always to bring out emphasis on "if that isn't love then HEAVEN'S A MYTH! Speaking of variety in the service or the choice of songs, I believe the "why" is the important aspect of the choice. Too many plan worship like the song leader you mentione who is frantically flipping through the book right before service to come up with a list of songs. If that is the best they can offer, then routine is probably their best friend until they improve their skills. I have been trying to get some of the young men to develop their singing skills and the problem I often face is the idea that their skills are already developed. I hope to convince some to attend a singing school next summer and talking with one of the older gentlemen earlier this day, I think it might have to start with us showing the younger ones that our own skills are not "already developed" and send ourselves with or without the younger ones.

You are exactly right in saying that variety takes us out of our comfort zones. That is a good reason to practice it - to loosen us up so that good and wholesome changes don't have to automatically be received with suspicion and resistance. Thanks, Mike.

I'd say we're a 7 or 8. We don't try to do things differently just for variety (although I believe variety is good). Rather, I try to let the Spirit work through our Sunday theme and what all is going on in the life of our church. The results are usually that each Sunday is a little different from the last, and sometimes things look quite a bit different.

Rick, sounds like you are on the right track!

Keith,
We need more variety where I lead worship. However, with two services we are so clock driven that it is difficult. We have such a strict rule that the sermon must start exactly at the same time each week. Any deviation from that brings much heartburn.

I'd like to see the use of more prayer time with elders etc. I'd also like to place much more emphasis on the Lord's supper. Again time constraints limit us to 2 verses of a song and little if any Scripture or devotional speech.

I wish someone would give us 6 million to build our new building so we had only one service and it didn't matter so much about time.

In Him,
Joe

There have been many times when the directive from my leaders was very clock-conscious - I mean seriously. I did my best to keep things on a tight schedule (and often to the point of being stressed about it.) However, I have found, when the services allow it, how much nicer it can be when the clock is not the master.

I have also had those who pay so much attention to the clock and while there are groups who "must" abide by a clock for TV or Radio purposes, the clock can easily control/limit our focus. To me it is much like those who fill the back seats first. I have often commented that if Christ were standing in front of us giving the lesson in person, everyone would move closer to be next to him and not tell him to watch the clock because we have a ball game or a tv show to watch. While it may be a hard thing to learn, I think it is important to do all we do according to our heart being turned in the right direction and if I have somewhere to be at a certain time on any given day, I simply get up when I have to leave and not worry about where my congregation is in worship. I believe it is a turning point in groups who learn not to be mastered by the clock. On the second level, I have found we move from being bound by the clock to making jokes about those who so freely use the clock. What a joy it is when we have had a time together and when we leave to notice that we had such a good time we didn't even realize how long we had been together. Just a note, we decided to use the last 4 or 5 Wednesday nights prior to your workshop to practice our singing and learn some of your songs. On the first Wednesday night we went over "our time" by about 20 minutes. The only thing noticed that evening was how good it was to lift our voices in song together.

I'd say that our congregation is about a 4 or 5. While we often vary the number of songs at various points, the basic order stays the same most of the time. However, before we started our life groups in September, we had a practice of varying things considerably every time there is a fifth Sunday in a month. We rotated among three things: a Sunday evening song service (where we often learned some new songs), a Sunday morning song service (more songs, shorter sermon, major changes to the order we do things in), and a Sunday morning emphasis on the Lord's Supper.

I'm not sure how this will change now that we're meeting in small groups on Sunday nights. I know that one Sunday night a month we will be meeting at the building while the teens are involved in TWA (Teens Worship Away - different congregations in the area host the teens the third Sunday of each month), so we'll probably be doing some different things then - I think the 5th Sunday morning song service and morning Lord's Supper emphasis will continue.

I think you can sometimes go so far with variety that the variety itself becomes a tradition and therefore has less impact than if you vary things once in a while.