Bonus: The Best Way To Use Your Pre-Service Playlist

Alex Enfiedjian 00:04 Hey everybody, Alex Enfiedjian here with a short bonus episode for you. First of all, Merry almost Christmas, I hope you’re prepped and ready for the big game. And if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll get there. And I know you’re going to do awesome. So I’m excited for you to prep for Christmas, I thought it would be fun to put together a holiday gift guide for worship leaders. So I asked a bunch of my friends who are worship leaders all over the US for information for products and tips and tools and things that they use every day that they love. So I’ve compiled those into a list for you, if you want to check that out, I’ll put a link in the show notes. Or if you have somebody who wants to buy you present, and they have no idea what a worship leader might want, you can send them that link and say Hint, Hint, I want that thing on the third row to the right, and maybe get something really cool this Christmas. Not that Christmas is about gifts or anything. But check that out. Also, we had a great episode in December December 1, we always launched on the first of the month, with Brady Shearer talking about improving our announcements and our communication. And I wanted to kind of write a practical follow up guide to that. So I wrote a post called seven ways to improve your announcements. So check that out if you’re really wanting to get nitty gritty on some practical ways that your church can can do announcements better starting this week. So that will also be in the show notes. Today, I wanted to talk about the best way for you to use your pre service playlist. You know, most of us have music going on in the background while our congregation is arriving to church, when they’re talking in the lobby or when they’re, you know, finding their seat, there’s usually music going hopefully otherwise, it’s kind of awkwardly silent, you know. So we can just pick whatever songs you want, or any songs you like, and throw it into that playlist. Or you can like pick a Spotify channel or Pandora channel or something like that. But I found that that pre service music can actually be a really awesome teaching tool. What do I mean by that? So instead of just picking random songs or songs that you like, or high energy songs that you think will you know, get people moving a little bit, I’ve found that the coolest thing you can do with that time is to use that music to subliminally subconsciously insert new songs, upcoming songs into people’s psyche, put put songs into their minds and into their hearts before you actually sing them from the stage. So what do I mean? I mean, if I know that I’m going to introduce a new song in the next month or in the next two months, I will put those songs into my pre service playlist. In fact, my whole pre service playlist is made up of songs that I plan to introduce in the near future. So I’ve got like nine or 10 songs in a pre service playlist that are all going to be introduced this year. What does that do? Well, that subconsciously, or subliminally starts inserting those melodies and those grooves into people’s hearts and minds. And honestly, they probably don’t even really hear it consciously. They’re not aware of the songs that are playing in the background. But each week, as they come in, they’re hearing those 6789 songs over and over and over. And then by the time it’s our turn to introduce those songs from the stage into our worship set. They’re quicker to learn those melodies. And after we introduce them from the stage, the next week, they hear the songs before the service, they’re actually now identifying that song consciously and saying, Oh, that’s the song we sang last week. And so it becomes a reinforcement tool as well. So let me just explain how I do this kind of song introduction, process, all hear a song on the radio, or I’ll hear a song at a friend’s church or, or a friend will text me a song that’s working really well in their church. And I will write it down and put it in an Evernote list. And so I’ve got an Evernote list that has like, I don’t know, 50 songs that I think are cool and potentially could be introduced. And I just let I let that list sit there. I let those songs sit there for a long time. I don’t rush to introduce them. Because a lot of times I find that the the new songs were off, there, magic wears off. But the ones that kind of float to the top, the ones that are the cream of the crop that I’m like, Wow, this is great. Those are the ones that I will say, Okay, I’m going to, I’m gonna introduce these five over the next six months. And then I’ll go on Google Play, or Amazon and I’ll download those songs. And then I’ll put them into the pre service playlist. And I’ll put it on repeat and I’ll shuffle it. And so every week they’re hearing those songs and they’re getting those songs kind of subconsciously ingrained in their minds. So hopefully that is a helpful tool to you. Hopefully, that’s a way for you to use that pre service playlist more intentionally, and hopefully it helps you have your church learn songs quicker when you do introduce them from the stage. That’s it for the bonus episode. I will see you January 1 with another real episode. God You guys. Merry Christmas.