Thursday, July 31, 2008

High Tech Flannel Board

I've been getting a lot of e-mails on how we plan out our services. To be real honest we are still trying to figure it out. FCC has doubled in size since I started working here about eight years ago. It seems like every time we find something that works, we have to change it all over again to accommodate the new growth in our services.

So far this has been the tool that has worked best. I actually stole this from a friend who leads worship for a church in a nearby town. I think he stole it from a church in KY... Its a flannel graph!



We print a title page for each week. It includes who is preaching, the date, the sermon title (which becomes the theme of the week) and the scripture reference for the sermon. PC usually has those done a few months in advance.



We set up the song order and any "special elements" in the service underneath the title page on little tabs with Velcro backing. We also include any regular service pieces that would be in every service such as communion and the message.

We color code everything. This helps us make sure we are considering not only how much we are trying to cram into one hour but also who is in our services. Part of worshiping in a church that has been around for 100+ years means there is a diverse group of ages participating in the AM services each week.
The green tabs represent fast songs, yellow for medium paced songs, red (obviously) for slow songs and the blue for hymns. The orange tabs are parts of the service that happen every week and pink (I was running out of colored paper)are for special elements such as drama, video or special music. Everything is laminated so we can write on the tabs with dry erase markers. we even have some blank (white) tabs to we can write in new things.

There it is...

How do you plan?

3 comments:

Steve said...

And I thought you just got up there and sang and played instruments! JK!!!

Anonymous said...

due to the nature of your post title i was prepared form a new spin on flannel board Sunday School lessons.

whats next?
"high tech puppet ministry"

myassistantcoach said...

Now show them your flannel board for how you plan what you wear during service!!!! :)

By the way, I figured I'd at least get a comment about my moved to tears post.