3 Easter Worship Set List Ideas for Blended Services

Easter is getting close - have you figured out your Easter service set lists yet? Here are a few ideas

that I've toyed with for this year - which one do you like best? What songs will you be singing Easter Sunday to celebrate our Risen Lord?

The Garden Scene Set List 

Begin with keyboard pads, 

While reading John 20:11-18,

My Redeemer Lives -Hillsongs  

Begin with the chorus, singing softly

Because He Lives (Amen) - Matt Maher

Prayer over keyboard pads

Because He Lives -Bill and Gloria  Gaither

The Lamb Set List

Crown Him with Many Crowns (Bridges, Thring, and Elvey)

Keep the feel ethereal with keyboard pads/strings 

Skip the intro of Revelation Song and begin with the verse

Revelation Song - Jennie Lee Riddle 

Soften the last chorus to create a smooth transition into the next song

Miracles - Jesus Culture, 

Repeat last chorus softly and slowly, pray over keyboard pads

Majesty - Jack Hayford

Cross, Grave, and Sky Set List

Start slowly and quietly, 

building in volume and intensity throughout the set list

Love Ran Red - Christ Tomlin. 

Start with acoustic guitar and male or female soloist, 

slowly building in volume by adding singers and instruments 

(Read 1 Peter 2:24 during intro)

Read Luke 24:6-7: "He is not here, He has risen!"

 while softly playing the verse of the next song

Up From the Grave He Arose -Robert Lowry 

Verses 1 and 3  

Lord, I Lift Your Name on High

He Lives -Alfred Ackley 

Repeat Chorus Grandioso

What's cooking at your Easter worship service?

Easter Sunday will be here before you know it - what do you have cooking up for your Easter worship service(s)? Have your plans been simmering on the back burner for awhile or will you pop them in the microwave at the last second? Or will you just pull something out of the back freezer and defrost a few days before?

Whatever you planning style might be, let me ask you this question that I have wrestled with for awhile. Do you change worship styles for special Sundays like Easter? If your church has always used a traditional style of music or if it has always used a contemporary style, this may not even be a question for you. But if your church is in the process of transitioning from traditional to more modern, or if it uses a more blended style of music, do you change it for Easter?

I have been a part of churches that have been more contemporary in style on a regular basis, yet when it comes to Easter, they would throw open the organ and pull out all the stops, so to speak. They believed that people prefer to have a more traditional sound on special Sundays, especially those people that only visit on Christmas and Easter. I understand the point of that, of celebrating tradition  with something however, isn't it better, on a Sunday where a church is more likely to get visitors, to faithfully represent the normal identity of the church? Wouldn't a visitor be confused if they heard one thing on Easter, only to come back later and hear something completely and totally different? Or am I over analyzing a special way to celebrate a glorious Sunday?

That being said, how do we make special Sundays special while still being true to who we are as a church body? Are you enlisting the help of special music, a special choir, your best musicians, special songs? What's your plan, and just as importantly, why? Are you maintaining a musical status quo or are you proverbially pulling out all of the stops?