I am thankful that the communication lines are open between the worship staff and our teaching pastor. If that were not the case then we would not have known that his sermon was going to be longer. What a train wreck that would have been, the worship team taking the usual amount of time yet the pastor needing an extra fifteen minutes. We did communicate and because we did we were able to get out at our regular time.

Here's the communication plan we follow:

the teaching pastor attends the weekly worship planning meeting, which is held on Tuesday mornings. In that meeting we discuss:

the general themes of sermons for the next few months. Our sermon series are usually a verse by verse study of book of the bible.
a rough outline of the service four weeks out. Giving as much detail as possible and encouraging input from the whole team.
a detailed look at the next Sunday's services. Here we go over as many logistics as possible.

on Thursday the worship leader gets an outline of the sermon, mostly what the congregation will see on the screens or on the 'fill-in-the-blank' handouts
on Saturday afternoon the worship leader and venue hosts get a final draft of the sermon. This document is almost a word-for-word text of the next day's sermon. It is in this document that the teaching pastor gives final instructions and/or suggestions on how to close the service.

Because of this open communication we were prepared to give the pastor the extra time he needed.

How does the worship leaders and pastor communicate at your church? Does the pastor participate in the worship planning meetings?

Below is our setlist that gave the pastor the time he needed to deliver a timely message on the mission of the church. (An audio recording of this message can be found here.)

Links to all the songs can be found here.

Songs and Scripture

The Greatness of Our God

Holy Is the Lord

John 3:16-21

In Christ Alone

Welcome

Scripture and Song

Exodus 3:14,15

You Are

Sermon

"A Sending Church"