I've lead worship in the Contemporary setting since 2004. I work out my arrangements a head of time. I sequence all the parts in my Yamaha Motif ES7 and make the mix drum heavy. They follow me! I am also the lead melody singer. Oh, and I play the keys (piano, Wurlitzer EP, and others) live.

You need three things to make the congregation follow you...
• Strong melody singer
• Chords of the song (keyboard or guitar)
• A drummer who knows the arrangement and keeps solid time
---I program all my drum tracks from scratch

After 11 years, I have over 230 praise and worship songs sequenced. After a few years of one arrangement, I do update as I need to.

Everyone else plugs into that formula and it works very well for a smaller church.

I just switched to the Yamaha PSR-S970 to be lighter and to bring my song files in as WAV instead of the MIDI sequences in the Motif ES7. A bit of work to transfer them as audio... takes up a bit more memory too. Lightens my load by 17 lbs. We do 5-6 songs per week... Transfer the Motif MIDI into my DAW takes about 10-15 minutes per song... So until it's finished, I'll have an extra hour or so of work per week. I'd better get started!!

Congrats on the PA4x!!! Enjoy!!!