“What used to take me half a day now takes me half an hour.”

When that early review of Service Builder came in, the committee that worked for thousands of hours from concept through delivery of the product was delighted. The WELS pastor was talking about the time it took him from logging in to having printed and folded bulletins in hand. That’s just what the planners intended! Now that pastor had five more hours in his day for Word and sacrament ministry.

Service Builder is a web-based application designed for WELS congregations to create service folders and manage copyright licensing. It allows users to quickly build services using the Christian Worship (2021) hymnal and psalter, generating print-ready bulletins and presentation slides in minutes.

Key features and benefits of the Service Builder include:

• Efficient Workflow: Drastically reduces preparation time by allowing planners to select services from the lectionary and add hymns or liturgical text rapidly.
• Customization: Offers flexible, customizable print templates for bulletins and slide deck exports for presentations.
• Integration and Resources: Includes built-in access to the Christian Worship library, including readings, prayers, and psalms.
• Playlist Add-on: An optional paid component that provides high-quality audio recordings of hymns, liturgy, and psalms for when a musician is unavailable.
• Collaboration: A cloud-based platform allowing multiple users to work on service planning.

When WELS congregations were surveyed about the use of Service Builder, 623 (65% of respondents) indicated that they usually use Service Builder to plan worship. That number closely matches those who said they use exclusively CW21 products in worship (640 respondents). A couple of comments indicate that the small gap between those numbers (17 respondents) might be worship planners who are not confident in their ability to master a new electronic platform that would ultimately help them save time.

The Service Builder management of copyright licensing has brought many congregations into easy compliance with copyright law. The Service Builder templates for bulletins and slide decks have improved the appearance and usability of worship materials in many congregations.

Some glitches in Service Builder have been reported and fixed. Some suggestions for improvement have come in and are being pursued: full visibility in sidebar items; additional options for psalm singing or responsive reading; optional removal of extra default line breaks when the bulletin is exported; attaching musical introductions to psalm refrains (Playlist). Any further suggestions can be sent to [email protected] for consideration.

The main function of Service Builder is producing bulletins and presentation slide decks. While each service has a service plan, many congregations have found it beneficial also to use a collaborative spreadsheet or similar program outside of Service Builder for block planning of services and series, and for seeing and sharing the big picture view of where choirs, musicians, and other worship participants are scheduled.

This article is the second in a series about the 2025 survey of worship practices in WELS congregations. Next month we will examine answers to the question, “Do you usually use Psalter resources to choose a psalm setting?”