Worship-Leader Devotional Prompt (Portable)
Paste everything below the --- line into a fresh chat. Edit the INPUTS block at the top to set theme, count, and any specific constraints for the run.
Role
You are helping me draft worship-leader devotionals for my congregation. I am the worship leader at MN Family Church (Unification Church / FFWPU) in Minnesota. The devotionals are short spoken openings I deliver at the start of a Sunday service, before the sermon — a brief framing thought, a song set, and a closing prayer that prepares the room to receive the sermon.
I am not asking you to write sermons. I am asking you to write the worship-leader runway that lands the congregation on the morning’s main point.
INPUTS (edit these for each run)
THEME OR PHASE: <e.g. "Phase 2 — Build the entry path" or "Lent: facing what we'd rather not face">
HOW MANY DEVOTIONALS: <e.g. 8>
SUB-TOPICS (optional, list one per line):
- <e.g. "Sunday belongs to the person not yet here">
- <e.g. "Discipleship is a path, not a vibe">
SPECIFIC SCRIPTURE OR QUOTES TO INCLUDE: <optional>
SPECIFIC SONGS TO PROMOTE: <optional — names from my repertoire I want featured>
TONE NOTES: <optional — e.g. "lean older / more reverent" or "lean second-gen / younger">
Format — every devotional must follow this exactly
---
title: "A claim, stated as a sentence"
date: <today, YYYY-MM-DD>
tags: [worship-leading, <phase or season>, <2-3 theme tags>]
status: seedling
domain: faith
phase: <1-5 or season name>
---
## Theme
One or two sentences naming the claim of this devotional. Plain language. No throat-clearing.
## Opening (1–2 min)
> "Quote here, verbatim if scripture, paraphrased if uncertain."
> — Source with attribution
- 4–6 bullets. Spoken-voice. Short sentences.
- Lead the listener from the quote to the felt stake of the theme.
- Land on a sentence that hands the room over to the songs.
- Bullets are notes-to-self, not a script. I will ad-lib from them.
**Runner-up quote:** <a second quote from a different source tradition that fits the theme, in case the primary doesn't resonate that morning>
## Songs
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
- Song Title — one-line "why this fits"
**Runner-up:** Song — when to swap it in
**Beyond repertoire — worth learning:**
- *Song* (Artist) — why this fits and why it's worth adding
- *Song* (Artist) — why this fits and why it's worth adding
## Closing Prayer (1–3 min)
- 5–8 bullets, spoken-voice prayer.
- Address God directly. Name the struggle the theme surfaces.
- Ask for the specific heart-shift this devotional aims at.
- Hand the room over to the sermon — "prepare our hearts now to hear the Word..."
- End with: "In True Parents' name. Aju."Quote source rotation
Rotate across these traditions deliberately. Don’t repeat the same source family in consecutive devotionals.
- Bible — quote verbatim with verse reference (ESV is fine).
- Divine Principle / Exposition of the Divine Principle — page number only if you’re certain. The DP p. 186 “believer’s responsibility” passage is a known anchor: “the people of faith on earth and in heaven are to bear the third responsibility to defeat Satan… this period is called the age of the providence based on the believers’ responsibility.”
- True Father (Sun Myung Moon) — paraphrase his teaching themes; do not invent specific page citations from CSG (Cheon Seong Gyeong) or specific speech dates. If you can’t attribute precisely, say “True Father taught that…” and paraphrase.
- Unification Thought — same caution as True Father. Paraphrase.
- Tao Te Ching — well-known passages are fine (chs. 8, 9, 11, 33, 64). Attribute as “Tao Te Ching, ch. X” and note “paraphrased” if you’re not pulling from a specific translation.
- Christian writers — Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen, Eugene Peterson are good. Attribute precisely or say “adapted from.”
- Other wisdom traditions — sparingly, only when the fit is genuine, never as exotic decoration.
Hard rule: never fabricate a specific citation. If you’re not sure of the page number / chapter / speech, paraphrase and attribute the theme to the source without fake precision.
Voice guardrails
The vault’s sermon-style guardrails apply here too. Avoid AI-sounding rhetorical signposts. Specifically:
- Don’t use: “I want to name that,” “this matters because,” “hear me,” “let me be clear,” “I want to say,” “the truth is,” “what I want you to see,” “sit with that,” “don’t miss this.”
- Do make claims directly. If a sentence matters, make it matter by its content, not by flagging it as important.
- Spoken warmth is fine. Performative throat-clearing is not.
- Short sentences. Fragment OK in bullets.
- The voice is pastoral and grounded, not stagey.
Songs
My repertoire lives at resources/songs/lyrics/ in this vault — a folder of ~210 song-lyric files mixing UC Holy Songs, CCM, traditional hymns, gospel, and folk/pop crossovers. If I have not pasted a song list, ask me to or work from the names you know are common in that mix (e.g. 10,000 Reasons, Goodness of God, Way Maker, Be Thou My Vision, As The Deer, I Send You Out, Heart of God, Saranghae, Holy Songs like March of the New Age / Generation of Righteousness / Blessing of Glory / Song of the Garden).
For each devotional:
- 5–6 songs from my repertoire with one-line “why” each.
- 1 repertoire runner-up (when a primary was used recently or doesn’t fit the band).
- 1–2 songs beyond my repertoire — well-known CCM/worship songs I should consider learning. Italicize title, note artist, explain why.
Hard rules
- One claim per devotional. Title is a claim, not a topic. If the devotional argues two things, split it.
- No service-design content. Devotionals address the listener’s heart-posture, never what leadership should change.
- Insider-language audit. Any UC term (Blessing, True Parents, Hoondokhae, Cheon Il Guk, Settlement Era, Divine Principle) gets explained on first use OR cut. The congregation includes long-time members and curious guests both.
- No fabricated citations. See quote rules above.
- No bombast. A worship-leader devotional is short and warm, not a TED talk opener.
- No emoji.
Filename pattern
<phase-or-season>-NN-slug.md — e.g. phase2-03-sunday-belongs-to-the-person-not-yet-here.md. NN is just for sorting; don’t tie to specific Sundays unless I ask.
Output
Generate HOW MANY DEVOTIONALS files. Each as its own complete markdown document, ready to save. Number them sequentially. After the last one, give me a short index entry list (one bullet per devotional with the slug, title, and lead quote source) so I can drop it into the phase index file.
If I gave you SUB-TOPICS, use them as the spine. If I didn’t, propose a coherent set that covers the theme/phase from multiple angles (calling, posture, practice, cost, hope, etc.) — and tell me your spine before generating.
Worked example (reference style)
Below is a complete example of the format and voice I’m looking for. Match this register.
---
title: "The third responsibility belongs to us"
date: 2026-04-28
tags: [worship-leading, phase-1, calling, believers-responsibility]
status: seedling
domain: faith
phase: 1
---
## Theme
The age of the believer's responsibility is now. The first responsibility was God's. The second was Jesus' and the Holy Spirit's. The third is ours — and it cannot be delegated upward.
## Opening (1–2 min)
> "The people of faith on earth and in heaven are to bear the third responsibility to defeat Satan… this period is called the age of the providence based on the believers' responsibility."
> — *Exposition of the Divine Principle*, p. 186
- For most of history we have prayed God would do it.
- For two thousand years we have looked to Jesus to do it.
- Both did their part. Both fulfilled what only they could fulfill.
- What remains is the part only we can fulfill.
- That's not a burden. That's a dignity.
- This morning, before anything else, we sing as people who finally understand the work has come to us.
**Runner-up quote:** "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, 'Here am I. Send me.'" — Isaiah 6:8
## Songs
- He Has Called Me — names the calling personally; good as opener
- March of the New Age — collective, forward, mission-shaped
- I Send You Out — sending posture; lands the theme physically
- Help Me Walk Worthy — humility under the weight of calling
- Call to Sacrifice — names the cost honestly; doesn't soften it
- Generation of Righteousness — places this generation in the lineage
**Runner-up:** The Principle Youth March — if the room skews younger or you want more energy
**Beyond repertoire — worth learning:**
- *Build My Life* (Pat Barrett) — "I will build my life upon Your love" — quietly names the calling without bombast
- *Here I Am to Worship* / *Here I Am, Send Me* (Darlene Zschech) — direct Isaiah 6 echo
## Closing Prayer (1–3 min)
- Father, the work has come to us.
- We are not bystanders. We are not observers. We are the ones standing here in this hour.
- Forgive us when we have prayed for You to do what You have already commissioned us to do.
- Forgive us when we have looked back at what Jesus did and used it as a reason to stay still.
- Today, we receive our portion. Not as weight. As inheritance.
- Open our ears for the Word that's coming. Let it not bounce off the part of us that thinks the message is for someone else.
- We are the ones. Send us.
- In True Parents' name. Aju.Final instruction
Before generating, restate back to me in 3–5 lines: (1) the theme/phase you understood, (2) the spine of sub-topics you’ll use, (3) any clarification you need. Wait for my OK before producing the full set.