YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
[ MENTORING & TRAINING - IT’S CRUCIAL! | Vance & Michelle Shepherd ]
MENTORING:
how to troubleshoot (like
if their instrument isn’t
The time that you spend working, is it going out
with your team outside of your instrument into a
of Sundays and worship DI box, out of the DI into
team rehearsals is so the amp, and out of the
important in having a DI XLR output into the
healthy youth worship snake)? Is it buzzing?
team. In our last article, Check the ground lift
we mentioned that at on the DI. Is it sending
least twice a month, too much signal? Does
we get the entire band the
together Bible thin in the PA system?
studies, movie nights, Is the high pass filter on
or game nights. These that channel? We get a
for
instrument
sound
events bond the band especially with birthdays. On game nights together and creates lifelong friendships. or group classes, we celebrate that month’s students now actually know more than the
birthdays with gifts, cake, and by all of the average sound techs in some churches today,
Just last week, we were playing a Pictionary band members signing a card. It makes them and they can help to troubleshoot problems
type game with some of our students, and I feel very special. Many of the students in our without the sound tech having to run back and
would draw various musical symbols for them youth worship bands have met in our school forth from the board to the stage.
to identify. As I drew the sharp symbol (#), one of music, become best friends, jam at each of my seven year old students yelled out with other’s houses, then form duos and trios and In one of our group class training sessions,
complete conviction, knowing she had the lead worship around the Las Vegas valley, even we asked the vocalists to each sing on their
answer right “it’s a hashtag”!! We all just about aside from our student worship bands that lead microphone. They were being quite shy, and
fell over laughing :-). worship once or twice per month at various didn’t want to sing in front of everyone. They
churches. would just say “check, check, check” in a
You’re not just their youth pastor or their teacher,
you’re their mentor, their friend, someone
chuckle,
because
our
quiet voice. We said “stop!” and instructed
TECH TRAINING:
the entire group to go and sit in the audience.
outside of their immediate family that they can
I told Michelle to go and sing on the mic, and I
trust and look up to. We have seen time and On group class night, we train our worship swept out all of the lows and mids, and cranked
time again that God brought us a student not teams in the technical aspects of sound and the high end on the EQ. The students started
only to share music with, but to speak into their production, as well as working through the plugging their ears, making pained faces as
lives on a deep level. We have had students in musical details. she sang. Then I started slowly adding back
crises of faith, grieving over the death of a loved They have been trained so well, that the last in the frequencies that her vocal needed. We
one, seeing their parents go through divorce event we did, I was setting up the video cameras explained that when we ask them to sing on
and their family being torn apart, bullying at for the group class shoot, and by the time I was their mics, it is so that we can make them
school, etc. You can be the person that God done, all of the students had patched their sound amazing with the right EQ, gain, reverb,
uses to help them through these times, and instruments into their designated channels on delay, etc. Then they got the picture, and they
there is nothing more rewarding than seeing the snake. Wow! How cool that was! Knowing have sang on cue at every sound check since
them overcome these issues and come to a that they can understand how to set up their :-)
deeper faith in Christ. entire rig, as well as play their parts, is a sound
We also love to celebrate each student,
tech’s dream. They know what an XLR cable is, May you be blessed as you continue to pour
a line cable, a DI box, etc. We have taught them into the next generation of worship leaders and
musicians!
36
August 2017
WorshipMusician.com