Our job is to engage with all the people in the room as best as we can . Sometimes it ’ s weird , but sometimes you see people ’ s walls come down , and they feel like they can be a part of this . If they were sitting there unengaged , now you might see them swaying side to side . That could be the step that they took today towards engaging in worship . If they ’ ve got their hands lifted , we ’ ve taken a huge step today . Like you said , he would leave the ninety-nine behind for the one . To the best of our human ability , we just have to see where people are and take them on that journey .
[ WM ] What are five things that you think are key to building a great youth worship team ?
[ One ] The number one thing is to pray together . My favorite thing about our youth ministry is that when we pray , we cram into this little stairwell near the stage and pray together . We squeeze in real tight , talk about the night , have a young person pray , and rotate between who ’ s sharing a thought .
[ Two ] I ’ m no longer a youth creative pastor but I still work closely with the guys . I can ’ t stress how important it is to make sure that the people are being mentored and discipled . Even now , I still crave that big brother or sister mentorship . I crave to go get a coffee and say , “ Here ’ s what
I ’ m thinking , this is what God ’ s been talking to me about , and these are my challenges .”
If we think that young people don ’ t need that , maybe we need to recalibrate . Whether you have the time and ability to mentor everyone on your team or not , make time for five people that you can catch up with once a month . Then , have those five people look after five other people . Pretty soon , every person on your team can be mentored and have that relationship to look back on . It ’ s going to be the person they showed their songs to , who they asked for advice , and they made their life decisions based upon . I can ’ t stress enough
how important this is .
[ Three ] Maintain a teaching culture . Similar to mentorship and looking out for people , teach your best drummer to mentor and care for the other drummers . There was a time that we had two youth programs running simultaneously , and only one drummer on a Friday night that could play . I told him , “ I need you to look after the drummers and find drummers .” The only other drummers we had were like thirteenyears-old . He just picked the three or four drummers that were around who were thirteen at the time . Now , they are some of the best drummers on our team – all because one guy
24 August 2018 WorshipMusician . com
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