YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
THAT SONG AGAIN? | Vance & Michelle Shepherd
You may remember our September 2018 article
with the title “I Just Wanna Play A Song!” In it we
discussed keeping music simple for beginners
on your youth worship team, tapping in to their
excitement and making a way for them to play,
even if it’s for just one song in the worship set.
If you plan out your worship sets three or four
weeks ahead, it gives you plenty of time to take
two or three students under your wing and give
them a little musical coaching, with the goal of
them playing live in an up and coming worship
service. It’s exciting for the rest of the students
in your ministry to see someone new on the
platform and it can bring new recruits to your
team!
But over time, with more musical opportunities
for your musicians to play live, this excitement
can slowly turn to boredom. And your team can
find themselves not wanting to play that song
again, even if it’s a great, well-written one! In
Matthew 18:3 it says that we have to become
like little children to enter into the kingdom
of Heaven. This scripture reminds us of the
fresh excitement, awe and wonder that little
ago”. (LOL!) And the other student was just to be creative and possibly change the
following along with the other two. I then gave arrangement, try an acoustic version, switch
them the analogy that a weight trainer will to more challenging musical parts, or change
always add more weight in his client’s workout lead vocalists, etc. As worship teams, we are
to advance them toward their fitness goals. in the role of serving our churches, and bringing
In a similar way, playing ‘hard’ songs makes the very best songs and messages to our
musicians grow in their abilities and be more congregations. It helps to not only be creative
confident players. with our songs, but also to remove our personal
biases from them. We won't always be excited
To the student that was bored because we had about every song we’re called upon to play, but
already played that song three months ago, I our leaders do have reasons beyond what we
explained to them that any professional touring know as to why certain songs are placed in the
band plays the same ten songs, or the same worship set, and why others get heavily rotated.
hour of material in every engagement they’re It could be that the pastor is requesting a
booked for. Think about this: Lauren Daigle particular theme for that service, or maybe God
has probably sang “Trust In You” at least a has given the worship leader direction through
thousand times in her life, and her audience prayer as to what the musical set should be.
something new, and that can lead to boredom. is always going to want to hear it! Mercy Me Maybe the worship leader knows which songs
has performed the song “I Can Only Imagine” his or her scheduled team will sound the best
Prepping for our September worship event, thousands of times in the last 25 years, and on musically. Our role as worship musicians
we wouldn’t stand for it if we went to see them is to bring the absolute best of our abilities to
in concert and they chose not to perform that every musical opportunity placed in front of us,
song because they’re tired of it. A worship and to shine the light of Christ through all that
leader might have to sing a song 20, 30, even we do. May you be blessed as you pour into
40 times. the next generation of worship leaders!
So how can we keep it fresh for ourselves Vance & Michelle Shepherd
Founders of The Shepherd School Of Music in Las
Vegas, NV, where they work with youth to raise up the
next generation of worship leaders and musicians.
facebook.com/shepherdschoolofmusiclasvegas
www.ShepherdStudiosLV.com
ones have. They just want to do new things
and experience life at its fullest. Our younger
students remind us so much of that scripture
because they are so excited to be a part of
something bigger than themselves! Music is
so fun to them, especially when they learn their
first song. But with age and musical experience
can also come the temptation to always want
one of our students came to us and asked if
we could not do a particular song that was
in the set. There were many reasons we had
picked that song, so I got the band together
and asked by a raise of hands who didn’t want
to play that song. A few raised their hands, so I
asked them why they felt that way. One student
said, “Because it’s hard.” Another student said,
“Because we played that song three months
50
and our music teams? One thing we can do
as leaders is give the musicians permission
December 2018
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