YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
MAKING ROOM FOR THE NEXT GEN | Vance & Michelle Shepherd
We’ ve been blessed to have the unique privilege of teaching youth and raising up young worship leaders and musicians for 16 years now. Most of our students started music lessons with us when they were seven or eight years old, and it’ s a privilege getting to see them become teenagers & young adults. We’ ve watched some of them move into full time ministry leaders for YWAM, going to college for worship arts or music degrees, or becoming a great addition to a church’ s worship team, or stepping into a church leadership role. As much as it’ s bittersweet to see them spread their wings and go, it’ s been a reward like no other for us to know that they moved into ministries and opportunities that we had the opportunity to help mentor and prepare them for, and that they’ re using their skills to bless the church and God’ s kingdom.
As years go by, we see a very familiar cycle: as our younger students grow into their older teenage years, their life is much busier: school requires more homework, or they get jobs after school and on weekends, which force them to have to miss leading worship and other events. This is why it’ s so important as youth leaders to keep reaching out and encouraging and mentoring younger students so they’ re ready to step in and lead worship. It’ s easy to get so comfortable with your current group of more seasoned musicians and singers, and also easy to let time slip away without thinking ahead to the next season and the next generation of worship leaders. It seems like we lose our teenagers almost overnight to adulthood. To stay healthy as a worship ministry, we must keep pouring into new students to keep our youth worship teams vibrant and healthy.
If you currently don’ t have any students in your youth ministry learning how to play an instrument or taking vocal lessons, you might think outside the box and schedule a meeting with your local music stores and local music teachers. Let them know that you have a great outlet for their current students to play live for your church youth worship team and at church events. Be up front with them and let them know that it would be faith based and exclusively worship music. Chances are you will have quite a few parents that would love for their children to have the opportunity to learn music through leading worship and playing in a live band, instead of just playing scales and secular songs that they probably won’ t have the opportunity to perform beyond their bedroom walls.
This is a great way to get some young ones coming to your youth ministry and also expose them to the gospel, as well as it can create healthy, godly relationships that they’ ll have into adulthood. The parents of these students would also have an opportunity to bond and grow healthy relationships with the other parents. We have most definitely seen this firsthand, and it’ s so powerful!
If you have success in partnering with a music teacher or professional music facility, here are some things that we would recommend talking over with them on the first meeting:
1. Give the music instructor a handful of songs that are in current rotation at your church, so that the teachers can start teaching the student musical parts that would be at their skill level.
2. Teach them each song in a male vocal key and a female vocal key and ask them to train the student in how to transpose keys of songs using the Nashville number system.
3. If the instructor has multiple guitar or keyboard players interested, request that they teach each of their students a different musical part, then rotate the parts amongst the musicians.
Implementing this method could be a great way to have trained professionals get a team of students ready to help lead worship at your church youth events. And this could also be an amazing outreach into your community.
May you be blessed as you pour into or become the next generation of worship leaders!
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
42 August 2025 Subscribe for Free...