YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
SMOOTHING IT OUT | Vance & Michelle Shepherd
Whether your student band is providing worship for your home church or leading as a guest team in another church, it’ s great to instill in them the importance of knowing the order of songs and theme of the service as well as the pastor’ s vision for that service. As teachers, we’ ve found it very effective to incorporate this into their actual rehearsal time, and especially during the dress rehearsal run-thru for the event, just as if it were service time. It can be a very effective way to getting the team on the same page spiritually and polished for the service.
One church that our student band leads worship at is more charismatic in style. In this church, the order of service is that the worship team plays one song at the top of the service, then the pastor comes up and greets everyone with a short, inspiring word. Nearly every time towards the end of his greeting, he gets excited and starts raising the volume his voice, getting an energetic response from his congregation. His regular house worship team usually waits until he’ s completely done with his greeting, and then( after a bit of dead time), continues on to play 3 more worship songs after he leaves the stage. Not a crime by any sense, but there’ s an opportunity to make it flow better and be more seamless. We have a unique opportunity as the worship band alongside the pastor to really set the tone for what’ s to come in the service.
Here are some practical and hopefully helpful tips that we use to train our youth worship bands in how to create an effective and smooth service flow:
TIP # 1: We like to paint the picture to our students that they can also think of their band as providing the church service“ music soundtrack”, like a movie score. It’ s not just about executing 3-4 songs well. We encourage and train them to listen to and engage with what is going on, listen to what is being communicated from the pastor or speaker, and build musical dynamics, matching the tone or feeling of what’ s being said.
A helpful thing to do is to make sure every band member has the pastor’ s voice in their ear monitor so they can feel and flow dynamically with him if needed.
During the rehearsal, we have them plan ahead by rehearsing musical beds in the keys of the songs in the worship set, having the drummer doing cymbal swells and kicks, with the keyboardists and guitarists holding sustained chords, etc, for times when you want to elevate the service or accompany the pastor.
TIP # 2: We make it a practice of videoing our students when leading worship, and it has been an extremely great tool for them to learn from. After videoing our student’ s Sunday worship set at this more charismatic church, we gave them music classes based on what we saw on the video, giving them tips for improvement, and praising them for things done well. As the students watched the video, they all agreed where their music fell short. As the pastor was giving his inspirational greeting, the band’ s underscore and his dynamic was really high and uplifting. You could feel the energy through the video. But at the end of his greeting, when he turned it back over to the worship team and walked off stage, he said excitedly,“ Come on, let’ s worship together!!” And then there was 5 seconds of dead time as the drummer stopped cymbal swelling, the musicians stopped sustaining their chords, and the drummer fumbled to start the click track to the next song.
We explained to them how they could have kept holding the chord and the cymbal swell until the count-in to the next song came in, eliminating all the dead space between the pastor leaving the stage and the band starting the song. Little things like this make a huge difference in the feel and flow of the service!
TIP # 3: We have also found it super helpful to reach out a few weeks ahead of time and ask what the message will be about, striving to design the worship set or at least a song to fit in with the theme or current series. This can get the worship leader or leaders thinking ahead about how to tie the worship songs together to the whole flow of service, where they’ re setting up the next song thematically, picking a scripture that goes with the message of the song, or creating musical beds that feel good when introducing the pastor, or during announcements or offering time. Whatever type of church or event your youth worship team is leading at, it’ s great to practice, plan and rehearse the transitions and dynamics themselves, not just practice the songs. It adds so much to the service, and makes everything feel seamless, smooth and cohesive.
And like anything, the more they do it, the better they will be at it!
May you be blessed as you pour into or become the next generation of worship leaders and musicians!
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
46 February 2026 Subscribe for Free...