YOUTH WORSHIP TEAM
PASS THAT BATON | Vance & Michelle Shepherd
We’ ve been blessed to have the unique privilege of teaching youth and raising up young worship leaders and musicians for 17 years now. Most of our students started music lessons with us when they were seven or eight years old, and what a privilege it is to see them grow and move into adulthood. We’ ve watched some of them move into full-time ministry as worship leaders for YWAM, going to college for worship arts or music degrees, and becoming great additions to a church’ s worship team. As much as it’ s bittersweet to see them spread their wings and go, it has been a reward like no other for us to know that they moved into ministries and opportunities that we had the unique opportunity and privilege to mentor and prepare them for.
We see a very familiar cycle as our younger students grow into their teenage years: their life is busier, school requires more homework, or they get after school jobs which force them to miss dates where they could be leading worship.
This is why it’ s so important as youth leaders to keep striving to bring in new and younger students, and prepare and mentor them to lead worship. It’ s so easy to be content with your current group of more seasoned musicians and singers, 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. We must keep new students in training at all times to keep our worship teams vibrant and healthy.
When we were thinking about this subject this week, an idea came to mind that could be an option for you as a leader. If you don’ t have any students up and coming that are currently learning an instrument or taking vocal lessons, or you simply have no pool of musicians that allows you to have a youth worship team at your home church( maybe you don’ t have the time, passion or knowledge to teach music to others), your option could be to schedule a meeting with your local music stores and local music teachers.
Let them know that you have an outlet for their current music students to play for your church events. Be up front with them and let them know that it would be faith based, and exclusively Christian music. Chances are you will have quite a few parents that are Christians, and they would absolutely love for their children to have the opportunity to learn worship music and play in a live worship band, instead of just playing scales and secular songs that they probably won’ t have the opportunity to perform beyond their bedroom walls.
On the other hand, there’ s a possibility you may get some musicians that are non-believers, or that are a bit“ rough around the edges.” For those students, it’ s great to remind ourselves of the great commission( Matthew 28:19 – 20). It could be a great way to introduce some young ones to the church and expose them to the gospel! It can also create healthy Christian relationships that they will have into their adulthood. And the parents of these students would also have an opportunity to bond and grow healthy relationships with the other parents. We have definitely seen this firsthand, and it’ s incredibly powerful what God can do.
If you have success in partnering with a teacher or music facility, here are two big tips that we would recommend to talk over on the first meeting: 1. You would want to give them a handful of songs that are in current rotation at your church, so that the teacher can start teaching the student musical parts that would be at their skill level.
2. Teach them each song in a male key and a female key and how to transpose keys.
3. If the teacher has multiple guitar or keyboard players, 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 in your city get a team ready to lead worship at your church youth events. And this could also be an amazing outreach and a way to spread the Gospel to 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
70 June 2026 Subscribe for Free...