Five Things I Learned When our Youth Band Led a Week of Worship

Our youth band has been a work in progress over the past several years. I wrote last year about the benefits of taking a year off to work on our basics and to grow our list of songs. This past week the hard work payed off as we led music for our own district church camp.

Though we have led music for some one time events like youth rallies, this was the first time for us to be in the same location leading several times per day, five days in a row.

Over all it was a great experience for the group. As you would expect there were some highs, and some lows, but over all they did a great job and we all learned some new things. Here’s my list of things I learned.

1. Have someone run sound – Most of my church camp times spent leading worship I have been by myself, where I could easily adjust and mix my own sound. Add five nvocals, live drums, bass amp, keys, electric and acoustic guitar, and the task is a little more than can be handled from the stage.

We left our amps on the stage, and ran a snake out into the main room. One of the counselors who came with us had some sound experience and helped to balance the sound. Hopefully we can add a sound person to the band as a permanent addition.

3. Know a few songs well, instead of sort of knowing a bunch of them. – Before we left for our week of camp we chose 30 songs that we knew pretty well. Within those there were about 15 that we could do with our eyes closed, and another 15 we needed to rehearse a bit. Because we had little time to rehearse we were able to plug those 15 songs in for our first few sets until we could work some on those we were not as sure on.

There are still about 15-20 that we have looked at and worked on that stayed at home. We will work on those during our weekly rehearsals and work them in as we get more comfortable with them.

4. Make sure the band doesn’t act like “The Band”– I have been to many camps where the band showed up for worship, played their songs, then retreated to their cabins, or into town until the next time for them to lead worship. Anything wrong with this? Maybe not. Though I do think it is better when the band is part of the whole camp experience.

In this case the band was our youth worship team, and were all campers too. They stayed in cabins with all the other campers, they went to options, ate meals with everyone else and went to bed when everyone else did too. We did take one option time during the middle of the week so we could rehearse a bit, other than that they were no different than any other camper there. That is other than the fact that they were the group to lead music for worship and assemblies.

5. A week of leading worship is a confidence builder – Leading worship around 10-15 times over a 5 day period is one of the best things you can do as a group to help their confidence. When they started off on monday our singers were not very loud or animated. Each day, each time leading they gained more and more confidence. By the beginning of the third day they were jumping up and down, clapping their hands over their heads, getting the congregation involved, and singing out strong.

At the end of the week, leading worship for our camp was one of the best things our team could have done. Hopefully we can learn from the good things, and from the challenges, and continue to get better.