In this series we are talking about youth worship teams. If you are just joining us I encourage you to check out the previous posts in this series.
It has taken a few weeks but we are now talking about building a youth worship team. Like many people, you may be looking at a need for a worship team, but are not sure on where to start. Where do you find players and singers? How do you know what to look for? Where do we go from there? In this post we are going to try to answer those questions.
First – Figure out What You Have
Look around your group and see what you already have. Who is the kid always bringing a guitar on retreats and lock-ins? What about the group that sits around the piano playing and singing? What about the girl who just told you she sang a solo at school? You have talented kids in your group, you just may need to do a little investigation and searching.
Second – Build on What You Have
An easy mistake to make is to think you must have a full band to get started. This is not true. Look at current popular worship leaders. Some bands have 25 people, some are two guys and a guitar, some are one person at a piano. There is no “one look” for a worship team.
Here’s a way to build a group from just a singer.
1. Get your singer(s), and buy some backup CDs or tracks and let them lead worship to those.
2. Find a guitar or piano player have them play along with some of the tracks,
3. Drop the tracks and have them accompany the singer.
4. Add a djembe, bongos or other acoustic hand drums.
5. Add another acoustic guitar.
6. Move one of the hand drummers to full drums, and one of the guitar players to bass
7. Add electric guitar and keys
Third – Encourage What You Have –
The whole time the key is encouragement. Set the youth up for success. Maybe this means having them rehearse for 3 months without leading worship. Find three songs they know and play those over and over. Do not worry about learning a lot of music, or about playing the latest music. Just play together, lead the songs you know and have fun.
What would you add? How do you build your youth worship team?
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