One of the things that I was tasked to do when I started this student ministry thing was to build and cultivate the spirit of worship in the lives of my students. Specifically the youth committee wanted me to build a worship team make of students. No problem right? Big promblem - it is a lot of work and if you go down this road you are in for about 20-30% of your week. Is it worth it? Yes!
Some questions you may have:
1) What if I'm not musical and don't have any students that are?
Chances are you wish you were a little musical. If you don't chances are you have some students who are or really want to be. I have a youth pastor friend who really wanted to incorporate worship and singing into his youth ministry and singing along to the CD thing was just not cutting it. What did he do? He took action. Two of his students bought guitars and so did he. They sat down twice a week and learned guitar and worship music together. Within three months he had two students leading worship with his group. These students went on to lead music for their college ministry. This is just one example but you can find your on avenue - all it takes is a little effort and purpose.
2) What if I am musical and have a few students who are - where do I start?
Practice, practice, prayer, and practice. I suggest a meeting with your leaders and one on ones with those who are going to be on your team to cast a vision and look at what the Bible says about worship and what these students are entering into to lead their peers. What I'm learning is that this one time meeting is not enough - you got to keep it going and keep communicating with your team. You got to build the team.
3) Where do I find music?
There are tons of places online. I highly recommend the online RUF hymn book at www.ruf.org. Buy CDs and practice on your own to learn new stuff. This is where that 20-30% of your work week comes in. After about a year it will fall off when you get used to process.
If you have 8 or 80, worship with your students will pay huge dividends in discipleship and growth in grace.
