If you’re like many other youth pastors, you may sometimes struggle with getting your youth engaged and excited about worship. Here are a few ideas that will help you spark their interest in worship, help them grow in their walk with Christ, and raise up leaders through worship.
Let your youth lead.
Having a good representation of young people on your youth worship team goes a long way with ensuring your students stay engaged with worship. When students see their peers leading them in worship, they are more likely to get involved and stay engaged in worship. This also helps raise up young leaders within your ministry and give them the opportunity to grow in their faith and ministry experience. Although you’ll still want adult leadership coordinating the team, the more young people you can get involved the better! Invest in your youth and use their gifts and talents. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did!
Keep up with the trends in worship music.
A great way to help keep up with the trends and new songs coming out in worship, is to get input from your youth worship team. If they are passionate about leading their friends in worship they will likely be following worship bands and artists that they are interested in. Keep an open communication with your team, your youth group, and stay open to new songs and artists! When new worship albums release, listen and incorporate songs into your sets. Great bands to follow include: Jesus Culture, Bethel Music, Hillsong Young & Free and Hillsong United, Planetshakers, and Chris Tomlin among many others.
Strategically bring back the classics.
Now trending! Artists writing and incorporating a classic hymn to create a brand new song. I love this idea. I recently heard “Mighty” by Kristene DiMarco which had “It Is Well” incorporated into it. I loved the newness and powerful lyrics of Mighty but absolutely loved the way she tied in this timeless song. Keep an eye out for songs like these, which you can incorporate into your youth worship services. This is also great for when you have a youth led Sunday service. These songs can reach the youth as well as the adults. They will recognize the classics and hear new songs that the youth enjoy each week!
