How to get music right in your youth group
Six ways to make sure your youth are singing for all the right reasons.
I must admit that I’m a bit of a sucker for singing the national anthem. When it’s sung well, especially with 40,000 others, I love it.
But national anthems by definition are not about the performer. They are about the nation and its people, singing together with one purpose. When someone leads the anthem with vocal gymnastics – that is, they “perform” the anthem, directing attention to themselves rather than the people – in my experience people don’t sing, they just watch and are entertained.
We can fall into a similar trap when it comes to singing in a youth group (or congregational) setting.
Performing vs leading
The problem for leaders and those responsible for training our young musicians is that often they teach the band and song leaders to “perform”. That’s the nature of being a musician. That’s all fine if you’re in a performance setting, but when we sing together in our youth groups and churches, that’s not the musicians’ purpose.
Our purpose is service, directing people’s attention away from ourselves and instead to God and his people.
Jesus summed up this attitude when asked, in Matthew 22, to name the greatest commandment. He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… and love your neighbour as yourself.” Our example in such love is, of course, Jesus himself. Philippians 2 teaches that our attitude needs to be the same as our Lord’s: humility and service.
If we want to make singing work, if we want our young people to actually sing well in our youth groups, service and humility have got to be priority number one.
The Purpose of Singing
We also need to keep thinking about why we do what we do (and not only in singing). So why do we sing? I’ve come up with six summary points:
- Christians have always sung; it’s a biblical tradition (see Exodus 15, Psalms and Luke 1).
- We’re told to! (Psalms 9:11, 33:1-3, 68:4)
- It’s a source of encouragement, teaching and strengthening believers (see Colossians 3:16 – this means we must chose our songs carefully, that is, they must be faithful to the Bible, the Word of Christ). Therefore…
- Singing is a ministry of the Word of Christ.
- Singing is a way to praise God. See Ephesians 5:18-20 – we need to be “spirit-filled” singers who sing with thankfulness. As we sing, just like the Psalms teach, we need to declare what God is like and what he has done. And notice too that singing is “heartfelt”: it’s emotional, not forced emotions, but in response to what God is like and what he has done. Finally…
- It’s fun and it feels good! Possibly a matter of opinion, but considering my other five points, it ought to be.
Getting Started
What about some practicalities? Here are my top six tips that I’ve discovered help make singing work in youth groups:
- Get the leaders on side first. They have to be enthusiastic about singing no matter how bad the musicians play! I would train the leaders on why we should sing as Christians (see above) before you take it to the youth group.
- If you have a leader who can play, use them to lead, train up and play with some youth. If not, be patient and train up someone who can do the job. I’m biased, but acoustic guitar is best (throw away the electric for the time being). The key to acoustic guitar leading is rhythm. If you can stay in time people can sing with you – a few wrong chords aren’t an issue.
- Choose appropriate songs for your musicians and your youth group.
- Upfront, confident, emotionally sensitive and humble song leading that glorifies God and serves is fundamental.
- Encourage your youth to learn an instrument. Build a culture of serving with music; this will help your church services too.
- Be patient. It can take time. But remember to make it fun and enjoyable, especially as you introduce the concept.
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