Here’s what we did so that I can share the idea with you:

• We estimated the size of the group that was showing up and picked a small room to squeeze everyone in close together.
• We had candles for the students to hold and a sheet of paper with songs on it for them to follow.
• We opened in prayer, watched a voice of the martyrs film about Christians being hurt for their faith and how they have to have secret meetings in order to worship Jesus.
• Music was led with an acoustic guitar (unplugged).

Things to work on:

• Schedule out every minute – make sure that you have an order that you are following and think through the transitions that you want to take place for example: from praying to singing, to watching a video clip, testimony or whatever you line up.
• Have the music sheets ready and printed up for students to follow along. I thought it was much more effective not using a projector for the words of the songs for this particular event.
• Run through the activity before hand with the person leading the worship and all those involved in the leadership to see if everything is transitioning smoothly.
• Pray that God would work on hearts. Pray that the Lord would use the event to spur students to a deeper commitment to Him, getting involved in missions, or simply praying more for the Christians that don’t have the freedom that we do in the united states.

Go here for a sample of a concert of prayer outline.

Has anyone done something like this? How has it worked for your youth ministry? What are some other variations?

Darlene – Excellence in worship.

What is excellence? I don’t want to bring him my left overs. Excellence is when you come and bring your finest. When we do this – it’s almost like there is magic in the air. It patterns the whole glory of God. Don’t equate excellence with performance.

Developing a ministry of worship. What is the goal that you are after? If you are after the things that the world says it will lead you into disappointment. But if you want the outcome to see people’s lives transformed by Jesus Christ. Work out what drives you. Truth is the premium ingredient that the enemy comes after again and again. Keep your heart with all diligence. Always be working on your theology of worship. Make sure your a person of the word. And it’s through that you will help those enter into God’s presence.

Ross Parsley – A Call to Excellence in Worship.

Family of 7. We are always working on things to get better. All of us as artist are extremely sensitive to this idea of excellence. When people like what we do we feel good and when not we feel bad. It’s obvious that the bible gives us a challenge to do things well.

Old testament: sacrifices (first and best) tithing (bringing your first fruits)

God gives us his best (Christ).

I John – Jesus laid down his life for us. We are responsible to give our all. Psalmist – play skillfully I chronicles 15:22 – It’s all about being appointed. People were appointed because they had skill. I don’t think I have to convince you to be excellent – I think the American church has done this in the worship context that we lost something.

Worship leaders feel a tremendous pressure to do what the congregation or pastor will like. The perfectly designed service. The problem is we are missing something. Our culture understands excellence. American Idol examples.

So important that we get the why. Why do we believe in excellence? What is the reputation your church has? We tend to focus too much on this skill thing.

Skill is a thing that we all want.

David Psalm 78:70 He chose David

Excellence – there is a bigger picture

Some churches are obsessed with: Personality, Tradition, Skill, Music Style, Authority Structure, Ministry Philosophy but what about the WHY? Biblical Principles – this is where it starts. Biblical principles has got to be on the bottom.

Half of my rehearsals are teaching.

Col. 3:20 – It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Most people do it for themselves. I want excellence as a tool for ME. Your going to have to go deep into the scriptures.

Excellence is an attitude perfection is bondage.

Stewardship to explain excellence – Matt. 25

The master gives each according to his ability. It’s okay for your team to have different ability levels. Sometimes we get full of ourselves if we are better than the person to the left of us. Make sure your people know that it is ok to still be growing.

Position is nothing direction is everything. We got to be okay with our ability levels. I have to be the steward of what god gave me and when I do that God is pleased with me.

There is this fairness thing: It’s ok to be at a different level.
We are after the master’s happiness not our happiness. This is why your view of God is important.
We have to use what God gave us and be satisfied with it. Use and invest your talent that God gave to you.

The kingdom of God is about producing. You produce what the master wants you to produce.

Excellence is not a skill.
Excellence is not a sum
Excellence is a stewardship of the resources that God has given you. We are responsible to use them.

Excellence is best practiced in a relational atmosphere where priorities are clearly defined. What’s the best way to get better with your skill? PRACTICE (practice is not enough – they need someone else to speak to them and show them how to get better)

II Cor. 3:18 – You got to be willing to be a cracked pot and allow the spirit of God to work.

I had a little trouble trying to put Ross’s thoughts down in an orderly fashion, but they were great thoughts and he was interesting and animated. Using this along with the other sessions can impact your youth ministry worship too.

What say YOU?

Hopefully this question and answer section of the summit might spark some youth ministry ideas for how to handle worship development.

Here are the questions and answers with Brewster:

Brewster: What are the key components that can be destroyers or builders?

There can be barriers between people on the platform and those in the sound booth. What does it mean to lead and participate in a healthy ministry?

Question: Everyone is a hands on so how do you not step on each others toes?

Answer: You got to have boundaries. This is where your job begins and ends. Have clear expectations of people. Establish these. Boundaries bring freedom. They did a study with 5 year olds and they put 5 year olds out  in an open area and had play ground equipment there and the 5 year olds stuck to the play ground equipment and didn’t move much from it. They did another study where they had the same scenario except they added a fence around the area and what they discovered is that after awhile the kids would leave the play ground equipment and go all the way out to the fence. So the idea again is that boundaries actually bring freedom.
Question: How often do you bring in new songs?

Answer: By leadership style I’m feeling oriented. We do it as a team. When we introduce a song our method is 3 weeks in a row. We also get feedback from the congregation.

Question: How do you handle worship team member that has a great heart but irritates people?

Answer: Heart of Gold and Irritates people – that’s a tough combo. Being a worship leader is a leadership function. Part of leadership is having difficult discussions. We are not doing anybody any favors by not saying anything. Speak the truth in love. Intention is important. One of my weaknesses is that I tend to be reactive. When conversations go well (it’s usually because of goodwill) don’t go in letting anger and frustration lead the conversation. I think an honest conversation with the person you will see where they are really at. Be careful about how you deliver this. Knowing how people are wired is very important. DISC profile. This will help you talk with them.

Question: We lost the leader of worship and now there is no order what do we do?

Answer: I heard a staff member say we are retooling the entire ministry. We are changing everything. Have you run that by your pastor? It shocks me to pieces when people don’t look to their leaders. One definition of spiritual maturity is being able to walk hand in hand even when you don’t see eye to eye. Whose your pastor and what’s he think about it?

Question: what process do you go through to choose worship team members?

Answer: We do video auditions. We view them as a team and make a decision. 80% don’t make it usually and so the team aspect protects the worship leader because they still need to be the leader each week. Check references. The things you do off the platform allow you to be on this platform. Have reasonable expectations. I think bad music is distracting.

Sometimes things that worked then don’t work now. With our team we ask questions anonymously about how we are doing. We need to do better at community. Ask questions get feedback.

I want to make sure our team tithes.

Time was pretty short for this session and it was probably not the most productive session in my viewpoint but was still helpful and had some good ideas even for thinking about youth ministry worship.

In this session they spoke about how they begin to write songs and what inspires them and some tips on how to get your own songs started. Again I thought that this would be great use in youth ministry as well so enjoy this session:

Baloche: How do we take a sense of wonder of a sunset and transfer that into a song.

What attracts people to a song?

Doerksen – There is this deep calling to deep thing. When you hear it you have this sense that someone put into words what I wanted to say to God.

Brewster: Think in terms of outcomes. If I was coming to church this weekend what do I need? What would I want to happen? Is this going to bring “ “ closer to God. It becomes so not about you but about serving the body of Christ. What words do I want to put in the mouths of people to say back to God?

Baloche: be a lifelong student of amazing and great songs. Ask why does this song impact me? Look at it from a spiritual aspect, lyrical, musical. We sense an authentic idea.

How are worship songs born from and spiritual and pratical standpoint?

Scott: two basic eleements: serving the body and touching the heart of God. You have to have some sort of insperation. You also have to learn the art or craft of a song. It is sacred and you must touch it. If you go down to the beach and there are no waves you can’t surf. Also if you go to the beach and there are waves and you can’t surf then you can’t surf. So ask God to bring the waves and have us do the hard work of stepping out in faith and trying it out.

Doerksen: Analogy of the seed. A farmer scatters seed. Seed is falling into the peoples lives but our job is to nuture the soil of our lives so that we can bear a crop. God I want to receive the seeds of sowing. Discipline of crafting. I make an appointment with myself. God im presenting myself. I’m here to write a song. And all of a sudden a melody starts. Or I bring out a draft and ask how do I improve this? Sometimes songs go through 5-6 drafts. What we have to do is learn the patience. Our favorite song is the last song because we met with God.

Baloche: Inspiration and perspiration. As songwriters we need to have our attenna on. Being aware. Write a song idea from a sermon. A hook or a phrase sometimes help us get that first line. Your own prayers or from others be a collector of ideas from things. Then go back and take out an idea and work on it. Sing it back to the lord. See what rises up out of this. At some point it takes form. Stay in the worshipping mode. Like a child in the sand box.

Doerksen: to be a songwriter you have to be willing to be a fool. You have to withdraw and go private to write songs. You got to try stuff. This crazy phrase goes into your head and may spark another thing to your final draft. The next time you start you are back in kindergarten again and you need to be willing to start again.

Brewster: Have a phone that has a recorder on your phone to help you capture the inspiration that takes place. There are ideas that I remember at the moment but then forgot them because I didn’t capture them. The process of identifying strengths and weaknesses

How do you develop songs?

Brewster: Be a lifelong learner in general. If you can’t stand someone telling you that’s not a good song – then you shouldn’t be doing it. I wrote a song and I was feeling it but they were not. I want that kind of honesty. Have people that you trust to give real feedback. Seek out people and give honest feedback. That’s been a lifesaver for me.

Doerksen: Form a songwriting circle. Serve one another. Listen to each other’s songs. We are going to point out flaws. We talk about each persons song.

Brewster: Do not tell your church that you wrote it. Don’t let it out of the bag right away. Please don’t say God gave me this song. Whose going to be critical about something that God wrote?

Baloche: what feels good about this song? Songs are subjective. We think we know something but sometimes we need that feedback. And then ask what feels funny? Because it’s not really a right or wrong. Be positive but also honest.

I would agree that you have to write a lot of bad songs to get a good song. Make song writing a part of something that you do. It will poison the well if you are trying to get a deal in Nashville if you only have written 10 songs.

Faithfulness and God may indeed promote something.

Doerksen: There is a sense that unless we do a big recording we are not doing anything valuable. There should be some songs that you write just for your fellowship. Don’t worry about recording and publishing it. Just serve the flock. Someone else took the songs and started the recording process. God elevated it. Keep your eye on serving.

What are the flow of lyerics?

Scott: This is hard. Your songs have to say something and have to say it well and capture peoples hearts. We are informing people about their maker. Dig as deep as you can. Write as much as you can. We need a song about the trinity and just started going that way. Use first lyerics to be springboard lyrics. Use anything to get you started. Work on it and work on it until you say this is the best way to say this. Take time to write and rewrite.

Doerksen: Lyric writing is the sweat part.

Brewster: Co-writing. If you find someone that is strong where you are weak then you have a good thing. Knowing when a song is done. Patience is key. Don’t rush it along.

Baloche: I spend way more intention on co-writing these days because of the relationship aspect. Spend some time and see what rises out of that. When you co-write you have to get past feeling embarrassed.

As you can see this is another great amount of insight into song writing even in youth ministry. I hope that you can take these youth ministry ideas for worship into your worship setting.

Also this was the largest ever worship conference because it was done by satellite! So literally all across the country and even in some other parts of the world so it had a cool feeling to it.

The first session was: What is Worship? Brian Doerksen, Paul Baloche, and Kathryn Scott gave their thoughts:

Brian Doerksen – what is worship

It’s easy for worship to become our performance and how we are doing. Our performance versus God’s provision. My handicap son is sharing in my work. He is teaching me about unconditional love. In that I’m learning more about trusting God more. Let’s dial down our anxiety about getting everything perfect. We wouldn’t have signed up for this. But through those things God shapes us into being worshipers. Trust his provision. It can’t be about performance.

What is real worship?

Receiving the provision of God. How can I know God? How can I please God? How can I serve God?

I feel like I’m in kindergarten when it comes to worship. Phillipians 3:10 (I want to know Christ…). Paul says I haven’t arrived, I haven’t figured it out. Paul has a personal encounter with the Lord and he still wants to obtain a closer relationship. Resurrection power and sharing in suffering. We as worshipers want to skip the agony and go straight to the ecstasy. If Christ went through both so do we.

Psalm 101: david was called a man after god’s own heart. The word after strikes me. This was a man in persuit. This is a man who hasn’t arrived. This is a man who is following. He’s chasing after. Forgetting about what is behind.

I’m Mentoring 6-7 people and we spend more time in the scripture then music rehearsal.

Psalm 101:

Why did david sing? Why do the people of God sing? Throughout the world, throughout history. The underground church in China – you should see what happens when they sing.

If our lives don’t match our songs God isn’t that interested in our songs. Real worship is living a life of love and integrity and we sing. It makes us uniquely different. We are made and created and designed to sing a melody and makes us unique in creation.

We can get so focused on trying to stay hip and current that we can lose what our calling is. We pay millions of dollars to have people sing for us. Worship is not a concert.

David declares – I will sing. He chose in advance what he was going to do. This is who I am. I Will … I will sing of your love and justice. Who God is and His acts. To YOU O lord. David doesn’t sing his songs to the world. Not to the congregation, but rather to GOD! We get way to focus on pleasing people. Our audience is God. What we do in our private homes is utmost important. It reveals who we really are. Be the same person in front as well as in your homes.

Verse 2: The hunger for the presence of God is what drives David. I’m going to hang on to YOUR actions. David had reached a place of privilage and power. Sadly when people usually reach this they think they can be different and use their power to tell others what to do.

The cultural context. People were into idolatry. People would set up idols in strategic places. David says I will set before my eyes. The eyes are a key entry point into ourselves. Think about the word entertainment. We are allowing something to gain entrance into us. What is Davids entertainment I will set before my eyes no vial thing. What people set before their eyes in America today in the privacy of their homes is crazy. Part of saying yes to god is saying no to things that pull him away.

How do we set before our eyes God? Who is invisible. Does David give us any clues? Turn psalm 27: 4 David set god before his eyes by going to the house of the lord. Believers where 2 or 3 gather. David sought the beauty of God in his house and by going for a walk. We are surrounded to much by manmade things and we need to get out and see the beauty of God.

David psalm 19 – spend time outside. Don’t just go to another meeting and another meeting. Set your recreation (re-create) nobody has to talk to you about it.

Back to psalm 101:6 – He sees God in his faithful friends around him. He lets in the faithful to minister. His faithful friends are his entertainment. They were the ones who gained entrance into his life and it lifted His spirit.

Song – public and private – we need to be the same person in public and private.

Paul Baloche:

How do you discern? Learning to spend time in the presence of the Lord – you begin to hear the voice of the Lord. Being rooted in the word of God. Out of that comes songs, hymns and spiritual songs. Our role is spending time with Him. Make time for it. Cultivate that in your life. Learning to sing to the Lord and speak to the Lord. Read through 1^st and 2^nd cronicles – day and night they would go into the temple and never ceased to give thanks to God. Taking some faithful friends and minister to the Lord. Start with a scripture and read and sing it out. We were created for this. God is looking for who will worship Him. Encourage people to join you what you just learned privately. Pass on and mentor others. Before we get up on the stage there is so much prep before you get going. It’s not about just getting through your song list with out a train wreck. There is the priestly aspect and pastoral aspect. One of the privilages we have is to serve the church and lead. Forces us to deal with our stuff in life. There is the temptation to withdraw get a little synical. Why don’t they clap when I want them to clap?

Take the private experience and do that publicly inviting others to join us.

There is a tendancy to feel threatened as some young and talented coming up. Make it apart of your assignment to be a Paul to a Timothy. Bring up people in your church that has potential.

I felt unqualified that everyone could sing better than me. It was people that made a ramp for me that helped me along. They gave me the opportunity to fail. The pastor would look for the good and it encouraged me.

Our times of worship should feel like a conversion and community. Try to build a community and not a flawless performance. Try to keep it real. Start off with a medium tempo song and move into an upper tempo song. We don’t need tricks.

Love God and Love His people that’s what we are called to do.

Kathern Scott

Love in our families. There is nothing more important then looking after your family. I want to stand before the Lord and say here are my children and husband.

Saying No – There are times that you need to say no to the options on the table even the good stuff. What is God saying to you. Might be some amazing things that you say no to.

The only way you get to go forward you got to give it away. You don’t have to be stingy. You are never to old to start.

Brian D-

Our role moves into blessing others and mentoring others and build them up and find those things that are good in your young worship leaders. Let go don’t try and micro manage others.

It’s simple and yet it takes everything in us to walk the path of worship. All the other stuff is about us (if we could just… get this part together, if we had better sound equipment). Life complicates – my calling is to come back to the core. I do worship because of God not the music.

Psalm 122: I was glad when they said to me lets go to the house of the Lord.

The entertainment houses of man that leave your spirit empty.

As you can see there were some powerful thoughts about worship and how we need to be about BEING with God so that we can then help students in youth ministry to worship God. What do you think of session 1? There were a lot of thougths in there that left me pondering – but I couldn’t agree more with what they were saying.

What do you think about worship leading in Youth Ministry?