We had such an amazing year with worship at youth group!
One of the biggest changes we had was the addition of Davis Pomrenke to our youth worship team. Davis is on staff with the tech department, but also has an amazing heart for worship, music, and youth. We thought it would be a great fit for him to help with the youth bands on a more regular basis. He agreed to some part time hours and it has been so good for us!
Davis has brought some fresh vision and new ideas to our youth worship program. One of these new ideas is inviting more seasoned worship leaders from around town to come and lead worship with and for the youth on Tuesday nights. They share their story of how God called them into worship leading, how He molded and shaped them into the worship leader that they now are. It’s so awesome to hear how they got started, for a lot of them it was at youth group, and it inspires our youth to dive in and get involved.
Another concept that we’ve had a bit more time for is steady recruitment and on-boarding of youth/young adults into the bands. Davis is one of the instructors at RL Music & Worship Academy, and we’ve began a sort of informal partnership with this organization. If a youth has an interest in serving in the area of music and worship, but has no skills yet, we can point them in the right direction. We now have a more clear path of steps that they can take.
With the help of Davis, key volunteers like Denver Knodel, Karalee Friesen, and Rhea Nayak will setup, have a prayer time with the youth band, lead rehearsals, and lead worship at Tuesday night youth. I continue to help with the administrative side of things like; making sure resources are there for preparation, guiding and mentoring Davis and the worship leaders, and maintaining the equipment. Levi is there each Tuesday helping with the technical needs.
We have 2 full-ish worship teams on rotation, and some more acoustic style smaller teams. There have been some awesome new volunteers that have joined this year. They are in the older youth to young adult age range. It has been an amazing year of growth where both the youth and the band leading get to grow and learn about what it means to worship the one true God. There is a new depth! It is not just “let’s sing our three songs and move on”, but experiencing the things of God in a new way. The worship leaders are leading the youth into the spirit of worship and the youth are responding!
There are a few more special times of worship throughout the year including times of worship at the weekend youth retreat, and a morning that the youth team led on Sunday morning! I know this was a highlight for the youth who participated. They were so excited and it sparked a new interest and passion to serve in that way. It was also cool to see how the congregation responded to their leadership. The seniors were especially supportive and encouraging towards them. So cool!
We would love to get more young people involved in worship! It is an awesome chance to serve and grow together, to learn some skills, and most importantly to give God the glory that He deserves.
If you know of any young people who might like to get involved, let me know!
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