Teen Worship

Teen Worship

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Sharon Veltema on how worship plays a formative role in the faith development of teens.
Worship plays a formative role in the faith development of young people. In the book, Shaped By God , Robbie Castleman writes, “Life is liturgy. Life has patterns that shape us more and for a lot longer than we ever realize. It is no wonder that liturgy— the pattern of corporate worship— shapes our faith formation more than we ever realize.” (Keeley, Robert. Shaped By God . Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2010: 72.) Nowhere is this more evident than in the life of a teen. Yet many church leaders, youth group leaders, and Christian school chapel coordinators struggle to find effective ways to involve young people in worship.
Churches, youth ministries, and high school chapel teams need to collaborate in exploring and clarifying some key issues. What impact does worship have on the life of a teen, and do churches, youth groups, and Christian schools have a vision regarding the role of corporate worship in the life of a young person? What are the implications of having teenagers involved in leading worship and what is the time commitment involved? Is it worth the time and the effort?
Allowing and encouraging teens to participate in leadership roles during worship services engages young people in a way that can be transformative. In the article “Youth, Worship, and Faith Formation: Findings From a National Study,” the following is stated:
“The most consistent predictor of youth’s religiousity was their experience leading worship by doing any of the following: singing or playing an instrument; participating in drama or pageants; leading the congregation in prayer or reading; serving as an acolyte or altar boy/girl; teaching a lesson or meditation or sermon; giving testimony; and serving as usher or greeter or collecting offerings. Youth who reported having done several of these activities also reported higher rates of church attendance, personal prayer, scripture reading, and volunteer work. In addition, they reported a greater influence of religious teachings on their “big decisions,” a stronger commitment to their faith tradition, a stronger commitment to marry within their tradition, and a greater desire for others to know about their faith commitment.”
(quoted by Gunnoe, Marjorie and Claudia Beversluis in Reformed Worship , March 2009: 18. )
In exploring and clarifying these issues together, it will be important to carefully evaluate the methods adopted. It may be easiest to associate youth involvement in worship with a praise band (playing the piano, guitar, or drums). While this may be an excellent way to involve young people in worship, it does not allow them to actively participate in all aspects of worship. Furthermore, this method excludes young people who are not gifted musically.
When choosing meaningful roles for youth consider the entire corporate worship experience in a church. When God’s people gather together in worship, they hear a call to worship, they sing songs of praise and adoration, they engage in a time of confession and listen to God’s assurance of forgiveness. The worshipers listen to the Word of the Lord spoken and respond to that Word. Finally, congregants receive God’s blessing at the conclusion of worship. Teens can be involved in many, if not all of these aspects of worship. Allowing teens to be involved in every area of worship, whether in corporate worship with the entire church or in a youth group setting, promotes faith formation in young people. Allowing teens to take on leadership responsibilities prepares them to be active and healthy members of churches in their adult years.
In a time when many churches question whether young people will continue to be active members in their adult years, involving teens in our worshiping communities takes on new significance. “There is no more important community gathering than the Sunday liturgy which telescopes the understandings of life and the preferred ways of life of those who celebrate together. To cease worshiping is to lose faith. To transmit faith to the next generation is to include them as participants in all the community’s rituals.” (Westerhoff, John H. III. Will Our Children Have Faith? HarperSanFrancisco, 1976: 56.)
In order to enable young people to be successful in these leadership roles, efforts are needed to qualify them to serve well and meaningfully. Teens need to learn about worship – why we worship, how we worship, and the purpose of worship. Meeting with young people to study and plan worship is an important mentoring opportunity for adults and youth alike.
But they should also be led in learning how to lead worship. Teens should be mentored in leading their peers and others in a call to worship, an opening and closing prayer, a time of confession, an assurance of pardon, and the spoken Word. Teens should be encouraged to script out the aspects of worship in which they will be involved. When young people learn to lead each other in worship in a youth group setting or in chapel, a sense of belonging and community is established and students build confidence in the language of faith.
But in the broadest possible sense, they need to learn “articulacy.” In the book, Soul Searching , the authors state:
“It seems to us that religious educators need to work much harder on articulation. It was also astonishing how many Christian teens, for example, were comfortable talking generally about God but not specifically about Jesus. Philosophers like Charles Taylor argue that inarticulacy undermines the possibilities of reality. So for instance, religious faith, practice, and commitment can be no more than vaguely real when people cannot talk much about them. Articulacy fosters reality. A major challenge for religious educators of youth, therefore, seems to us to be fostering articulation, helping teens to practice talking about their faith, providing practice at using vocabularies, grammars, stories, and key messages of faith. Our observation is that religious education in the United States is currently failing with youth when it comes to the articulation of faith.”
(Smith, Christian and Melinda Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers . Oxford University Press, 2005:267-268.)
The process of involving teens in various aspects of worship leadership is time consuming and requires commitment from youth leaders and mentors. Teens that are given these opportunities often develop a sense of excitement about their churches and worship. The experience is spiritually nurturing by allowing teens to articulate their faith and have a deeper understanding and connection to their faith. When teens engage in leading each other in a prayer of adoration, a time of confession, reading scripture, or reading a blessing, they are learning the language of faith, and by doing so, they gain confidence in what they say they believe.
With mentoring and preparation, young people who never thought they would be able to stand in front of their peers or a congregation can learn to articulate their faith either by reading, sharing a personal testimony, being involved in a drama, or in music, or participating in some other way. The experience often brings joy and affirmation of faith. Often, young people who are given an opportunity to be involved in worship have a deep desire to be involved in future worship services and in other areas of the church.
Teens who lead each other in worship, either in a youth group or similar setting, build community with God and community with each other. Through these experiences, youth leaders can empower young people to live for Christ, preparing leaders to advance God’s Kingdom in the world. Enabling teens to become Spiritual leaders by taking on worship leadership roles, giving young people the opportunity to articulate their faith through worship, and mentoring youth to plan and lead in worship is a critical step in the faith formation of a teen. It also provides a tremendous blessing to the community of believers.
Reformed Worship , (Issue #91) March 2009. Marjorie Gunnoe and Claudia Beversluis. Shaped By God: Twelve Essentials for Nurturing Faith in Children, Youth, and Adults (Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2010) Robert Keeley, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005) Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton Will Our Children Have Faith? (HarperSanFrancisco, 1976) John H. Westerhoff III

New Program Equips Students for Leadership in the Church
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship announces the establishment of the Ministry Leadership Cohort—a two-year program available to incoming Calvin students who show potential for leadership in the local church. The initiative, open to students interested in any major or field of study, is available beginning with the 2019 incoming class.
Read more »

Youth Heading toward Your Church: Preparing the Path from Parachurch to Church
How can churches be ready to both disciple and learn from people who come to faith in parachurch ministries?
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Teenage Youth Worship Leaders: Wisdom for Teenagers and Those Who Mentor Them
Eric Mathis offers wisdom for teenage worship leaders and those who mentor them. This workshop, designed with teenagers and their mentors in mind, focuses on the task and responsibility of leading worship when those closest to us are present.
Read more »

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Do you remember the first time you prayed out loud in front of your friends? or sang in church?
For some people, it’s not a big deal.
For others, it’s an experience that takes a lot of courage.
When we worship God, it’s a personal time of reflection and gratefulness for all He’s done.
Use this lesson to teach preteens that how you express your worship is between you and God.
Looking for preteen ministry curriculum? Then be sure to check out our…
Exclusive Preteen Curriculum : Get one year of new and exclusive preteen ministry curriculum designed to help 4th-6th graders explore their faith and wholeheartedly follow Jesus.
Here’s a quick video about what makes our preteen curriculum unique:
Ok, now here’s the lesson on worship.
Bottom Line: Worship is between you and God.
Divide preteens into two groups, boys vs. girls will work well.
Each team will look over the playlist one at a time and choose a song.
Once they choose a song, they will “perform” the song for the opposing team.
The opposite team will try and guess the song by listening to it.
Here’s the Catch: Only give the opposing team 20-30 seconds of the song to listen to.
For every song they guess correctly, they get one point.
After all of the songs have been performed, tally the points for each team.
The winning team gets to choose a song from the list for the losing team to sing from the stage.
Say: That was so much fun… I mean who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned music battle?
But I really loved it when the losing team had to sing to the winning team.
It can be difficult to stand in front of a whole group of people and sing a song.
Especially, when those people are your friends.
For some of you, even singing in a group of people on Sundays at church can be tough because singing is kind of a personal thing.
There have been times I have looked around and I can see that some of you want to sing out but something is holding you back.
I want to let you in on a little secret… some adults have a hard time singing in front of other adults.
Say: Why do think it can be so hard for some people to sing during times of worship?
Give students an opportunity to respond.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about singing in church.
So, if it is so hard to sing then why is singing and worshiping together important?
Allow students a couple of minutes to respond.
When we have a relationship with God, we naturally begin to worship Him.
God provides for us, He protects us, walks with us, and guides us.
God is so involved in our lives, from the simple things to the most difficult things.
And, in return, we worship and love Him.
When we allow ourselves to truly worship Him it doesn’t have to be forced – it flows naturally.
So, now we know why we worship God, so the next question is, “how do we worship God?”
The Bible gives us many great examples of how we should worship and I want us to read one of those examples together.
    Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heaven!
    Praise him for his mighty works;
    praise his unequaled greatness!
    Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
    praise him with the lyre and harp!
    Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
    praise him with strings and flutes!
    Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
    praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
    Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!
Those verses told us quite a bit about worship, but music is just a small part of worshiping God.
We can worship Him through prayer, through giving, through serving, or anything that we do to show God we love Him.
But, for some people, the singing part can be the hardest.
These verses have something in common besides just the theme of music – they are also very loud musical instruments.
I believe that God intended for us to see that he wants us to worship Him loudly and boldly.
When we do that it can bring attention to us or people may look at us.
So, if all of us are worshiping Him loudly and boldly it doesn’t matter how we sound or look.
We only need to think about who we are worshiping.
And this brings us to our bottom line: “Worship is between you and God.”
God knows us better than anyone else and he knows that we worry about what others think of us.
But when we worship Him, he wants us to only worry about loving Him.
So, worship is just between you and Him.
Today, before small group time we are going to worship God… but in a little bit of a different way.
We have set up a couple of worship experiences for everyone.
There is a little music involved but don’t worry… you don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.
Each of these stations is designed for you to have some time to worship God, but just between you and Him.
This station is designed for preteens to have some time for preteens to see God’s beauty in all things.
Even during the times of their lives that are tough, we can still worship Him.
On a whiteboard write the following directions:
Next, instruct preteens to take a copy of the music lyrics and find a place to sit alone and listen to the song.
When they are ready, they will take a strip of the paper and marker and write out something they are struggling with, in their life.
When they are ready, they will pin it to the cork board and then take some time to talk with God.
Reflect on this: Even in hard times, God is so awesome and we can see the beauty in this world.
Have a leader ready to help preteens walk through these steps.
The purpose of this station is to help preteens understand that worship is so much more than singing.
Preteens will get a Bible and look up some or all of the verses.
Reflect on some of what the verses are saying and then create a picture or art project of what they mean to them.
Make sure they write the verses on their art.
When they are finished, they will find a leader to pray over the pictures with them.
Looking for preteen ministry curriculum? Check out our…
Exclusive Preteen Curriculum : Get one year of new and exclusive preteen ministry curriculum designed to help 4th-6th graders explore their faith and wholeheartedly follow Jesus.
Here’s a quick video about what makes our preteen curriculum unique:

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