Once upon a time, not very many summers ago, I was sitting in the back row of a large Vineyard church with a 2,000-plus-seat auditorium. It was filled with youth ministry students from all over the Midwest, all anxiously awaiting the opportunity to spend a week serving our city. For this conference, the singing worship leader was one of the best; there was a great band and great lighting.

Up front, there were three extremely large video screens with multiple, smaller TV monitors placed artistically on stage just for this week of camp. All the accoutrements of culturally relevant, “sweet” worship were there. The organizers hoped students would experience an amazing time of worship.

But there were some problems.

First, it was the very first evening of the week-long conference. Some kids had traveled hundreds of miles; they were excited about leaving home and getting to learn about serving a city for Jesus. They were hyped up with too much caffeine and already tired. It was the first night, and it went on and on.

Then, the worship leader asked them to sing songs of love to Jesus personally—full-blown, intense, intimate worship through singing. No one had told my students, or anyone else for that matter, why we were doing these things, or why the people getting really emotional were OK. My kids, from our high Anglo-Catholic Episcopal church, didn’t understand the context. As I looked around the room that night, kids were just standing and staring at the leader or their friends or finding other less “acceptable” ways to amuse themselves. (I know you’ve been there.) More than half the room had no clue what to do or why.

I wanted them to experience this, but this was way too intense.

Some of my students were sitting on the back row counting how many times we sang the hook-line of a certain song. “Hey, Lil,” one of them called to me, “we sang that 81 times. …”

They were bored out of their minds. They definitely were not worshiping. They were not connecting with Jesus. In fact, they were wondering what all of this emotion was for. Was it real?

After all the effort I’d put into getting these kids to this event over the last six months, they were mocking the music and the lyrics. Great. What a wonderful way to begin the week!

Defining How We Define Worship

What went wrong? For starters, this worship experience was too “intimate” too fast.

I’d love to know the number of students who would actually sing a love song, out loud, at the top of their lungs, in the middle of their peers to someone they had met 10 minutes before that. Not many! So why do we ask our students to sing love songs really loud to Jesus? What if they don’t know Him yet, or can’t sing, or their voices are changing?

What if this isn’t really worship to them? What if it isn’t really culturally relevant to them at all?

What if how we define worship really does matter?

Going Beyond Singing

If so, then where do we go? Let’s go get a coffee and move over to the side of the room and get real. Here’s what I mean:

* We all know singing isn’t the only way to worship, but that message hasn’t gotten through to most youth workers or worship leaders. There are a million ways to worship God, so why don’t we use the other 999,999?

* Music is a huge part of our kids’ lives, but they’re hardly ever spectators with their music. They don’t really like to be spectators about anything, do they?

Don’t tell anyone, but singing in church isn’t necessarily participation. We’ve got to allow our kids to design and do, not stand and watch. If they are designing and doing for God, the negative impact of the pop culture will be lots smaller.

* How do our kids develop intimacy? Maybe they would text message, or IM, or invite someone to become their Facebook friend. Let’s create ways that even ninth-grade boys can begin a relationship with Jesus.

We need to do this because you and I secretly believe everyone has a built-in hunger for God. They want to experience God and know and believe and feel that He loves them back. They want to be able to express their love for God and truly worship Him. Even if they don’t sing.

* Both sides of this discussion know our church language says worship and music are the same. A worship leader is really a singer/musician. Having great worship equals great music. We both are committed to changing this language that is destructive to our kids and ourselves. We both see that how we define worship determines who gets to participate—everyone or only the music types? We’ll fight for everyone, even seventh-grade boys.

But we both have lots of expectations from leaders, parents, pastors, and boards to have more kids and look more successful like the big church down the street. So this change will take place slowly and behind the scenes. Being creative and allowing everyone to participate is harder, more time-consuming, and needs to be a listening process. We need to know there are others on this journey, and there are ideas that can honestly help our students engage God that go beyond singing.

‘Curating’ Your Student Worshipers

So let me buy you a cookie and help get you started.

First, involve your students in planning your gatherings. Begin by asking them about their interests: art, video, photography, music, hiking, video games, TV, sports, whatever. If you honor their interests and find ways to integrate them into the life of your group, then you enable many more students to come alive and see they are valuable to Jesus.

Maybe the job of the worship leader, the job of the youth pastor, is to curate worship like someone who works in an art gallery, hanging paintings and creating a display. You curate student artists! Who are your artists, your poets, your techies, your organizers, your creative visualizers? Who are those who naturally think outside the box?

Begin to invite them to play.

What if a techie type has a video camera and a buddy is an indie-music expert? Have them create a video with a soundtrack on your upcoming topic.

What if someone writes a poem or a prayer that you all can pray aloud together? How about having an artist in your group create a piece for your next theme?

When you incorporate other gifts besides music into the mix, it screams to the students that using their gifts toward God is valuable. You slay the church-culture monster one week at a time.

So take the time to start learning what the gifts of your students are and help them see how they can use them in worship.

Expecting Surprises

As you curate your group, expect to be surprised. Even though it seemed that few, if any, of my students really had worship skills when I began—and even though there were only 15 of them—I got some real surprises. If you have 100 kids, this could be real fun, real fast!

Soon you’ll discover the many colors on your palate and you’ll have them expressing their hearts (who they’ve been created to be) to Jesus. Music and singing will take a position as a part of the spectrum of gifts, not the only one.

By the way, those kids who sat on the back row and counted words were there because they’d been invited to share their gifts with the conference. They created an experiential prayer room filled with prayer stations where students engaged God, with all of their senses through interactive/experiential worship. But that’s a story for the next time we do coffee.

Resources
Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations (Youth Specialties, 2004).Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations (Zondervan, 2003).
Jonny Baker and Doug Gay with Jenny Brown, Alternative Worship: Resources from and for the Emerging Church (Baker, 2003).
Steven Case, The Book of Uncommon Prayer: Contemplative and Celebratory Prayers and Worship Services for Youth Ministry and The Book of Uncommon Prayer 2: Prayers and Worship Services for Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties, 2006).
Jonathan Norman and Gavin Richardson, Worship Feast: 100 Readings, Rituals, Prayers, and Guided Meditations (Abingdom, 2005).
Tony Jones, Divine Intervention: Encountering God Through the Ancient Practice of Lectio Divinia (Th1nk Books, 2006).
———, Postmodern Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties, 2001).
———, Read, Think, Pray, Live: A Guide to Reading the Bible in a New Way (Th1nk Books, 2003).
———, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life (Youth Specialties, 2005).
———, Soul Shaper: Exploring Spirituality and Contemplative Practices in Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties, 2003).
Jenny Baker, Transforming Prayers: 40 Unique Experiences for Youth Ministry (Group, 2003).
Mike King, Presence-Centered Youth Ministry: Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation (InterVarsity, 2006).
Mike Yaconelli, Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus (Youth Specialties, 2006).