Know Your Group

37. Know the songs they love. Constantly survey your students, asking which songs best communicate to them and help them worship God. If you're invited to lead worship in another group, do your research. Find out their favorite styles and favorite worship songs. For a retreat, you can teach a lot of songs during the week. For a one-time shot, you'd better have a good mix of songs they already know. I've seen talented leaders get nowhere with a group because the youth weren't familiar with any of their songs.

38. Know their worship culture. A professional worship team came to my Christian college to lead a worship service. On weekends they led worship at a successful fundamentalist church that apparently equated loud singing with authentic worship. Our student culture worshiped best by singing at our own reflective volume. The leader, probably thinking we were spiritually dead, urged us to "sing out to the Lord." The more he tried to whip up enthusiasm, the more artificial he seemed, and the more embarrassed we all became - a classic example of failing to understand a worship culture.

Your picture of the perfect worship service (hands held high, jumping up and down with delighted facial expressions) may differ markedly from your group (head down, eyes closed, reclining on bean bags, softly reflecting the lyrics back to God). Ignore these differences and only the most flexible in your group will meet God in worship.

39. Know and love your kids. A leader stepped up to teach. He wasn't the most polished speaker. I quickly lost his main point among his jumble of ideas. But the kids loved him. They hooped and hollered to welcome him on stage and screamed to congratulate him as he left. Why? Because he spent time with the kids during the week and they loved him. Time spent loving on the worshipers during the week will pay rich dividends when you lead at the youth meeting. They'll forgive your mistakes and celebrate your successes. No amount of talent can make up for a distant, proud leader.

Control Distractions

40. Educate your kids on worship each week. Constantly reinforce what worship is and how to worship and you'll prevent many distractions. Without instruction, most kids see music as a background to their social activities. Thus, many aren't trying to be disrespectful by socializing during the worship. They're doing what comes natural.

Each week, I recommend reinforcing why we're doing what we're doing. Saying something between every song is overkill. But why not say, after an opening kicking song, "I hope you're having fun tonight, because worship can be fun. But I just want to remind you that this is a time for us to forget about ourselves, forget about the people around us, and give God the attention that He's due. I challenge you to not distract anyone around you, to forget about yourself, and concentrate on singing these words with us to God."

41. Have respected, spiritually-minded, college-aged people positioned well throughout the audience. First of all, they can set the pace for worship. This is not the time for your adult leaders to huddle in the back for fellowship. Urge them to dive into the worship with their hearts. When the kid who's about to shoot a spit wad sees that the 20-year-old next to him has his hands up in worship, he may put the straw back into his pocket out of embarrassment.

Second, challenge your adults with good relational skills to control serious distractions. The least confrontational the better. Often, simply walking up and sitting next to the distracting kid will do the trick. Someone may have sit next to the wired ADD kid who just consumed a quart of coffee, tap him politely on the shoulder and say, "Hey, by tackling your friends and putting chewing gum in their hair, you're kind-of distracting my worship. Why don't you try to experience some real worship with me?" Getting the adult leaders involved frees the leader from having to call down hecklers from the stage.

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