Using Church Services to Build Youth

USING CHURCH SERVICES TO BUILD YOUTH

Introduction

C

hurch services are building/discipling events that already occur within the church/youth ministry. But how effective are they in building Community, in Learning, Worship, Service and Evangelism?

If we hope to integrate youth into the worship services and know that they are growing, a great deal of change will need to takes place.

‘In many instances the church is a cultural ghetto, a group of people using practices, terms, music and imagery which only the initiated understand. We sing hymns, which must boggle most visitors’ minds. What would they make of the words, ‘I’ve been washed in the blood from Emmanuel’s veins?’. Hardly a positive image! These hymns and many like them bring great strength and comfort to the experienced churchgoer, but are devoid of meaning in today’s culture.’ Karl Faase.

Bringing this change will result in the worship services of the church providing opportunity for youth to be BUILT up in their faith. The following are key areas we need to address in order for us to integrate youth into the church.

1. Involve Youth in the Services

Here we are encouraging community as well as service to take place.

Our aim should be as far as possible to include youth in the church’s corporate worship services. Youth want to be involved in the Church. If young people arrive at church and are only spectators they feel distant and separated form what is happening. Youth need to feel needed. They also want to feel like they are making a difference.

‘There is a difficult tension here for church leaders and worship co-ordinators: the need to involve young people must be balanced with the importance of doing things well. Young people are enthusiastic, but their inexperience means that they are often not as competent in up front leadership as older people. They often make inappropriate comments because of their lack of maturity and wisdom. Many churches opt for damage control, confining young people to the pews. While this may be the safe route, it does not help young people to feel part of the church and it fails to train them for leadership. With thought and careful planning young people can be coached into upfront leadership roles in church services without reducing the quality of the service. The net result can be positive both for the young person involved and for the churches it gains a young and vital feel.’ Karl Faase

“Teens need to be involved and the church needs them to be involved in active ministry. Every parish who wishes to build a disciple-making youth ministry must commit their energy, time and resources to empowering teens for leadership and service”. Mercadante

1.1 What are different ways in which you think you could involve them in a church service?

______

Other Ideas:

Include youth in the Worship Ministry through:

·  Worship Leading The average church today would never allow a teenager to lead worship. This is a ministry ‘for adults’. Many would beg to differ. With good training and clear supervision teenagers have the potential to be very good worship leaders. Our subconscious belief that youth have a MINI Holy Spirit in them results in us not using them in their gifting. We can and should use youth if they are gifted in this area.

·  Singing

Have a broad mix of ages leading the singing – including young people.

·  Playing Instruments

Encourage youth to learn instruments and then give them opportunity to play. Provide supervision until they have proven their skill and faithfulness.

·  Running the sound desk

Have youth with a good ear for music trained up in how to run the sound/mixing desk.

·  Practical media team

There are a number of practical things that need to be done for a worship team to function in the service. i.e. overhead projector or computer needs to operate, musical equipment needs to be arranged, etc. Youth can be used to help with all of the above and more.

·  Through the arts

Use youth through drama, musical items and dance

·  Background Serving: For every service to take place there are a number of things that need to take place, youth can assist in these tasks. When we give someone a responsibility we encourage them to attend and also to feel a part of what is happening. A few examples:

Water for the preacher, collecting communion cups after communion, setting out any equipment needed by the preacher, sweeping the church, arranging flowers for the church, etc.

·  Visible Serving: These are things that take place while the worship service is happening. For example:

Welcoming people, showing people to their seats, collecting the offering, handing out communion, reading the Scripture passage, etc…

·  Including youth through sharing or preaching

Use youth to share their Testimonies, Poems or even preach. Use youth only to preach if they have proven they have the necessary gifting. Train them up before they are given this opportunity.

2. Contemporary worship:

Here we are encouraging adoration to take place.

Churches that are trying to do Church in the 2000’s as they did Church in the 1960’s will not encourage youth to come, integrate youth or grow them.

Youth are characterised by an unwritten law that says, “Change is important”. Worship that does not take this into account will struggle to have an effect on the youth of today.

With this in mind we need to note that the whole direction of worship has changed over the years. In the past worship services focused on a proclamation of the truths of Scripture. Today youth want to encounter the living God through worship far more than wanting to sing truths about Him. If we hope to integrate youth only trough liturgy and the great hymns of the faith - we will not achieve this our goal.

‘Making the worship experience vital is an important part of responding to youth culture. Much of traditional worship is slow and contemplative by nature. The worship service moves quietly in an orderly way, usually to a set pattern. Reverence is an important ingredient. If we are to build worship services that are accessible to young people, they must major on vitality rather than predictability. The order of service, the music and the communication must be tinged with excitement and expectancy.’ Karl Faase.

2.1 What could you do to make the worship more contemporary for young people?

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Other ideas:

Contemporary Worship needs to…

·  Continuously incorporate new songs:

Use songs of the past and include new, contemporary songs – ones that are energetic too – not hype.

·  Be multi-faceted:

Singing is not the only way we can worship. One can encourage the use of multi-faceted worship by including other forms of worship. i.e. open prayer, testimonies of what God has been doing in the life of those in the service, times of silent refection or prayer, readings or quoting Scripture, worship dancing, drama, musical items, communion.

·  Have a varied structure:

Try varying the worship programmes. The more you include different elements of worship and the more you encourage the uses of the 5 senses, the more room you will create for variation in your worship.

·  Have a range of instruments:

Include as many instruments as you can.

·  Be professional:

Ensure that those leading worship (singers, musicians, etc) are well prepared for the worship service. It is also important that the actual service is well run and not sloppy.

3. Communication of the Word:

Here we are encouraging nurture to take place as well as evangelism at times.

If we plan to integrate youth into the broader worship services of the Church we will need to take a serious look at the way we communicate the Word. The Word must be contemporary and obviously have a Biblical foundation. Youth come out of a culture where they are given snippets of information. Their average attention span has decreased as a result of the modern media.

Thus, we cannot expect them to sit and concentrate for hours on a monologue sermon. ‘Every speaker must continue to struggle with these two issues: building the message on Biblical foundations as well as working on content, which will capture the hearts and minds of listeners. If we are striving to build a vital worship service the message must be contemporary in content. It must contain contemporary examples, especially local examples and deal with current issues. If we are to capture the attention of a generation reared on a culture of television, it is imperative to make a commitment to excellence in communication’. Karl Faase.

3.1 What could you do to make the communication of the word contemporary for young people?

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Other ideas:

Effective communication of the word to youth will need…

·  Interactive delivery:

It has been said: “You tell me, I forget: You show me, I remember: You involve me, I understand”. Most effective teachers and trainers will tell us that the best way to train is to involve people and the most ineffective way is to do it lecture style. Effective communicating of the Word to youth will have to find ways to involve youth. Ways we can do this is through: asking questions during the message, allow open times when questions can be asked, use drama to illustrate points, have discussion groups around issues and then feedback, etc.

·  Use visual aids:

“Show me and I remember” – as has already been stated, the youth have grown up in a visual world. Television, videos, movies, and magazines are the world they are used to Youth of today cannot relate to the Church because it is so different from their world. In our presentation of the truth we are to hold the attention of the youth. Listen to the following: ‘Young people expect high quality, fast moving, visually orientated and personally relevant information. Television is only the tip of the iceberg; consider rock concerts, video machines, computer games, films, teenage entertainment centre and teen magazines. All these different kinds of media are not only informing young people but forming and reinforcing a youth culture.’ Karl Faase

·  Keep it brief:

We are told that people’s concentration span is about one minute for every year of their life. We do not encourage youth to grow when the message is too long. Work on the average in the audience. This will mean that when communicating the Word one should try and keep it around 30 minutes.

·  Application:

In ‘7 Laws of the Learner’ Bruce Wilkinson points out how Paul’s writings have half content and the other half application. As we communicate the Word we need to help youth apply the truth to their lives. The average young person will not leave the service and go “how can I apply this to my life?” unless told. The more practical application given during the message the more we help youth relate to the content being preached on. We can help them apply it through a number of ways: Give them one thing to do the following week that applies to the message, have them break into groups for the last five minutes of the service and discus the truth and what needs to happen as a result of it, have coffee together after the service and talk about the application of the message, have a time of body ministry at the end of the message where people can be prayed for or counselled, etc…

·  Use outside preachers:

It is always good to include good youth preachers in the preaching programme of your church. Ask the pastor if at least once a quarter you can have an outside preacher for the youth particularly for the youth.

4. Planned pre or post Service:

Here we are encouraging community to take place.

There is more possibility of youth attending the corporate worship service if we provide some form of fellowship/social for them to enjoy. Most worship services do not encourage fellowship, people come and the meeting takes place and then people go. Youth are concerned about who will be there as well as what will we do. It is important that we provide a time of fellowship to meet the need they have.

4.1 What could you do to make sure that there is fellowship/community taking place after or before the service?

Other ideas:

If you are going to be effective in pre or post service community you could

·  Provide Informal interaction:

Provide an opportunity for youth to fellowship through some form of informal meeting before or after the service. This must be a time for youth to hang out and talk. It is works well to have coffee available and can be at the church or at someone’s home. Have special thing like pancakes or waffles every now and then to attract new youth to the corporate worship service. Make a big thing of these evenings – food attracts youth. You may also have games going, music playing, etc.

As you have seen, if we are wise in how we run services in our churches, we will be able to build young people.