Should youth be allowed to serve on the worship team? (Copy)

Question:

"I need some help. Our lead pastor doesn't want teenagers on my main team. I disagree, but that's okay. The problem is we have some very gifted youth. Now, I know what most of you would think: okay, so just use them in youth worship. Problem is, we don't have a youth worship team, and it's not our youth pastor's vision to have one anyway, or the culture of our youth right now. I'm already stretched thin as it is and there is no one to build it in my place anyway. But that leaves nowhere for these youth to be used in their gifts or to be discipled. It feels gross to me. What should I do? Any ideas other than just wait to utilize them when they're adults?"

Answer:

So, I guess there's two questions here, maybe even three. The first question that I hear is, should we allow youth on our worship team?

Age Limits and Worship Team Requirements

Just picking up from that last question that I answered, I don't think that I set an age limit on the requirements to be on the worship team. Obviously, I don't think I want, like, a third grader who just picked up guitar leading worship on Sunday.

But my requirements are: if you are a believer, and if you've been coming to church for six months, then you can join my worship team. I think my age limit would probably be like high school. Like, I would let high school kids join my worship team. I don't know if I have a strong argument behind that, but I would definitely allow “youth” to be on my worship team. So, from that perspective, yeah, I'm kind of in agreement that this person is like, I don't see why younger people can't be on the worship team as long as they're a believer.

So, maybe you just need to talk through that with your pastor and be like, you know, hear what their thoughts are. Like, if this person is a believer, can God not use young people just as he can use you or I? I understand that they might not be as mature as a believer just because they're younger, but they can still be a believer at the age of 16, so God could use them. So, I would let a youth member on my worship team.

Submitting to Pastoral Leadership

The second question that I hear, which wasn't specifically asked in this post, was what do I do when my pastor says to do something and I don't agree with it?

And I think at the end of the day, unless something is completely unbiblical, then we submit to our pastor's leadership because our pastor is the one who is ultimately responsible for the church.

So, if that is a decision that they aren't willing to budge on, then I think it's our job as other leaders in the church to submit to our pastor's vision as long as it's not unbiblical.

So, is this unbiblical? I wouldn't say that it's necessarily unbiblical. I just disagree with it. And I'm sure that your pastor has reasons behind why they're doing it. They don't just hate the youth in your church.

So, understand this is something I think about all the time. Like, leaders in the church who are maybe higher up on the organizational scale than you, they have a bigger picture of what's going on in the church than you do at your current position.

I liken it to when a church member comes up and gives me a song suggestion. They're just like, I like this song, and I want to sing it. They don't understand that when I pick out songs for the entire set list or my entire repertoire, I'm thinking through multiple facets of things. Like, I'm making sure that we're hitting on specific theological points. I'm making sure that we have a good balance of songs about us responding to God, theologically rich songs that teach us doctrine, those sorts of things. And they're just like, “I like this song.” So, they don't have the full picture of the worship ministry. Likewise, when our pastors make a decision like that, sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, they have a bigger picture than what we have, and so we have to submit to that.

Getting Youth Involved and Addressing Burnout

Part three of the question: how do we get these kids involved?

Well, number one, I mean, I don't see why you wouldn't have a youth team if you have the capacity to do it. Why wouldn't you raise that up? And maybe that looks like having your youth come to your normal worship rehearsal. Like, maybe you don't specifically have a youth rehearsal, but you have these kids come and just join you for rehearsal, and then maybe other leaders in your church will see that there is interest there.

I also hear that this person's burnt out. Like, you're burnt out and you've got a lot going on already, so you can't do it. And so, I hear that you know, we have to balance those things in ministry. You can't do everything in ministry. I think any good leader has more ideas than they have the capacity to fulfill. So, that's actually a sign of good leadership when you're just content with where you're at and you're like, “Man, I wish I could do this, this, this, and this at the same time.”

As leaders, good leaders decide what is important and focus on those things. So, decide what's important. Maybe, maybe you feel burnt out, but there are, you know, four other things that you're doing that you don't really need to be doing, and maybe this is more important. So, you get rid of those four other things and focus on leading the youth worship team. Where could you get them involved? Maybe they're allowed to lead on a Wednesday night gathering at your church. Maybe you could get this team ready and then show your youth pastor that these kids can lead so they can lead a couple songs during their youth group time. I mean, those seem like the most obvious places. I don't know where else they would lead in your church other than a Sunday morning or at youth group. I mean, I don't think that that's that weird to have a youth group band lead worship at youth group. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. So, maybe your youth pastor just doesn't see the vision for that yet.

Or a lot of times, leaders in ministry think if somebody's asking about something, then they just want me to do it. So, if you take the initiative and build the worship team, then your worship pastor will understand that this is just a tool that they have in their ministry that they can use, and they didn't have to develop it or anything.

So, those are my thoughts on youth in worship.