The first of my Worship Leading Conversastions podcast series started this week. I sat down with my friend Jason Huffman, a youth director in Palestine, Texas. As part of his youth director duties, he leads the youth praise band. I asked him to share some of his thoughts about working with youth and how to go about teaching them, and encouraging them to become worship leaders.
To listen click play!
Download “Starting a Youth Worship Band From The Ground Up” by Jason Huffman
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Our bass player was playing at practice three weeks ago when her strap came off and her bass landed right on the input jack, busting the jack, solder joints, and a good portion of the body of the bass. I was not sure if the bass would be repairable or how long it would take to fix or for her family to replace.
So I got to thinking, “Do many youth programs and bands have instruments that belong to the church for the kids to play, or do all the kids play/bring their own gear? Our band uses all my gear including my PA, drum set, bass amp, and guitar amp and effects, but they play their own instruments (I play left handed). So, what do the rest of do with their youth bands? Do I need to look into buying some instruments and equipment through and for the church?
Jason Huffman is the youth director at Palestine FUMC. He shares his own thoughts about ministry and more on his blog.
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Leading a youth band is hard. It’s even harder if you are having to lead from the drumset. My friend Jason Huffman who has guest posted here before is looking for some advice in this area. Check out his post and leave a comment.
Jason’s guest posts include
Embracing Technology with Youth Bands
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So, you are ready to invest in a drum set for the youth room because your drummer is tired of lugging all 48 pieces of his kit to the church every Wednesday night. This is a move I would recommend if your drummer is a consistent part of your youth program and if you foresee his/her presence in the group for a while. If your drummer in your upstart program is a senior who will graduate in 6 months, this may not be a wise investment. If you decide to proceed, I would like to offer some suggestions in buying that youth building drum kit.
Maybe this will help you get the right kit for your youth building!
Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church, Palestine, TX
www.reachyouthministries.org
www.fumcpalestine.com
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For a young musician, drums can seem deceptively easy. After all, all you have to do is beat on things, right? What often happens is you get a kid who learns a basic 4/4 beat in his cousin’s bedroom and the next thing you know he wants to be in the praise team, which may or may not be a good thing for the group. So in this first practice, he plays the same “BOOM, BOOM, CRACK—BOOM, BOOM, CRACK” beat through every song of the set…after all, it’s all he knows. How do you help this young player harness his enthusiasm yet still make an artistic contribution to the group without overpowering? I see three things we can do to help the player and the band.
These are some simple, easy things that can make your new drummer’s experience in the praise band more rewarding and will help the group sound better. Any time there is a positive result, it will cause her interest to grow and she will begin wanting to learn more and practice more. What do you do to help your young musicians?
Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church, Palestine, TX
www.reachyouthministries.org
www.fumcpalestine.com
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The other night, the last night of a youth group mission trip, as a reward for a hard week of work, I carried the group to see a 3-D movie. The plot was cheesy and had a lot of holes. And if you tried to watch the movie in the conventional manner, it was blurry, the colors were blotchy, and honestly it would give you a headache. But when you put on the 3-D glasses, everything came to life. We immediately forgot about the cheesy plot. The once-blurry colors now came to life and not only blended crisp and clear, but actually jumped off the screen. Characters and objects projected on the wall seemed to float right in front of our lap…all because of a 99 cent pair of sunglasses.
As I left, I began to think about the contrast between the experience with the glasses and the mundane headache without them and realized that’s what leading worship is all about. As people, we worship a God that is truly amazing, yet we get so bogged down with “the worries of this life” (Matthew 13:32, Parable of the Sower) that we are often unable to see this great God we serve. Jesus said in John 10:10 that he came to give us abundant life. Part of creating meaningful worship experiences is to allow worshipers to put on their own set of 3-D glasses and see God for who he truly is and experience more of that abundant life. Worship is the lens by which many people see and experience God. Worship leading can make a huge impact on what people think and feel about God. Therefore, we should always put forth our best effort in planning our worship experiences—even when doing less is actually more. Yes, God will pick up the slack for our failures, but we should plan our worship services to the best of our ability.
Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Palestine, TX. He also works with the youth worship team.www.reachyouthministries.org
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I got the unexpected privilege of leading worship at a camp this week. A camp full of 8th grade graduates. I initially came and brought my guitar because 1) it was camp, and 2) they said they might do a beginner guitar course, and 3) they might need some help with worship. Well 10 minutes before the first worship service, the buck was passed to me to lead worship. There was no ace sound tech. The songs had been pre-selected for the worship services each night of the camp (and most of the songs were to be played on a CD). I did not have a direct box, chord charts on hard copy, or any of the worship stuff I normally take when I am leading. I had to “steal” a guitar amp from a guy who had planned on playing, but asked me to step in instead. (Side note: Any time a worship leader carries a guitar somewhere, if possible, he should take his direct boxes, a stash of cables and connectors, a laptop and a printer, all just in case! These items would have saved me later in the week!) The worship was on Power Point (that corresponded with the CD songs the camp curriculum had set up, so I was glued to the order in which the slides were set up. Also, we had a student from the camp who decided earlier in the day he could and would play drums. So, with no real sound check or run through, an unrehearsed rhythm section, we pulled off a hodge-podge of worship classics. Aside from “How Great is Our God”, the set was all standards from late 80s and early 90s. Almost all of the songs have been published in a hymnal already. But the most amazing thing happened. With mediocre playing, zero rehearsal time, no fancy worship software, and transitions with such awkward dead air that would make anyone uncomfortable, God showed up. You see, amidst our less-than-polished music set, the kids brought a powerful drama and some did a sign language set to a recorded song. At the end of the night, people could not quit talking about how powerful the worship was, and even how great the worship set was. It was evident that a full band was a luxury that was fairly new to the worshipers, let alone new songs that were less than 20 years old.
So my question is this? How contemporary is contemporary? Do we miss the forest for the trees sometimes in an effort to do the latest great worship songs, or use the latest great worship software program with the latest images and moving backgrounds? Or, is this strictly dependent on our audience? I believe 100% that in a changing technological world we should stay culturally relevant. In order to lead others to the throne of God, we have to be able to get their attention, right? And, as Kerri mentioned in an earlier post, it is not our job to make God show up. He just does it, in spite of our lacking. So where is the balance? What are your thoughts?
Contributed by Jason Huffman
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Last year I began a Tuesday night guitar class for some kids in my youth group who wanted to learn to play. Due to sheer time constraints, I had to discontinue my class. Some of the kids kept practicing while others lost the motivation they got from our weekly sessions. I recently began entertaining the idea of using video recording technology to create short guitar lessons for kids in my youth group. So, I tried it. This format will hopefully be good for those kids like me who hate reading tablature and books. This is approximately a 5-minute video that shows a 4-chord pattern in the key of E that can be played with the same finger pattern in several different positions on the neck of the guitar. This makes it an easy pattern to learn for a young guitar player. It is a perfect pattern for songs in E that use the E, A, B, and C#m chords. I use these chords in playing “Hungry”, “In the Secret”, “Better is One Day”, “Open the Eyes of My Heart”, “Let Everything that Has Breath”, and “Alle”, just to name a few. I hope this will be the first of several short lesson videos your young guitar players can play, pause, and rewind until they get it right. Here is the link:
In true Fork in the Road fashion, what online resources do you use in teaching the students in your youth band?
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With modern worship music being very rhythm-based, drums are almost an essential part of any youth praise team. The problem with a regular drum set is that it incorporates the feet as well as the hands. So if talent and ability is not an issue, coordination will be an issue for a young musician. If a young drummer is not very experienced or gifted, having that student play the same two or three beat patterns on a drum set may not be the best solution—it could cause the rest of your group to play around his limited arsenal of rhythm patterns and he will never expand his repertoire because the band has conformed to him. Another issue is that many students who learn percussion in a school setting are never taught to use their feet on drum set, and so even very talented players have a difficult time making the transition to the set. A few years ago, djembe drums became very popular and still are because they have a diverse range of low and high tones that can mimic a bass drum or snare without incorporating the feet. They are the perfect compliment to the acoustic guitar and can give worship sets that “unplugged” feel. Several years ago, though, at a Caedmon’s Call concert, during a more intimate set, I noticed their drummer sitting on this wooden box and playing it between his legs. It had the most amazing sound—a distinctively lower bass tone than a djembe and a more crisp higher “snare” sound as well. I asked him after the show what he was playing. He said it was a cajon (pronounced “ka HONE”).
Cajons are made several ways. Some are tubular and upright like a conga, others are more trapezoid shaped, but the square box style cajons have the nice low end sound that is perfect for acoustic worship. The distinguishing trait for a cajon is that it has a wooden head. Yes a wood head instead of a skin or synthetic skin head like other hand drums. Don’t let that fool you, though. You’ll be amazed at the tone you can get from that wooden head. They are available with adjustability options that allow you to tighten strings to modify the sound. One of the options they are available with or without a snare. The snare gives the drum a sound very similar to a snare drum when played near the top. A new cajon is available from Meinl that has an output jack where it can be plugged directly into a sound system. This link is to a nice, short instructional video on how to use the cajon. Small computer speakers don’t really do the low end of the recording justice, but you’ll get the idea.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v-IMARby9gA&feature=related
You probably won’t find a cajon at your local mom & pop music store, but they are available from the large music retailers (Guitar Center, MusiciansFriend, etc.) from $150 up to about $300. They are covered with nice wood finishes, some in very nice burlwood or siam oak, so I think they are easier on the eyes than a djembe and when not in use, you can use them like a little table.
Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Palestine, TX. For more information visit the youth website www.reachyouthministries.org Or the church website www.fumcpalestine.com
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One of the most difficult challenges in working with youth bands is dealing with students who are in the beginning phases of learning an instrument, particularly guitar or bass players. This can be frustrating for a youth worker/band leader who is an experienced player because you don’t want to spend a large portion of band rehearsal giving guitar lessons. Also, with a busy ministry schedule and family time, it’s difficult to start giving music lessons on a regular basis as part of your ministry program. So, I am entertaining the idea of using modern technology for teaching purposes.
I don’t know if this will work, but it sounds like it would. These days you can buy a webcam for about $30 or so. Would it be possible to buy a webcam and record one’s self playing various songs? With a webcam a person can see on his computer screen what he is recording. In theory could I record a fair resolution recording particularly with close-ups of chord fingerings of several guitar songs and burn them to a DVD using Windows Movie Maker? I know there are thousands of guitar instruction videos posted on youtube, so I know it can be done. I’m just not sure how.
Do you have any suggestions if I want to proceed with this? Also, will I need to buy a microphone in addition to the webcam, or does a USB webcam have audio capability? Also, would I be violating any copyright laws by recording a few chord progressions on a webcam?
If this works, in an hour or two, you could give an instructional guitar lesson on several worship songs that your students could rewind and play over again. What do you guys think? What advice can you give? Will it be more trouble than its worth?
Jason Huffman is the Director of Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Palestine, TX. For more information visit the youth website www.reachyouthministries.org Or the church website www.fumcpalestine.com
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