Fork In The Road Music » Worship

We’re a Traveling Youth Band, 5 Ways We are Better For It

Russell Martin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:12:04 +0000

I have been working with our youth worship team for a little over 4 years now. In that time we have mostly played for our own youth evening programs and a few Sunday Mornings. This past summer that began to change. In June we had a District Youth Week. Several churches volunteered to sponsor a night of youth week by planning an activity, meal etc, but we also wanted to make sure worship was a part of each night. Since most of the participating churches did not have a youth worship team, they asked if our team could play.

Our team did play, did a great job, and I noticed that the act of playing outside our walls forced us to get better in different ways.

1. Efficient Setup- During the youth week we basically had about 30 minutes after arrival to get set up, sound check and be ready. Now I will not pretend that the set up was perfect, sound system dialed in, but we were able to play, hear ou selves and be heard. The team worked together to make sure that all the cords went into the right slots, the instruments got set up in the right place, and that we were ready to go.

2. Song Selection- When we were not playing often we would rehearse any number of songs. When we started playing for other groups we quickly took our list of 30 songs we could do and narrowed it down to about 15 songs we do well. This gave us enough to lead a few days of services without repeating too many, but without introducing too many new ones either.

3. More Involvement- When we began to travel we found that more people became involved in the youth band. We had the same number of singers and instrumentalist, but suddenly extra ways for youth to become involved began to surface. One of our girls took the responsibility to make slides for the screens. A few youth helped with set up and tear down.

4. Growing Together-Finally I think that playing outside our walls has helped our group to grow closer together. Long drives in close quarters, the stress of setting up and tearing down, having to make choices as a group of songs etc, all have allowed opportunities for our kids to learn how to work as a team, and grow closer as a team.

5. Sense of Accomplishment and Confidence-When I come to the band and tell them that we’ve been asked to play somewhere special you can see their eyes light up. Playing for others gives them a chance to receive words of encouragement from someone else besides me. I know they do a great job, and I try to tell them often, but it’s different when it comes from someone they don’t know, or just met.

Does your youth worship team play outside your church walls? What benefits have you seen?

Youth Band: Three Things to Check Before Beginning After Summer Break

Russell Martin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:49:11 +0000

Our youth program, like many others, takes on a different schedule for the summer. With all the trips and unusual schedule we found it hard to keep up with our Youth Band over that same period of time. Now summer has come to an end and it’s time to get going again.

You also may be done with the hectic travel of the summer and are beginning to gear up for the school year. So what do get ready for your youth band to start playing again? Here are just a few ideas:

1. Equipment Check- Where did the kick pedal for the drum set go after your last service… 3 months ago? Are the bass strings still good after sitting out the same time? Did the adult praise team return the extra monitor they borrowed? One of the first things to do is to check and make sure that you have everything located and in working order. This is the time to replace strings on church owned instruments, purchase batteries needed for microphones, and to check all cables.

One way is to do this yourself. The other way is to get several of your youth band members together on a day when you will not be rehearsing. Have them sort, check, find and prepare their instruments. The more responsibility they take, the better.

2. Music Check- Where are your folders of music from last year? Are you planning on doing the same songs from last year? What new songs are you wanting to start off with when rehearsals begin? Last year I wrote about the process we use to evaluate our overall song list. It helps us to determine which songs we know we can play immediately, which ones we want to work on, and those that need a well deserved rest.

3. People Check- Two of our vocalists graduated and are heading off to college. Another member has moved away to another town. Now is the time to be thinking about how to replace those members. Whether you have a try out process, or you personally ask students, now is the time to fill those holes. At one church I had two youth bands. One was a learning band, and the other led on a regular basis. When we lost a member in the band, we had a member ready to step up and take their spot.

Does your youth band even take off during the summer? Why or why not?

Read more posts relating to Youth Worship Teams.

Check out my friend Jason Huffman’s thoughts on Youth Worship Bands, including last year’s post about Taking the Summer Off

Simple Worship Stage Design Ideas

Russell Martin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:07:49 +0000

You may think that designing the background for your worship stage, platform, or venue takes a lot of know how, and a lot of money. Over the past few years we have found neither of those things to be true. We have found that by shopping and finding some material on sale or for free, creating some of our own weights and ties, and through lots of experimenting, we could come up with some cool, meaningful designs for our worship area.

Here are some photos from the most recent set that my wife put together.

The fabric draping down from the right corner is a heavy, elastic fabric which is held up by cafe clips and nylon rope. At each point there is a black rope going over the top and tied to a weight on the back.

The two pieces of fabric in the front are a spandex type fabric which we found on sale. We tied each corner again using cafe clips, a weight and nylon rope, or heavy fishing line.

We finished it off by placing the lights to where they hit the fabric in different ways.

The most expensive part of course is the colored lights, but a nice effect can be obtained with out them by using some regular spots, or lights.

Our goal is to keep experimenting and trying new things. As we do I’ll try to share what we learn with you.

In the mean time here are some great sites that I have used to find ideas, from people who have been doing this much longer, and are far better than I am. Enjoy.

Church Stage Design Ideas

Designing for Philistines

Flickr Creative Elements Design Warehouse

What sites do you use to get ideas?

Do you design your stage? Send a link and share your ideas!

50 Free Worship Backgrounds

Russell Martin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:57:58 +0000

Here is a set of 56 free photos that you can use as worship backgrounds. Each one has been cropped to 4:3 ratio for use with your worship slides. Just click the following link which takes you to my flickr site.

4:3 Worship Backgrounds

While there feel free to check out these other photos you might be able to use.

Textures- 44 phot os of different textures. Not cropped to 4:3 ratio

Water- 14 water themed photos

Flowers and Plants- 61 Nature themed photos

Your 4 Favorite Recent Posts.. and The Stories Behind Them

Russell Martin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:12:57 +0000

Recently there have been a few posts that have seemed to have caught your attention. These are the most read, and most commented posts I have had in the past 30 days…

Free Background- Palm Trees— I wrote this over a year ago as part of a series of free backgrounds I was offering. For some reason in the past month many of you have read and downloaded them.

Wearing Hats in Worship. Big Deal?— I started this with a question on facebook. How do you feel about hats in worship, especially youth, camp etc…? This post was my compilation of your thoughts, with my own thoughts on the topic. Very interesting.

Top Ten Iphone Apps I Use for Ministry- Upon purchasing a new iphone, a friend of mine asked me, as a pastor, what are some good apps for him to use. That prompted me to write this post. It includes some links to other top 10 iphone app lists as well.

Four Problems Bigger than the Iphone Antenna. and What You Can Do- Wrote this one only a few days ago. The whole idea is that there are much bigger problems in the world we should be writing about, being vocal about, and doing something about, than cell phone antennas.

Worship Recap 05.02.10

Russell Martin — Tue, 04 May 2010 05:21:59 +0000

Usually our Sunday morning services consist of an 8:15 traditional service, and then 10:30 Sanctuary and 10:30 Xperience services run at the same time. From time to time, for special occasions in the life of the church, we will combine the 10:30 services into one worship service. This past Sunday, Senior Sunday, was one of those occasions.

We set up the Xperience band in the sanctuary using my Bose tower speaker, and soundboard. We ran all the instruments, bass, drums, keys, acoustic, and 4 vocals, straight into the board. This helped us not have to reconfigure the sound system in that space for just one week.

The service started off with a combined selection of All in All with the Xperience Band and Sanctuary Choir. We took the choir’s arrangement and wrote out a lead sheet for the band. The band added some bass, strings and light drums to the arrangement. It all worked together nicely.

The rest of the songs we did were led by the Xperience Band. Since we did not have screens in the Sanctuary, and since we wanted to do familiar music for all involved, we chose songs from the Methodist Hymnal or Faith We Sing books that we had contemporary arrangements for.

We took time to recognize our Graduating Seniors, and also took communion. It was nice to share communion all in one location, at one table, at one time.

Here was our list:

All In All

Lord I Lift Your Name on High

Jesus Paid it All

Here I Am Lord

Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy

Does your church have different worship styles? Have you tried a combined service? How has that worked?

To see what other services did this week check out Sunday Setlists at The Worship Community

Don’t Worry, I Know Where You Are

Russell Martin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:39:15 +0000

A friend of mine shared the story of one of his daughters driving adventures. The story goes that she was returning home from being across town late one evening. After a wrong turn somewhere here or there, she found herself among unfamiliar surroundings. Frantically, she called her dad and told him what was going on. She explained that she had gotten turned around somewhere and did not know where she was or what way to go. After getting her to calm down, he asked her to describe what was around her. She told him and then said, “But Dad, I still don’t know where I am” to which he replied, “That’s ok. Don’t worry. I do.”

That story comes back to me many times and offers comfort. Times when I have an important decision to make. Times when things come against me. Times when I feel lost and don’t know what to do, who to trust, or where to turn.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight”

When I read that verse I realize that I don’t have to know where I am. I don’t have to know where I am going. I do have to trust that God knows.

It is in those times that I hear the conversation again, but in a new way.

I can say, ”Dad, I don’t know where I am”

and hear this reply, ”Don’t worry, It’s ok.. I do!”

Youth Worship Teams: Be Creative by Not Leading?

Russell Martin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:35:55 +0000

This past year our schedule for youth has changed, and our youth band is not leading worship for the youth as often as we once had. This has given me a great opportunity to try something new. Being Creative!

Since we do not have the schedule of having to work up songs for the next week, we now use our weekly rehearsals to work on a variety of things.

1. Work on Solo Songs- It’s been great to work on some songs that we would not necessarily use to lead worship, but could use in services sometime. These also would be great when our group goes outside of the church to play. Maybe it’s something by Switchfoot, Jars, or Fee the kids have heard and brought in.

2. Try Out New Songs- The youth have had a blast just bringing in music to try. We’ll listen to it and play through it a few times. Sometimes we like it and put it in a folder to work on later. Sometimes we say Nahh!! and move on.

3. Test New Styles of Songs- With this freedom we have also been able to try different styles, instrumentations, arrangements etc… Maybe its a style we don’t normally play, or even switching up instruments to try something different.

What do you do to get the creative juices flowing?

What the Texas Longhorns Taught Me About Leading My Worship Team

Russell Martin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:43:46 +0000

Last night, along with millions of others, I watched the BCS national championship and learned a valuable lesson.
First let me catch some of you non football fans up. Early in the first quarter the Longhorns quarterback, Colt McCoy went down with a shoulder injury. He never returned to the game. Colt McCoy had led the team all season. He had the timing down with his receivers, he was comfortable with the Running backs and he knew all the plays. He was Texas’ best hope against a powerful Tide defense. All of the sudden the man in charge on the field was gone, and a true freshman, Garrett Gilbert, had to step in to take his place.

So what happened? First they didn’t panic. They changed some plays, had some other team members step up, the defense kept them close, the team rallied around their new captain and they played football. The result was a second half comeback to within three points at one point, in a game all thought was lost.

Why did a game that could have been a washout stay close? Because when one man went down there was a back up plan. There was a quarterback who had played, knew the routes and was able to step in. It might not have been ideal, but the game went on.

So what did I learn? What does this have to do with worship leading? I had to ask myself what would happen if the same thing happened to me. What about you?

What if I woke up on a Sunday morning and couldn’t sing? What if you were stranded somewhere by weather and couldn’t make it back in time? What if a kid goes in the hospital and you cannot be in on Sunday morning? What is your backup plan? Is your team set up to continue on without you? As I thought five main things came to mind.

1. Don’t build everything around you!-Make sure that you are not indispensable. It’s not about you anyways so just get over it. If everything relies on you to make it happen then when you are gone, everything falls apart.

2. Create backup songlists- go through your songs and identify ones that other members of your group can lead, and that your instrument is not necessary on. They may not be the songs you would ideally use, but a good list can be created and used for that Sunday. I try to set some of those songs aside and not include them in my regular lists, so they are not over done when needed.

3. Develop multiple leaders- This is an extension of number one. You should work to have several worship leaders. One goal I have is to work with each of my vocalists and give them the tools they need to lead an entire worship service. This means being sensitive to flow, signaling the band, speaking, praying, and choosing songlists.

4. Don’t assign specific songs to people- Something I have gotten in a bind with was when I had certain songs only certain people sing. There are some that we still do this way but they are mostly our offertory non worship set type songs. The majority of our worship songs I try to have different people lead. This way if a certain person is gone, we can still use that song if necessary.

5. Schedule time away before an emergency- Try to schedule time when you are not on stage leading but are still around to help and provide confidence. Maybe take a week and, wait for it, sit with your family during the worship service. When is the last time that happened? I have often sat out during the first part of a service, and then led during the second half. This does two things. First you get a perspective on how things sound from the floor and how people are responding that you cannot see from the stage. Secondly it allows others to lead, without you on stage, so that if an emergency makes it necessary, they can lead in your absence.

While football fans will have to wait till next season for the next National Championship run, you can begin now to implement some of these ideas. And these are just my suggestions. What are yours? What do you do to ensure that it all goes on with out you? What fears do you have about being gone? I would love your comments…