In my experience the majority tends to predominately be Sr. Highers, leaving the Jr. Highers as the minority. I think we can all agree that Jr. High, and Sr. High are two very, very different worlds. I mean between 8th and 9th grade I made the jump from 8th grade (sweatsuits of one color, smelling like B.O., and not doing my hair), to 9th grade (Hollister everything!!). How does it make any sense to focus your services to one particular group or another? It doesn't. As Jr. High students are usually the minority, lets take a look at how to target them. I would love to take a look at how to best engage Jr. High students in all areas of the service, but I am going to focus on how we should help them engage into praise & worship.
I think we can recall being in kids church and doing actions to all of the songs (Lord I Lift Your Name on High?). Why stop after kids church and "O Magnify the Lord"? Now I am not saying that we need to have concrete hand motions for every word of every song. What I am saying is that when you have fast up beat songs, hand motions, or dance moves (performed by leaders on stage with the band) it helps everyone, no matter what their age, engage, and put energy into the song. Something else that does is gives them something to do other than just stand and sing. 2 Samuel 6:14 says that David danced before the Lord, why shouldn't we do the same? So that works well for a number of fast songs, but what do we do when we get to the slow, reflective songs? First of all don't try to take your students to a deeper place of worship than they are truly able to comprehend. What I mean is that there are a lot of wonderful, beautiful worship songs out there, but the truth is that a Jr. High student will more than likely not understand the meaning of it, or will simply find it too boring to simply stand and sing along to. Second, I think we should keep those "leaders" up there not necessarily doing choreographed actions, but giving the students an example of worshiping to a song without an instrument, or a microphone. What better way to lead worship than to give a direct image of a regular person truly worshiping. Will that keep all of the hyperactive Jr. High boys' attention for an entire worship set? Maybe not, but it is most definitely a start.
What are some of your Ideas?
Zach Brose Actually Said...
ReplyDeleteOne thing that seems to be a universal theme among junior highers (especially boys) is their short attention span. I've found it extremely beneficial to break up services and incorporate worship throughout, instead of the normal worship/message/response format.
For example:
I would do a fast, upbeat, familiar worship song (maybe 2) to get a service started, but then go directly into announcements/game/ice breaker etc. Get them clapping/jumping and excited, but don't spend enough time to for them to mentally move on. Then, I would do a medium or slow worship song that ties into the message, something that really sets the stage and gets their minds and hearts ready for the message they are about to hear.
After the message, but before a response time, do another song that really follows the theme of the message, giving them time to worship, but let the words they just heard sink in. Then have the pastor come up and give the altar call or call to response, and do another song of worship as they respond. After it seems like everyone is done responding, I would wrap it all up with a fast song (usually a favorite)- a good upbeat end to the night.
I've found that actions can totally enhance a j-high worship service, but they can also royally make it "lame". touring this summer, when we did Jr. High camps, we would spend the first service really feeling out the over-all reaction to actions. If they totally connected and engaged, we would keep them incorporated. If they seemed engaged, but not particularly ecstatic, we would maybe do one song per service that had actions. If they felt it was super-lame and didnt respond well, we'd scrap them all together. I've found that jr highers dont go for lame songs with lame actions. (duh). We would take a rockin' song, and add a few "cool" actions in the chorus to get them physically involved, but if that seems to flop, getting them all jumping or clapping can be just as, if not more, effective. (and also feels "cooler" then a happy hands club dance).
I Really like what you said about having someone up on stage to model worship. We would always have a person on stage with no instrument or mic leading worship simply by modeling it at any kids or junior high service we played at. If you can't spare someone to do this, a leader who only sings can also model better then someone with a guitar or sitting at a piano. I've also found that boys respond to seeing men lead worship- or model it. It seems to be a popular thought for junior high boys to find worship "girly" or not lame. In that scenario, simply a male presence on the stage can help them overcome that thought.
I also agree that super deep songs (though they can have a time or place) are harder to present to junior highers. They should be past the point of only liking "Father Abraham", but it should be a steady immersion into the real deep stuff- not a dunk! Theology is really taught through worship, so we need to be very conscious of doing songs that teach them about their faith, and about God- but not at the expense of their understanding of what they are singing.
Also, I have found it very beneficial to explain a song before we do it- or even in the middle. something that makes them actually think about the meaning of the words they are singing. It took me a long time to get it through my head that it is OK to teach students what worship is, and how to do it as part of the to worship service!
And along those lines- one last thing. when I was leading worhsip for junior high every week, the pastor and I got together and decided we would take 2-3 minutes out of every worship time and teach them something about worship. It was awesome- I could totally see a difference from week to week in the areas I would teach about. I would strongly recommend that to any jr high worship leader- It's ok to teach!