As a youth leader and worship leader in our somewhat traditional, independent baptist church, I have a unique responsibility. Leading youth on Wednesday evenings. Leading adults in worship on Sunday mornings.
I absolutely love worshiping with the youth. Their passion and excitement for worship is inspiring. We have some awesome experiences in our youth room. There is freedom to jump around, dance, sit, stand, kneel on the ground. It’s an intimate, family type atmosphere and I love it.
I also love worshiping with our adults. Of course it’s a much larger group, with many different backgrounds and age groups. It’s a completely different feel though. A good percentage of the congregation really enjoy the modern worship songs. Some raise hands, a few clap, we even have a deacon who likes to get “jiggy wit it”. On the other hand, some stare, some glare, some like to sing “internally”, and some cover their ears. The standing/sitting is all directed by the leader.
I love both settings. The challenge I face is giving each group something that they can use to experience God and truly worship God. This is a constant struggle and one that I admit has no easy solution.
I heard a great message at the Catalyst Conference by Craig Groeschel about the tension between generations. I will admit this is a tense area. I have to learn not to push my methods, preferences, opinions on those who have been brought up differently and have other likes and dislikes as me. Craig’s message really helped open my eyes to some things that I was blinded about before.
So… I’m going to try something new. One of my goals is to start integrating great hymns into our praise and worship times. This will challenge and stretch our worship team, but I think we’ve grown so much over the past two years that we’ll do a pretty good job with it.
To help me with this project… what is your all-time favorite hymn? or 2 or 3?
If you go to our church, we just may sing it soon.
I will go first…
