Music for the movement

Here is a small part of a book I am writing called: Youth church for a new generation.
It's more our story than directive, even though it has a lot of my own opinions in it.
Just thought I would throw it out there for anyone that is interested. -Eric
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One of the main areas of impartation has been within the area of worship. For me worship is a main catalyst for spiritual transformation. We have never had a worship band, we worship to worship CDs. This has allowed us to have a cutting edge worship “band” without having to have people to rely on to produce good music. This generation is hungry for raw, powerful, energetic worship expression and frankly most praise bands just can’t play what young people like. Nothing is more painful than a lame band that is playing stuff from 20+ years ago.

There has been a massive movement of fresh, relevant, creative worship music in the last 10 years. That wave has to be caught to capture the momentum needed to break free from the powerful worldly attractions this world has to offer. The accumulation of solid old music, fresh new music and anything that has a anointing on it is essential to acquire.

I think each youth church has to discover its own vibe. Each tribe has to discover its own sound, their own music for the movement. I have been continually challenged by the Holy Spirit to explore and be prayerfully daring in pushing the envelope in this area. Flags, banners, dance, scripture reading/praying/prophesying, drums, prophesy, sound, lighting, space and visual elements are all tools in fleshing out a more creative and engaging time of worship. We keep the lights low or mostly dark to allow student to be free to focus on worship and not each other. We spread out all around the room to get away from peer distractions and encourage them to focus all their energy into this VERTICAL time. We only allow horizontal time if it is centered on ministry student to student within the praise and worship time.

But just playing music isn’t enough. In order to unleash young people into the spirit of worship they have to be led. There has to be Davidic like anointing present to raise up worshippers that are free from religious hand clapping, sit-stand-sit stuff. The claustrophobic, worship in a box model has to be broken out of. This generation longs for freedom of heart expression. They respond to fluid, creative, not just the traditional forms of worship. They are tribal by nature and when nurtured and fanned into flame, they can become the aggressive and passionate bearers of high praise.

This takes time and godly leadership and daring faith to break free, dream fresh dreams and be radical in our leaps out of the religious boat. Like Peter they want to leave the safety of the known and explore what it feels like to walk into unknown waters of worship. We use a gifted, talented and anointed band for our yearly BLAZE youth conference and our developing youth band for a once a month live worship on the first Wednesday of each month. This gives our youth band time to practice and prepare and yet feeds the young people with free form worship weekly.

We have seen most unsaved young people dramatically impacted by this part of the life of our youth church. Most end up weeping or joining in on their first night. Like Saul they end up prophesying in the presence of the prophets when the Spirit of the Lord comes on them. We are not ashamed of wild, passionate and often extremely loud encounters with God in worship. Whether it’s face time in the carpet in adoration, repentance or jumping in the house of God, worship is a mighty weapon in advancing the purposes of God in this generation.