I lead worship for middle schoolers. How can I get them to engage in worship?

Question:

Hey, I was seeing what all your worship leaders do to get people involved during worship. It's mainly a middle-aged and up group that I lead. I do a mix of old songs and new songs. There are many services where I look out at the people like they wish they were somewhere else. Like this past Sunday night, I was standing there and ready to worship. Nobody stood, just sat there staring, no clapping or raising hands or singing. Like about every service, I do fast clapping. The words to every song are on the screen, and these songs I've done multiple times over the years. How can I get life in the service and get them to participate?

Answer:

Addressing the Root Issue: Are They Believers?

So, how do you get people to engage in worship?

Well, first of all, if this is true, and I've heard this before, I think sometimes we put the focus too heavily on just a few specific people. We see like a group of people, especially if this is middle ages, I assume that that's the youth. Maybe there's a subset of the youth that just aren't paying attention.

To be honest, this is something that I've thought about, especially with youth in worship, and this isn't just true for youth, this is for anybody. You can't lead unbelievers in worship.

I know kids go to church. That doesn't make them a believer automatically. Let's just be real, a lot of people go to church, that doesn't make them a believer automatically.

So, first, we need to ask the question: Are these people even believers? And then, if they aren't and we want them to worship, we need to take the steps to help them become a believer, or else they will never worship.

So, I think that's the deeper underlying issue here.

Identifying and Resolving Practical Issues

Now, if it is believers in your church who aren't engaging in corporate worship, then I like to start with the low-hanging fruit. Where it's like, do these people know these songs? Because sometimes we're doing new songs every single week, and people don't know them, so of course they aren't going to sing along or engage in them.

So, if you pick four songs in your worship set, you know for certain that the people of your church know, and they don't respond. Then yes, maybe there's a deeper issue. But start there. Think about your song selection.

Number two, like how are we leading these people? Are we leading with them in mind, or am I just picking a bunch of songs that I want to do?

Number three, does my worship team sound like garbage? I'm just being real here. Like, if your worship team is really, really bad, of course, it's going to be distracting for people in your church. And that doesn't mean that they can't worship, I'm just saying it's going to make it harder for them to engage in worship.

So, think about yourself here. Think about your own leadership before we go blame everybody else.

Seeking Pastoral Support and Teaching on Worship

From there, if those low-hanging fruit, easy-to-fix things do not fix it. Then maybe there needs to be some teaching on worship in your church, and people just don't understand what worship is.

So, talk about it with your pastor.

Like, this shouldn't just be your concern, by the way. This should be a concern for your pastor. If your pastor agrees that people aren't engaging in corporate worship, that is like one of the main things that we do as a church, and so that should be immediately addressed by your pastor.

So, talk to your pastor about it if you are really concerned, and hopefully, if they recognize that as a problem, they'll be like, "Yeah, you know what? I need to shift my teaching schedule to teach people about corporate worship."

Foundational Principles and Further Resources

So, I hope that helped. Like, there's some foundational stuff in there. Like, these people have to be believers to worship. They have to know what worship is and why we do it. And then, if you feel like you have those things in place, then start working on those low-hanging fruit where it's like, I need to pick songs that people can sing, and so on and so forth.

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