Bringing in Young Musicians
At our church, what you see is what you get. Our aim in ministry is to equip the people that God gives us to minister to one another. That includes the worship ministry. Our vocalists, choir, and instrumentalists are members of our body. The reason we do this is that we believe the body of Christ is sufficient for us to carry out worship together. While we will occasionally bring in outside musicians to join us, they are generally people known to the congregation in the broader body of Christ. In other words, we don’t hire musicians to play for corporate worship. So what does that mean for recruiting musicians?
What it means is this: it is our calling to raise up musicians in the church. It means encouraging kids to sing and play instruments from a young age, and giving them opportunities to participate in worship. It means involving young people in the life of the church, so that they have an understanding that they belong, they are welcome, and they are able to add to what we do.
We are more or less a bi-cultural church, with English and Spanish services. The Spanish-speaking ministry is more youthful, but both services have young people involved in the worship ministry. We regularly involve children from the Sunday School classes in worship, both presenting special music and joining in congregational worship from the platform. The Spanish choir has a wide range of ages, and is truly intergenerational. We also involve instrumentalists in the church in teaching and training up guitarists and pianists.
One of the most joyful aspects of our ministry together is when we are able to join together in our bilingual services. When the whole body is gathered together, our choirs and instrumentalists combine to praise the Lord together in both languages. We trade verses in each language, and often have everyone sing the chorus in their own language. This testimony of unity has encouraged people of both cultures to join our music ministry.
The blessing of all this is that our church is a multi-generational, inter-cultural body. We have common songs to sing, and our music is a testimony that we are united in Christ. Our hope is that the joy we have in Christ can be communicated, even in song, from generation to generation.
