YOUTH CHOIR TRANSFORMATION

[t.best2009]

Praise the Lord everybody!!!!!!!

     I'm a 16 year old M.O.M at my father's church in a small town of Ripley, Tn. The church is Forerunner Baptist Church. Anyway, I'm here to sort of share a testimony...

    For a while I had been working with the Youth Choir. The problem was they weren't serious and weren't trying to sing. I mean we had it all. Lazy sopranos, shy altos, and too macho to sing in front of each other tenors. I was beginning to lose hope until I attended my association's fellowship conference. I was apart of the conference choir and it was then I learned true worship praise. And everything I learned there I took it and incorporated it into the choir. Well it was Sunday and we had to sing, the first couple of songs they were just not feeling. Well the third song came along it was a song that said "Oh Lord How Marvelous is your name" Well they started off rough. So I looked at them and began speaking into the mic (I do believe this was the holy spirirt moving). I began to say you need to feel it, make the congregation feel it. And finally I said, "Start over, we won't move on until you begin to feel it." And they began to sing and sing and sing and they began to cry and it was a movement in there right then. And from then on we've been a serious Youth choir that understand what they are singing about. To me it's not about if they sing everysong in Harmony. IN fact, by the time the song was done they were in unison.

But I do have a question, what are some nice songs that are simple to play and sing in harmony that I can teach them?

[ndel]

    We just learned this song,  "Grateful," by Hezekiah Walker.
It is beautiful.  The first part is in unison and the end of it is when we start singing in harmony and over and over we're singing   "Grateful, grateful, grateful, gratefulness, is flowing from my heart."  This song is so awesome!  Everybody has something to be grateful for!   

[zeph1]

 

i too am sort of in the same situation that you were in, cause my youth choir isn't the best singers around, and they are very shy, but i went to the aim convention and learned how to truly worship, so i began to teach the youth about how to worship and to worship through singing. But my question is what are some easy youth songs that i can teach???

[t.best2009]

Thanks for posting back and sorry it took me so long but here are some songs I chose to teach:

Mississippi Mass Children's Choir- Twelve Gates
Youth For Christ- I Just Want to Thank You, The Struggle is Over

basically repetative songs with easy harmony but I 've decided to step up to more complicated songs like:

Darell Petties- Yes Lord
Ricky Dillard- Take me back

hope this helps

[demusicman]

I agree repetitive songs are the way to go with Youth Choirs and such. T Best, i know exactly how you feel i started out as minister of music around about that age also and that makes the job much more difficult LOL. I believe if you check out alot of praise and worship songs or check into more music by Mississippi Children's Choir  and Youth for Christ. These seem to be my choirs favorite artists as well as "Faithful" and "Grateful" by Hezekiah and they tend to want to do stuff like "Shackles" and "Heaven" by Mary Mary.

You may have heard this at your conference, but if not let me share this with you. You have to let the children know why we sing, I use John 4:22-24 as a reference for explaining worship to our youth as well as our adults. We must remember that our primary mission is ministry and secondary mission is to sound presentable unto God and the congregation LOL.

Stay blessed,

And if you need any suggestions or just need to vent hit me up. I am a willing to help. Thats what this forum is all about.

[Kendall1]

I too agree that repetitive songs work the best. I too am experiencing the same problems with my youth choir.

Simple songs would be:

Hallelujah Salvation & Glory-Stephen Hurd
God Keeps Making A Way- Rev. Milton Brunson & The Tommies
We Have Come Into This House- Artist Unknown
Emmanuel- Artist Unknown

[ShaadyDaNex]

Wow that was very encouraging to hear. I'm getting tired of my Young adult Choir for similar reasons. About 2 people come to the regular scheduled rehearsals, but yet they all show up for the reheasal the week that we sing. Some don't even come for that and show up on sunday expecting to sing. The seldom times everyone does show up. they are very unenergetic and dry... For a moment i thought it was my fault. This forum helped me realized that  they dont understand why theyre there other than fact that ther parents made them... Next rehearsal im going to more thoroughly explain what ministry is. I dont know any simple songs to teach, but try teaching them a simple 1 line song that can be sung in a round, that way they can get used to singing diffirent parts... I will try to make 1 up. I will get bak at you on that. Anyone else have ideas for a song?

[t.best2009]

I'm glad this has been encouraging. Well I realized it could be me and my spirit. Me being a teenager, I had to learn what happened at school..at school you see. And when I did that, and said I'm here to praise the LOrd, it happened. BUt I'm glad I was a blessing to someone.

[2tight]

You could teach oh lord we praise u
message 4 the saints-donald lawrence