The Music Exchange

Music and youth groups are a tricky combination — getting young people to take singing seriously can be more trouble than it’s worth, so should we be encouraging youth groups to sing at all?

First I’d like to say a resounding ‘Yes’, and then (as ever) lay out some reservations, being a reserved type of chap.

Yes, we should encourage youth groups to sing for two reasons:

1) Obedience. God tells us all to sing to each other (Ephesians 5.18-20), though it would be easy to argue that this is not an instruction to sing at every single gathering of Christians.

2) Encouragement. Singing together is very enjoyable if we do it well.

Quality?

And there’s my first reservation (in order of thought-flow, not importance) — the quality of music. Generally we’re not good at reproducing the same quality of music that is produced by some of the big youth movements. Hauling Paul and Brenda in, as a middle-aged double-act on guitar and flute, to lead music for teenagers doesn’t cut it with today’s young things (‘Oooo, I don’t agree, we were once in a band called Ages of Rock you know...’). If the music is embarrassingly bad, no wonder that our teenagers are then tempted to leave youth groups that may be doing a very faithful work to search for better music and be part of a bigger crowd. If it can’t be done well, there’s a fair argument for not doing it at all.

Size

That leads me to my second reservation — size. Trying to sing when you’re part of a small group of teen-agers makes you much more self-conscious, and is much more intense than singing in a large group, where you’re spared from having to sit next to the girl who’s just said no to a date at the Tamworth Superbowl.

Maturity?

Reservation 3 is to do with maturity. Teenagers, by definition, are young. They are young physically, emotionally and spiritually. They can be easily manipulated by things that are attractive but ephemeral. Music, especially if it’s done well, can give unrealistic spiritual significance to emotions which are just as likely to have been produced by hormones as by being struck by the person of Jesus or convicted by the Holy Spirit. Music can give teenagers a false sense of spiritual assurance, especially if it’s led by good musicians who have been misguided about the role of music. We need to be very careful about how we use music with teenagers so that when they become men and women they have learnt to trust in Jesus and not in music.

Solutions

So, with all those reservations, is it really worth the effort encouraging our youth groups to sing? I think that because of the great benefits of singing together, and because of God’s command to sing, not to sing at all is a cop-out, so here are some solutions:

First, I want to say that I’d never advocate singing at the expense of focussing on teaching the Bible. Singing together must never replace this main objective of youth work.

Having said that, I’m confident that singing the Word of God is a great way of helping young people know and feed on the Word. So a good place to start is by praying for and training up one or two of the teenagers to play the guitar and sing well enough to lead the singing in the youth group (especially if there is no youth leader who can play). There are plenty of cheap guitar courses run by some of the bigger churches. Learning a few simple chords and rhythms on the guitar takes weeks rather than years, so this isn’t an expensive undertaking. This has the added bonus of training up musicians for future service in the church.

Second, we don’t need to feel threatened by larger youth gatherings. There are some very good Bible-centred conventions, which, if supported by our churches will help our teenagers to be more discerning about the role of music and more appreciative of the work their youth leaders do. Capital Youthworks run regional conventions called ‘Sorted’, which combine faithful Bible teaching with music that is appealing to teenagers without compromising on content. Future events can be found at www.capitalyouthworks.com.

Encourage them

If there is no immediate hope of getting your youth group to sing together, then make sure that singing with the main congregation is an enjoyable experience for them. Teenagers love to sit at the back of church meetings and hang out together. We need to encourage them to have fun singing, without our over-the-shoulder stares making them feel more self-aware than they already are.

To conclude, I think it’s important to encourage youth groups to sing. If they can recall happy times singing about Jesus, there is more of a chance that they will recall the great truths about the Lord with fondness when the hard-graft of discipleship kicks in.

More trouble than it's worth?

2) Encouragement. Singing together is very enjoyable if we do it well.

Quality?

Size

Maturity?

Solutions

Encourage them

Richard Simpkin

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