As a movement, the Vineyard values training and discipling leaders well. We believe that this applies to students as much as anyone; everybody gets to play, right?
In the midst of the ever-present transition that comes with student ministries, we noticed that we had ways of training students in worship, but had nothing written down. Because of this, in the past few years, there were students that were well gifted in worship, and/or had a yearning to learn how to worship, that unfortunately didn’t necessarily get the training or experience that they could have within student ministries. To better prepare for future transition, better serve our students, and to create a level of consistency within current transition, we thought it’d be helpful to create a “guide,” if you will, to train students in worship. We wanted to create a path for students to grow musically and spiritually, with the flexibility to meet students wherever they’re at in those two areas. So, we’ve created a roadmap for both students and leaders to be able to follow, to increase the quality of how we train our students to worship.
As you’ll see in this downloadable resource, the roadmap is separated into four “blocks”. The blocks include specific and practical expectations for students (and leaders) that are based off of our Vineyard worship values, the list of general expectations (included in the document), IRTDMN, and the basic 5 step discipleship loop. While creating this, we noticed that we had some freshmen who were existing more in block 2 or 3, and we had some seniors who were still in block 1. We realized we needed to create something that we could tailor to each student individually, and help them grow at their own pace.
We’ve just recently started to implement this. However, we’ve already noticed an increase in student interest and in willingness to serve, just from clarity of expectations and the ability to invite our students into growth by casting vision for it. We started by taking into account where each student currently involved was residing (within the four blocks), and then we were able to start setting goals and intentionally and specifically pointing our students toward next steps. What makes this roadmap work is the specificity of each block, but also, the fact that it isn’t separated into school year, age, or just musical ability. It allows us to meet students where they’re at, while challenging and encouraging them to grow both musically and spiritually.
Using this roadmap, we are able to train our students in a way that’s more effective and organized. However, because this is written from the perspective of our culture and our experiences, there are most likely gaps that exist. As we strive to be well-rounded and multicultural, it would be helpful to hear how you implement this within your church culture. Let us know what works, what doesn’t work, and where there’s room to improve. How can we improve this and better train the next generation of Vineyard worship leaders?
- A Roadmap For Raising Student Worshipers - November 1, 2017
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