Here’s the second half of our keyboard tutorial.

Tutorial #5 - Keyboard Pt 2 [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8290)

Here’s some basic instructions for getting students started with the keyboard.

Tutorial #5 - Keyboard Pt 1 [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4832)

I know that many times many youth ministries ask, what can we do to help better our student vocalists? By chance i am sitting in a vocal artistry event at our church being taught by Tim Carson. He is talking about everything from vocal freedom, tension in your vocals, breathing, what is vibrato, style, pitch bends, and so much more. There is always room to improve, especially vocally, and listening for about 2 hours. I know that i have so much i can work on, and i am inspired to do and practice. If you have any kind resource budget I would highly recommend this resource for your vocalists. Not only the resource, but he is traveling the country doing these vocal events. So check it out.

Click Here for Website: Vocal Artistry

Worship Well
Taffy

Viva La Vida by Coldplay

Some people ask why we do “secular songs” before a service.  This is one
of the ways I explain our reasoning.  Students who come to church for
the first time are already freaked out, and feel like an outsider.  I
mean think about how different the culture inside a church is compared
to the outside world.  Obviously, we Christians and the way we live our
lives should not be the same as the world,  but the way we reach
students and people should be strategic and purposeful.  Yes, our hearts
are most important, but the way we reach doesn’t have to be wierd.
Think of it this way, if you were to walk into a Buddhist temple and you
see people chanting and humming, this is not normal to you.  Well for a
lost student or a “seeking student” when they walk into church, everyone
is singing songs they don’t know about content they don’t understand.
So strategically doing cover songs that are clean can break down the
walls from the very start for first time students.

Anyways, our High School pastor, Josh Griffin, sang it while at the same
time threw some cheeseburgers in the crowd for people to eat.

Anyways, our High School pastor, Josh Griffin, sang it while at the same time threw some left over cheeseburghers in the crowd for people to eat.

Worship Well
Taffy

Last November we attempted in trying to record a live WORSHIP CD of what we do in our student ministries. Didn’t turn out that great, but it was still an awesome night of just worship the LORD. However, i hope that you can show this to your students to show them that students can do this. What your about to watch and listen to was all done by students. Oh except Zack, who is on our HSM Staff, who was on stage for smooth transitions to sing the next song who sang back-up. Let me give you a break down of the students this night.

Lead Worship Singer – Senior

Back Up Vocalist – Sophomore

Electric Guitar – Senior

Electric Guitar – Junior

Bass Player – Senior

Drums – Senior

Keyboardist – Junior

Keyboardist – Senior

CHOIR – 7th Graders – Seniors

Audio – 19 Year Old College Student

Video – 2 Juniors and 2 Sophomores

Editing – 1 Sophomore

Please again don’t fell overwhelmed or comparative this is about encouraging other students to know that students can lead worship. THEY CAN DO THIS!!!

WORSHIP WELL

PHILIPINO

TAFFY

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Sorry that its been so long since David or I have blogged or podcasted. Its been one of the craziest months recently in our ministry. We had auditions for our Junior High Ministry and High School Ministry. However, i taped a couple of tutorials on how to audition Drummers and Keyboardist. OH YA, i also did a tutorial on how to help starting keyboardiest what to learn and such. So hopefully those will be out soon.

Also our ministry is opening a new builiding for our students and Community in 2 weeks called the REFINARY and the follow week our Worship Conference begins here at Saddleback. Hopefully that will be out soon once Matty puts them together. Matty is one of my drummers who is also incredible Video/Editor. He did the guitar turtorials.

I wanted to post the songs that we are doing but there hasn’t been many new ones because of the new year coming up. However, here are the songs we did this past weekend.

HSM

STEVE FEE – We SHINE ( I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SONG)

LEE LAND – YES YOU HAVE

TODD FIELDS – Let me SIng

WILDSIDE

HILLSONG UNITED – Tell the World

DAVID CROWDER – Everything Glorious

LEELAND – Beautiful One (Great Song, but hard song to follow for the Congregation when the Worship Leader hits the notes but not our students) Still a great song

MATT REDMAN – You Never Let Go

AGAIN Sorry for not Blogging Much, but alot to come.

Slacking Philipino

Taffy

Wildside

Nothing really new but some awesome song our student love

Dancing Generation

My Glorious

Mighty To Save

From the Inside Out

In HSM

We opened up with Bleeding Love

Here i am to Worship

Beautiful One

Some good old worship songs, but awesome!!!

Philipino

Taffy

Vocals

Here is what I tell our junior high vocalists before they audition

.

Please know that this is not Saddleback Idol, we are not looking for divas or rock stars, but we are here to lead your peers to the throne of God and if you feel like you need to have the spotlight to be seen, heard or discovered, then this is not the place (I really say this for stage parents).  We are a ministry and not a hobby and we are hear to edify the body of Christ and we will expect a great commitment out of you.

Also please know that some vocals are made for solo’s, some are made for choirs, and some are made to lead worship.  If you don’t make it on a microphone at any time don’t let that discourage you from wanting to worship the Lord through song.  I am going to tell you straight up some of your parents are tone deaf and they will tell you that you sound great, but I am here to tell you the truth, but also help you along in this journey we call worship leading.  So, know that some of you may need to sing in the choir first and some of you may not make it to the microphone, but that is okay, because singing in the choir is just as awesome.  No one is better than the other just because they sing in the choir.  Okay everyone stand up, turn around 6 times, take a deep breath and here we go.

This is our process:

We encourage students to be prepared to sing a song for about 30 seconds to a minute for us to listen to.

Then when they come to the audition we teach them a familiar  worship song or a easy worship song.  Like the chorus of Here I am to worship accompanied by a guitar or piano.  (Note: some dudes sing in different keys than girls do so help them find there key and then have dude sing it.)

Then we have them come up and have them sing the song they have prepared or just sing Here I am to Worship chorus 3 times.

Sometimes students come with a track with vocals on it and you can’t hear what they are singing.

That is why we have them sing the chorus of a Here I am to Worship 3 times because you can totally hear them.

Then when they are done they are free to leave and they know that we will call with in the next week or two what the next step is.

Wildside (Junior High) requirements to sing on a mic

1) Must hit melody Tone

2) Confident

3) Teachable

NOTE: If they want to sing but can’t hit anything at first will start them in them in the Choir.

NOTE: In junior high, I am not to worried if they know harmonies yet because they will learn as we teach them in the choir.

HEART NOTE: Now some of you are asking what about he heart.  My thought in allowing Junior Highers lead is a time to Discover (Purpose:Ministry).  Of course we want their hearts to sing for Jesus, but they’re in Junior High.  What were you doing in Junior High?  That is where we come in and help them understand and grow that when we leading worship we are painting a picture through song to allow people to see and experience just a little more to be in the presence of God.

I however am not that good of a vocalist Philipino

Taffy

We found this band a while ago but still haven’t used any of their songs. This song in particular is incredible, but it’s tough to see how to fit it into a service exactly. The verses aren’t very congregational, but the chorus is so simple and powerful. 

We might try and play it after the message at our college service this next thursday. Perhaps have the congregation remain seated? Many would call that a “response” song I believe? We actually don’t do those very often.  

What do you think? How would you use this song?

-david