Youth leading worship is great. Our youth-led services were yesterday, and, as happens every year, jr. high and sr. high students both provided a stirring blend of insight and levity to the worshiping congregation. My colleague did a bang up job organizing all the moving parts and making sure that every student knew what they were supposed to do and when. I look forward to this experience every year, and it did not disappoint.
I’m always thinking of ways to enrich it though.
I wonder how youth-led worship would go if 1) it was more than one Sunday per year and 2) if leaders participated in extra reflection and preparation ahead of time. What if we had something like a youth worship leader guild?
I’m not embarrassed by the nerdiness of that.
There are two things I can think of right away that would make such a thing less good than how we organize youth-led worship now, which is that the Sunday morning youth groups work on it for a week or two. First, some students might not know they want to work on worship leadership but might actually be gifted for it and enjoy it, even if they wouldn’t “sign up” for some dedicated “worship club.” Second, do youth not already have enough things to opt into?
Given the choice between fitting youth-led worship preparation into an existing youth activity and creating a new vehicle just for those who would choose it, what do you do?
YoRocko! 
Talk to the kids or quiz them on paper (to remove the peer pressure factor) and ask If this was a thing would they want to commit to it and if so how much time could they commit. Then meet with those who like it and ask the tough questions.
Youth Sunday was this past Sunday for us, too. We’re having similar conversations. One thought we’re exploring is to integrate Youth Sunday planning into an extended series on worship. Really like the book “Making Worship Real.”
Ooh, I like that idea. I’m adding that book to my list