Question:
I have been having a lot of respect/attention issues on my Wednesday night youth service. In my journal here's what I wrote:

Tonight was very discouraging. Kids talk and goof off and socialize during worship. I try to talk to them, the youth pastor talks to them. They are quiet for a song or two. Then they start talking again. It seems to be a complete waste of my time. I figured out that I put in about 10-12 hours a week in for worship. And it all goes up into flames in thirty minutes of "worship service". I am singing in front of a bunch of kids who don't want anything to do with the Lord.

Not all the kids are disrespectful, about 1/3 of them actually do enter into worship.

I realize that there will always be the occasional goof or someone who doesn't really understand, but 60% of the kids? There has to be something I can do.

What do you think I should do?
Answer:
that is a difficult one. sometimes you just have to resort to calling them out in public. try sending them home one week, and perhaps it'll solve your problem.
you could say, "hey, Lisa, Tommy, Janet, and Mark (or whatever their names are..), if you can't keep quiet you're going to leave right now. your friends are here to worship God, and you are being disrespectful to them AND to God, and we dont' tolerate that here. I'll see you again when you can be respectful during worship."
it's tough to send people home, especially from youth group, but generally if you do it once, not only do they get the message, all of the kids get the message. they need to acknowledge that you have put time and effort, physically and spiritually, into preparing each week, they need to acknowledge that their peers are there to worship God, and they need to recognize that by talking, they are being disrespectful to everyone. it's distracting when people are talking and goofing off during worship, during the lesson, and during small groups, and it's not fair to the serious kids. you might find your group size temporarily reduced, but after all, it is quality, not quantity, and eventually the other kids will make their way back if they decide to leave.
good luck.
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I've run into some of the same problems and often felt the same discouraging feelings before. I think the best thing to do is remember why you're there - you're serving the Lord and the people who want to be there to worship - and make it a point to stress before and during worship time what you guys are doing. There's always going to be kids who aren't into worship, whether it's because they're parents made them go, or they're at a point of being "too cool" for that right now, or whatever. Remember the 1/3 that is there to worship, let them be your encouragement.
Answer:
So happened to me!

I actually ended up telling them off, I was very upset and it got to them.. but it didn't stop them.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Forcing them to worship will just make them not want to worship even more.

Just do what you have been called to do as best as you can, lead by example, speak to those who do worship seperatly and ask them to set the standard even higher by worshipping as best they can....
Answer:
Originally Posted by nix Forcing them to worship will just make them not want to worship even more.
Answer:
Can you/somebody provide an alternative activity for those who would prefer not to sing?
Answer:
Wow just reading your posts made me feel better. Atleast I'm not alone. I thought I had really failled at youth because I wasn't hitting the mark like we do on sundays. I felt like maybe I was just mssing their needs. facillitating worship is an awesome opprotunity but it can hurt when you're effort is not appreciated. I understand where each person here is comming from.
Jay Tea - Yes/no. I guess there are jobs like overheads, sound, guitar tuner, etc you could have some of them do. The no would be, we plan such cool activities outside of the worship service that they can be respectful for a half hour of music. Although we have a small church we have probably the coolest activities in the city
Nix - I've told them off too. I stopped the worship then I asked them if they wanted to lead the worship because they are obviously leading the rest of kids in a different direction. Alot of these kids are gifted leaders if they could only be used for the good
Dave - You are obviously right. Most of us here really know why we do what we do, it still fustrates us and the forum gives a healthy ground to rant.
Bean Bag - Yep it works. It lets the kids know that they are not in a little world and they are affecting the kids around them. You have to be on gaurd for the hearts of your youth. Although youshould always praise in public and discipline in private so be carefull how you do it.
Ring of a bell - my suggestions that have worked for me
Be relentless in worship
spend time with the trouble youth during the week, coffee, games, lazertag
Have some of the youth pick out the songs, within reason of coarse. I get asked to play enter sandman bi-weekly LOL Can any one say I don't think so.
Convey the message of the song more than just hitting the right notes and singing on key. drive the message home to them anyway you can, drama, your body language, interaction.
Your youth are a gift to you, so open them up.
I'm also praying that God would reveal his strategy to you for your youth.
God is Great and Greatly to be praised.
Answer:
Originally Posted by Ring of a bell I have been having a lot of respect/attention issues on my Wednesday night youth service. In my journal here's what I wrote:

Tonight was very discouraging. Kids talk and goof off and socialize during worship. I try to talk to them, the youth pastor talks to them. They are quiet for a song or two. Then they start talking again. It seems to be a complete waste of my time. I figured out that I put in about 10-12 hours a week in for worship. And it all goes up into flames in thirty minutes of "worship service". I am singing in front of a bunch of kids who don't want anything to do with the Lord.

Not all the kids are disrespectful, about 1/3 of them actually do enter into worship.

I realize that there will always be the occasional goof or someone who doesn't really understand, but 60% of the kids? There has to be something I can do.

What do you think I should do?
I think you should remove music from the Wednesday night line up entirely. Spend the time doing some Bible study or something. I think a Bible study (I assume you already have some sort of Bible study already though...) would do the 2/3 far more good than the music is for the 1/3.
Answer:
When I led worship for youth group, this happened to me quite frequently. I would get up there and start a song and the kids would be talking and laughing, I stopped playing and singing and just waited for everyone to stop. Not even looking at anyone, I just waited, usually that did the trick, but sometimes I needed to have our youth leader step in and tell the group off. They were quiet after that. You might try not having such a long set of worship. Try 2o minutes or fifteen minutes instead of 30 minutes. That's stretching their attention span.
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I vote for the Magnatune approach. They say, "Dishonest people can always abuse the system. Rather, we want to reward all the honest people who truly want to do the right thing." I say:
Disinterested people will always ignore the worship. You want to help out the interested people who truly want to worship God.
Do your best for those who want to worship God. Don't sell them short by spending all your time worrying about the ones that don't want to worship God.
At the same time, make sure what you're doing makes sense to all the kids. As much emphasis as we put on music in the church and as much sense as it makes to us, it doesn't necessarily make sense to everyone else. I honestly think that sometimes people just don't know what's going on in worship. Make sure they understand the songs, too.
You can't build someone's interest in worship by telling them, "shut up and pay attention." It has to come from a love of God and a desire to worship Him. Work on building THAT.
Also, like my brother said, make sure they're getting Bible study. I don't think you necessarily have to kill all the music, but it wouldn't hurt to explain the song Biblically before singing it.
You could also try changing the format. Why do you have to be up in front of everybody? Grab an acoustic guitar, make a circle and sing. The stage/audience format makes it way too easy to goof off since the kids can easily form their own little groups. You can't do that in a circle. Everyone is stuck together for better or worse.
Also depending on the size of your group, it may just be that they don't want to sing. Singing in a large group is much easier than singing in a small one.
Sometimes I think the best thing you can do is explain everything you do as if it was the first time you did it. Just make sure you don't get cocky about it. You can say something like, "Ok, now we're gonna take some time to worship God through music. Throughout the Bible, people sang and wrote songs to God. In our world as in theirs, music was a way of expressing your thoughts and feelings. I don't know about you, but I feel pretty good about God, and I want to express that to Him. The first song we're gonna sing is.... it's about.... I like this song because.... alright, let's praise God together."
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I just thought of an idea as far as the kids understanding what's going on.
If you're not Catholic, go to a Catholic mass. I bet it won't make sense to you. Then imagine how some of the kids who did not grow up in church might feel about your worship service. If you are Catholic, go to a Hindu temple or something. Things that can make perfect sense to one group can seem quite strange to another.
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I figured out that I put in about 10-12 hours a week in for worship. And it all goes up into flames in thirty minutes of "worship service".
My suggestion: Shorten the singing. Just do a few songs, that everyone is pretty much familier with. That's what we do, and I know if we did a half-hour of worship, the kids would goof off more. Just a thought.
Answer:
I'll +1 on format change. Like most, I try to work from a basic organization of a youth service, but I started thinking, why does it always have to look the same? It really doesn't have to. Maybe some of the reason I got bored in church in high school was because I wa bored...it was predictable and always the same.
That begs my question: why if we indeed serve and worship a dynamic God should we have a static service? God is unchanging, but the way He moves and speaks to us can happen in an infinite variety of ways. Maybe breaking away from the traditional mold of what your service has always looked like will bring some freedom and freshness.
Worship doesn't always have to be music. Talk about what a psalm is, and have the kids write psalms. Set up worship stations, and either with or without worship music, have a station where they can write prayer requests, pray for others, write letters to missionaries/shut-ins, etc.
Just a few cluttered thoughts.
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Wow. There have been some awesome suggestions in this thread.
I can't add too much to it except that my thread called Worship Experiment might be related and helpful.
Richard
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Originally Posted by Jumpinjoegraham we plan such cool activities outside of the worship service that they can be respectful for a half hour of music. Although we have a small church we have probably the coolest activities in the city
Tell us about these cool activities. Maybe it's off topic a bit but...
Richard