Raising up the next generation of worshippers
We decided to change from the open tuning used in our beginning "guitar" class to actual ukulele tuning for our advanced "guitar" class. The baritone ukulele is tuned exactly like the highest four strings on the guitar (D,G,B,E). We found some awesome simple chord worship books on Amazon. These work great for the baritone ukulele as well as guitar.
Several months ago, we purchased several large 32 gallon garbage cans from a local hardware store to use as bass drums. The kids can also use these as desks when we are working on learning rhythm exercises. It can get pretty loud at times, but the kids seem to enjoy it. Ironically, the drum mallets cost more than the garbage cans! By the way, we first purchased these to use with our Youth Worship Arts ministry. It was a cool percussion addition to a Christmas song we were singing. Since we already owned the cans, I decided to pull them out with the kids. It has proven quite successful.
In addition to our Kids Worship Arts ministry, our church also offers individual instruction in piano, organ, voice, guitar, and percussion through our Worship Arts Academy. Our faculty is highly qualified, having either a degree in music or advanced training on their particular instrument. Tuition is very reasonable for our local market. Our goal is to train the next generation of worship leaders for our church and other churches in our community.
There is never any question about when Kids Worship Arts begins. We have a countdown timer running on the TV up front. When it hits zero, we fire off the music for the door prizes.
For this semester, we decided to take the door prize concept up a notch. I purchased a "treasure chest" box from Oriental Trading, and I put a greater variety of prizes in the box. The kids are loving it. I have all of their names in a jar. I draw names for two minutes at the beginning of each Wednesday evening. If the kid is present in the room, he/she gets to come select a door prize. This silly activity has helped increase our punctuality tremendously.
Last week, I took a van-load of kids from our church to our denomination's annual SMACK camp put on by Mississippi Baptists at Blue Mountain College. The camp is an awesome experience for all the kids and includes choir, guitar, photography, puppetry, art, keyboard, handbells, and much more.
One of our track options this semester is a kids vocal ensemble. This particular group happened to end up being all girls. Over the course of the semester, these young ladies learned to read vocal music and also sing in two and three part harmony. I'm very proud of these young ladies and all that they have accomplished over the past few months.