Youth Worship Music

So I’m going through our music selection the other day and it occurs to me that all the music we have, every last song, was great back in the 90s. Oh we might have a song or two from the turn of the millennium, but not much and those are pretty slow.

I am now in the hunt for good worship music for my Youth group. Stuff that we don’t sing in “big church.” Right now our worship is exactly what we do up top and the youth just aren’t into it. I have been able to make a few changes with what we are doing that seems to be working but I can’t seem to find music that has the driving beat but is also “worshipful.”

The biggest change we made was having out lead guitar go from acoustic to electric. The guy playing rocks and was never really comfortable on the acoustic. It just isn’t his style. He didn’t have time to get his acoustic one day but had his electric with him and made it work. After that I’ve asked him to leave the acoustic at home.

The problem now is really the music itself. I want something that we haven’t sung a thousand times before; something that the Youth would listen to on their iPods; something they’ll actually sing along to. I’m not sure how to find that something though. I’ve asked my worship team and some other people that are more up to date with music than I am to find some new music. So far I’ve found a bunch of bands that I really like but that won’t work for worship because the lyrics just don’t lend themselves to it.

I wonder if anyone out there has a suggestion?