Children's Worship | Live or Recorded Music?

In the children's ministry at New Minas Baptist Church we switched almost a year ago to exclusively use recorded music. We used a live worship leader [guitar] for the first 4 years of our large group children's worship time and have now switched. There are advantages and disadvantages that I have seen, here are some comments in no particular order:

1. A live musician can interact with the children more and play to / with them. This interactivity adds some to the children's focus and engagement. There is a more personal feel to worship with a live musician.

2. A live musician has better control of the attention of the children.

3. A live musician get sick sometimes... this leads to an advantage of recorded music in that if the regular worship leaders using recorded music are unavailable, someone else can step in and the songs stay the same.

4. Recorded music is always the same, the quality doesn't rise or fall basic on the quality of the musician, their energy level or focus.

5. Recorded music can be chosen which is more energetic, includes more instruments, etc.

6. Recorded music tends to have children respond more by doing actions and live musicians seem to have children respond more by singing.

7. Live musicians can write their own songs for the children specific to your worship setting / church.

8. Recorded music can be purchased on itunes or elsewhere. This is a significant plus as your children will go home singing the songs and you can point the parents in the right direction to purchase them for their children to listen to at home. This increases saturation at home.

9. Recorded music more easily allows children to experiment with leadership from the stage as a part of a worship team.

10. Live worship allows a culture in your children's ministry of building musicians younger.

These comments are not intended to convey a strong opinion for one direction or the other. We have done both at our church and I like both for different reasons. When we had a live musician I wished for some of the benefits that recorded music would bring. Now that we have recorded music I miss some of the benefits of a live setting.

For those who are in churches where having a live energetic worship leader for children isn't possible, recorded music is a great option. For everyone who has both options, there is a choice to make, with benefits to both sides of the decision.

For those looking for recorded music, over the past few years there have been several fantastic additions to the genre of children's worship music. Many are available on itunes, and it not, can be ordered online. [Another post to follow with song suggestions.]