One of the first things to do when you have a new student worship team is to find a set of songs they can learn quickly and use in worship. These songs can help build confidence in playing their instruments, as well as playing in front of groups, and playing together as a band. This will go a long way as the group continues to grow, and play more difficult songs in the future.

So here are 5 songs that I would start off with if I was beginning a student worship team. They may not be the newest, or most popular. They definitely are not the most intricate or difficult. In fact most consist of the same chords over and over. The repetition of the chords gives students the opportunity to focus on things like dynamics, style and playing as a band.

1. Sing Like the Saved –  I absolutely love this one. Why? First of all it’s two chords. We play it using Em and A7. It’s one of the first songs I teach guitar students. Two chords, each of which use 2 fingers in both in the 2nd fret. Bass players can play two notes and vocals actually only have 3 notes to sing.

2. Set a Fire – Moving to 4 chord songs. We sing it in the key of C however I usually have the acoustic capo up 5 and play G C Em D. We’ll use this to work on things like layering. Have just acoustic start, then on the chorus add bass and light drums, then add everyone etc… It is also a simple melody that is easy to sing.

3. How He Loves – Same chords as above just a different order. C Am G F or for the acoustic G Em D C. I’ll introduce the piano player to the simple riff at the beginning and have them work on playing it with chords in the left to begin, then move to chords in the right with bass notes in the left during the song. Again we’ll work with layering instruments, changing volume etc…

4. Lord Let your Love – Here’s one I wrote that is a little more upbeat but still sticks with the same chord concept. It’s another one I use with new guitar students on the “Worship guitar crash course”. This adds the syncopated “Trading My Sorrows” beat.

5. He Reigns – This song continues the work with syncopated beats but keeps the chords simple. G F C repeating pattern. It does change things up in the bridge as it changes to C F G.  This helps to introduce the idea of different chords for different stanzas of the song.

Those are just a few suggestions that should get your group started. What others would you suggest?

This post is reposted from Umylead.com.