HISTORY / CONTEXT
The worship team has only been together for about one year.  The first semester they were together they suffered from a lack of direction; although they had quite a few members with a lot of potential, they never treated worship as more than anything but a weekly duty that someone had to do.  I started working with them second semester and put a heavy emphasis on modeling and learning through doing.  I ensured that every member of the team has had a chance to plan and lead a worship set at least once as well as participate in a number of scripture studies to continue learning about the heart of worship.  Last semester was a lot about everyone answering the question "what is worship" and I had the goal of having everyone be able to discuss in depth freely about what works and doesn't work when leading worship at St. Louis University (SLU).

WORSHIP COMMUNITY PROFILE
The group of students at SLU that make up the fairly young InterVarsity chapter (not just the worship team) are beginning to form a tight community within themselves but struggle in inviting others to be a part of it.  They tend to think about religious activities in a highly task oriented manner.  The chapter as a whole has also been growing in their attitudes toward worship and enjoys worshiping mostly in a meditative manner.  Openly celebrating or praising God freely seems to be a challenge.

JON'S PERSONAL THOUGHTS

Overall, I had a great time last semester (spring '07) working with the team at SLU and I honestly feel like I feel like I learned a lot from them as well.  The students prvided new insights into some scriptures we studied and a window into how students today go about leadership & teams in general.  The added challenge this year is that our team is significantly smaller with some people graduating and having to take time off to refocus their priorities (I never want to use people to get things done but believe in people growing through their passionate service for God).  There are currently two members of the team (not including myself) and we are interviewing / auditioning a third.  To make things worse I am unavailable Monday nights when SLU InterVarsity does it's worship service so the students are on their own for the actual "leading worship" time.