Inexpensive Draw for Students: Local Bands

One of the biggest discoveries I made in my early years of ministry was the draw of local bands.  All throughout your community there are teenagers practicing in bedrooms and garages waiting for a place and an audience.  When you open up your super bowl party or friday night hang out time a beautiful relationship is formed.  

First, you have something out of the ordinary to offer your students, and second, the band will promote your event until they are blue in the face.  No one wants to play to an empty room, and local teen bands have a way of making sure that doesn't happen by getting every friend of a friend to show up in support.  Depending on how new a band is, they will come for very little money or even just for the chance to have a place to play.

I have found that as long as you are up front about your expectations, you generally don't need to worry about the band being explicitly Christian if they are a local teen band because most are so grateful for a place to play, they are more than willing to censor themselves out of respect to the venue.

How do you find out about these bands?  Ask your kids.  They know someone who is in a band, and once you establish the first connection, the network of relationships is easy to navigate.

So, while the church around the corner may be hiring Toby Mac for 30K, supporting the local music scene will give you far more bang for your buck and establish relationships in your community that will have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact.