Greeting fellow learn gospel music readers. This is my first post, so here we go. Our church is in its 5th year of recovering from 32 years of one pastor's leadership. Now when I say 32 years of one pastor's leadership I mean just that. His way or no way. Our new pastor is in his 5th year and has done a great job trying to break through "DEEP TRADITION".
The only thing that holding us back is the music ministry. We are one step away from a "breakthrough". The director of music refuses to do what the pastor requests. Instead the director of music listens to the "SENIOR DEACON" for her instructions. The pastor has asked to sing two songs before the message and they won't do it. He has asked them to "not" play certain songs during the offering and they continue to play the songs. We he request a song during church its takes them forever to begin to play it. It’s quite embarrassing. We are constantly repeating the same songs over and over and over and over.....and over and over and over!! It is to the point now that choir members don't come to rehearsal because guess what.....they know what they are singing. The mentality now is....its nothing new and I sung the song before so why waist my time coming to rehearsal.
The director of music is sadly to say, playing strictly for the money. The director of music doesn’t plan and don't consult the pastor to find out what he ispreaching about on Sunday or anything. The pastor tries to let those who are hired to do a job to simply do their job. Basically, our director of music is not a director of music, she is strictly an accompanist.
The young man that directs the choirs doing worship service is a definably a leader and the leader we need but they exclude him from the song selection process. He never knows what the choirs are singing until the night of rehearsal. Even when the musician’s changes song during worship he is not aware of it until they start playing. Thank God that He has the spirit and God's gift to adjust and as they say 'handle his business. Honestly he needs to be our director of music or at least select the songs for the choir. He has charisma and the sprit of God in him but the deacons know and everybody else know that if becomes director of music, one, he is going to obey the pastor and follow his leadership and two he is going to take the music ministry to greater heights. The older members don't want the pastor to succeed and if the music department is failing, it’s a reflection on him. You can feel that the church is waiting on a change...we are that close.
I know somebody can understand what I'm talking about. The pastor feels that he doesn't have the support from the deacons to make a change in the music department. But the Deacons won't deal with the problem. The church has events the musicians won't show up. Choirs have to go off and sing, the musicians don't want to go. You can’t grow that way.
I know God has his time for everything and we must wait on him. Maybe someone can share any advice or other experiences that have had to deal with a matter such a this.
Thank you for reading. My next post will be much shorter.
