Thank you all for your responses and I pray you respond even more. But there are a few things that I failed to mentioned. I work nights at a secular job. They have their CD's to go over, so it's not like the music is unfamiliar to them. I DO NOT work with a choir, its a 7 member ensemble of singers. We sing half of our music is from tracks the half I play on piano. It is not your normal setup...as we don't have a band. I am the band--the only instrument (piano).
I read an article (
http://www.earnestandroline.com/Music/Article/rehearsal.html) and came to the conclusion that I could rehearse Wednesday nights after service, as stated in the article. Its fits my schedule perfectly.
Before I got there, all they did was sing 3 or 4 songs and that was the end of the worship service. Now, it goes well beyond 30 mins pretty much every service...lately 45.
I don't introduce a whole lot of music at one time as most of you guys do. Because I'm NOT full-time doing this, I simply cannot dedicate "full-time" to this. Now the story would be different if I were. So when I introduce a new song, we drive that thing for weeks, and they do really well with it. BTW, they used music stands before I got there and still do, so they have copies of the music to off of. EASY!!!!
More is being demanded of me, but honorarium is not. And for ME, I do not not believe it's fair!
I am considering stepping down and just allowing them to go back to their old way of doing things. Because in more than one way, I am not being treated with proper Regard and Respect. They follow the teaching of Kenneth Copeland and the whole "Word of Faith"....which I am NOT insulting. But you know they believe in BIG-MONEY (Kenneth Copeland), and so my thing is if this your way of belief...then why am I on tail-end of it. Church is paid for-debt free...it's not fair. They get their FULL-TIME salary, and I'm expected to operate as they do. Perhaps, if the Pastors were not getting paid, then I wouldn't have a problem serving FREE too.
And yes Jesus is our reward, but I have to look at the Levites....I bet Kenneth Copeland won't come to your meeting for free...Creflo, Jerry Savelle, Jesse Duplantis...they're all in fellowship (WORD OF FAITH).
Thank you brothers and sisters for your real/honest responses.