This is my first posting on here. I am in desperate need of some Christian-to-Christian advice right now. Forgive the long detailed post, but it's necessary to describe the situation.
So, here's the deal. I am 19, newly married, and plan to be in ministry for my life's work. Taking a hiatus from school for financial reasons, but once everything gets cleared up I'll be back at it. Currently I lead worship for a very small church plant about 30 minutes from my house. Before I led there, I led for different youth groups and helped out with any praise/worship team that I could. I love it.
I have been at my current position since March of 2015. Got connected with this church through a contemporary worship night that I played at and the pastor spoke there as well. He asked me to lead worship for them on and off for about two months before officially taking me on as their "Interim Worship Leader," and once 3 months were up he asked me to stay on staff. Which I obviously did.
It started out really super great. I enjoyed the preaching, the small but contemporary atmosphere, and the way that everything was set up. It was different to anything that I'd ever seen in the church world and I liked it. On top of just really enjoying the vibe, they also paid me a flat rate of $50 a week, which was also really new to me. All worship work I'd done up to this point was volunteer-based, and I had felt that I wanted it more than the leaders and team members there wanted/needed me. It was nice. I got to do what I loved, in an environment I liked, and get paid for it - even though it wasn't very much. I didn't - and still don't - mind.
Well, about 6 months in things started to change. Our worship ministry began to grow. Instead of just me on acoustic and a djembe player, we now have a keyboardist and bassist. Like two instruments shy of a full band. When this first happened I felt like I was swimming blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. I was very new to coordinating people twice and three times my age, and I was very uncomfortable doing so. The pastor began to give me advice on how to handle it, which was appreciated at first, and then it began to morph into something else.
He tells me to plan 5 and 6 weeks ahead (he doesn't even have sermon ideas for this far out) so that the team can be prepared and practice, and so I do that, and the week of he tells me to change everything, completely negating the point of me taking time out of my week to plan that far out. He tells us (the worship team) his plan for closing, and our cue to come in, then does something completely different leaving us clueless. We do our best playing it by ear, and then he complains to me during our weekly meetings of how awful it turned out. He tells me to get creative, and so I tell him my ideas, and he immediately dismisses them as if either a) they are stupid or b) sometimes he just acts as if I didn't say anything. Which really angers me.
I've done my best to just keep a straight face and comply to what he wants, which is difficult because he is very picky but doesn't always tell me what he wants until after I do whatever-it-is wrong. So it's a very unnerving guessing game. But all of this has leaked into Sunday morning service. Now, I don't know that the pastor has actually changed the way he preaches/talks but it sure seems that way. I no longer enjoy the sermons nor get anything from them. They feel shallow and sometimes even nonexistant on a theological scale. My husband also leaves Sunday service not feeling spiritually fed, which is even more frustrating for me.
My breaking point was the last couple of weeks. I allowed a member of the congregation to come up on stage to play tambourine in the back of all the musicians (next to the drummer, not even in the light, could barely be seen). She did a great job. The next meeting, the pastor tells me that he didn't like that, that I should have asked him first, and that (here's the kicker) he "didn't like the way she was dressed." (She was wearing jeans, UGG boots, and her church volunteer T-shirt.) This really unsettled me. His church's motto is "come as you are." If that's truly what you want to preach, should you not practice and demonstrate it also by who you allow up there???
For quite some time the pastor has been telling me that he doesn't like the look of the music stands that the bassist and keyboardists use on stage. Now, these people are grown adults that have 40-50 hour work weeks that also causes them to go out of town for the majority of their week. To be honest, I am just completely humbled that God stirred in their hearts to help out with my little worship ministry. I try to honor them and their time as much as I can. I told them that we could no longer have music stands up there, but if they needed their chord charts they could put it somewhere hidden just to glance at now and again. The pastor didn't like this either. He told me the purpose of getting rid of the stands is so that they couldn't look at their music, because it's totally not too much to ask of traveling, arguably already overworked adults (one of which whose wife currently has cancer) to memorize 4+ songs every week. I brought up an idea to him that we put the chords on the TV screen the musicians see, so that the chords wouldn't be cluttering the stage but also to inspire confidence in them to look out in the crowd every once in a while. He acted like this was the worst idea in the world. He literally told me that no church he knew of ever did something like this, when literally every larger church I've been a part of does this.
Honestly, I am fed up. What are your thoughts on how I should handle this situation? Pretty much everyone is telling me to leave. I'm just not sure how to do it properly.
Thanks and God bless.
So, here's the deal. I am 19, newly married, and plan to be in ministry for my life's work. Taking a hiatus from school for financial reasons, but once everything gets cleared up I'll be back at it. Currently I lead worship for a very small church plant about 30 minutes from my house. Before I led there, I led for different youth groups and helped out with any praise/worship team that I could. I love it.
I have been at my current position since March of 2015. Got connected with this church through a contemporary worship night that I played at and the pastor spoke there as well. He asked me to lead worship for them on and off for about two months before officially taking me on as their "Interim Worship Leader," and once 3 months were up he asked me to stay on staff. Which I obviously did.
It started out really super great. I enjoyed the preaching, the small but contemporary atmosphere, and the way that everything was set up. It was different to anything that I'd ever seen in the church world and I liked it. On top of just really enjoying the vibe, they also paid me a flat rate of $50 a week, which was also really new to me. All worship work I'd done up to this point was volunteer-based, and I had felt that I wanted it more than the leaders and team members there wanted/needed me. It was nice. I got to do what I loved, in an environment I liked, and get paid for it - even though it wasn't very much. I didn't - and still don't - mind.
Well, about 6 months in things started to change. Our worship ministry began to grow. Instead of just me on acoustic and a djembe player, we now have a keyboardist and bassist. Like two instruments shy of a full band. When this first happened I felt like I was swimming blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. I was very new to coordinating people twice and three times my age, and I was very uncomfortable doing so. The pastor began to give me advice on how to handle it, which was appreciated at first, and then it began to morph into something else.
He tells me to plan 5 and 6 weeks ahead (he doesn't even have sermon ideas for this far out) so that the team can be prepared and practice, and so I do that, and the week of he tells me to change everything, completely negating the point of me taking time out of my week to plan that far out. He tells us (the worship team) his plan for closing, and our cue to come in, then does something completely different leaving us clueless. We do our best playing it by ear, and then he complains to me during our weekly meetings of how awful it turned out. He tells me to get creative, and so I tell him my ideas, and he immediately dismisses them as if either a) they are stupid or b) sometimes he just acts as if I didn't say anything. Which really angers me.
I've done my best to just keep a straight face and comply to what he wants, which is difficult because he is very picky but doesn't always tell me what he wants until after I do whatever-it-is wrong. So it's a very unnerving guessing game. But all of this has leaked into Sunday morning service. Now, I don't know that the pastor has actually changed the way he preaches/talks but it sure seems that way. I no longer enjoy the sermons nor get anything from them. They feel shallow and sometimes even nonexistant on a theological scale. My husband also leaves Sunday service not feeling spiritually fed, which is even more frustrating for me.
My breaking point was the last couple of weeks. I allowed a member of the congregation to come up on stage to play tambourine in the back of all the musicians (next to the drummer, not even in the light, could barely be seen). She did a great job. The next meeting, the pastor tells me that he didn't like that, that I should have asked him first, and that (here's the kicker) he "didn't like the way she was dressed." (She was wearing jeans, UGG boots, and her church volunteer T-shirt.) This really unsettled me. His church's motto is "come as you are." If that's truly what you want to preach, should you not practice and demonstrate it also by who you allow up there???
For quite some time the pastor has been telling me that he doesn't like the look of the music stands that the bassist and keyboardists use on stage. Now, these people are grown adults that have 40-50 hour work weeks that also causes them to go out of town for the majority of their week. To be honest, I am just completely humbled that God stirred in their hearts to help out with my little worship ministry. I try to honor them and their time as much as I can. I told them that we could no longer have music stands up there, but if they needed their chord charts they could put it somewhere hidden just to glance at now and again. The pastor didn't like this either. He told me the purpose of getting rid of the stands is so that they couldn't look at their music, because it's totally not too much to ask of traveling, arguably already overworked adults (one of which whose wife currently has cancer) to memorize 4+ songs every week. I brought up an idea to him that we put the chords on the TV screen the musicians see, so that the chords wouldn't be cluttering the stage but also to inspire confidence in them to look out in the crowd every once in a while. He acted like this was the worst idea in the world. He literally told me that no church he knew of ever did something like this, when literally every larger church I've been a part of does this.
Honestly, I am fed up. What are your thoughts on how I should handle this situation? Pretty much everyone is telling me to leave. I'm just not sure how to do it properly.
Thanks and God bless.
