The choir at my church has RINGERS!

[Bridog6996]

Okay. Fair enough.

[Mr. Nightime]

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

Oh, I should add that I at least entertained the idea of joining, as a professional musician, the praise band at a church I do not attend, primarily for the paycheck. ]

That's not an option at my church. Before you can even apply to be a member of the praise band, you have to have been a regularly attending church member for at least 6 months.

[stepay]

Originally posted by Bridog6996:

This type of system happens all the time. In the church band that I play in, I happen to be the only one getting a check out of a band of five musicians. This also occurs quite a bit in community orchestras as well. Usually, a certain number of musicians in these orchestras are either paid professionals or professionals that are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts (but would otherwise be paid).

I think it happens most of the time for instrumentalists, but not nearly as often for people who just SING in the choir. I'm not sure our church would even be doing it if the system hadn't been underhandedly set up this way. I hope the current music director and the choir director have the cajones to eventually weed those pros out of the choir and try to build something with actual members of the church. Not that I'm against paying professional musicians, because I'm not, but we were sort of strongarmed into doing it, and I'd rather that the church operate the way it intended to rather than operate the way a departed music director thought it should.

[RABid]

Originally posted by Mr. Nightime:

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

Oh, I should add that I at least entertained the idea of joining, as a professional musician, the praise band at a church I do not attend, primarily for the paycheck. ]

That's not an option at my church. Before you can even apply to be a member of the praise band, you have to have been a regularly attending church member for at least 6 months.

Which to me is how it should be.

[stepay]

Originally posted by loumi:

Originally posted by stepay:

Robert, I get the feeling after Tuesday's meeting that the Chair of the Finance Committee is going to make this an issue (make it public). He has more clout than I do, so for now I'll let him do that.

Steve, that's good - good for you and good for the church. It may actually be illegal for them to NOT disclose it. I mean even the IRS could get involved. And the church could be in trouble if money flowed through them, unrecorded, to individuals for "services rendered". Look at the church bylaws. They should say how things like that should go.

 

Having said that, the church is not a democracy. Neither is it a representative republic like our country. (Few people realize our country is NOT a democracy). Your church is probably a corporation. It really does not have to disclose anything it doesn't want to. Yes, it should. But unless stated in the bylaws of the organization, it is not required to disclose anything. The good thing there is the membership can vote out/in anybody they want to get things straightened out.

 

I think the reason you may have been shocked, is that in most churches I think it is normally thought that the choir is a voluntary position. Leadership positions are the ones that can go either way (paid or unpaid). I guess it is all based on the size of the church. In our church, we could NEVER think of paying our musicians (like me).

 

Lou

loumi, as a former finance chair at another Methodist church, fortunately I do have a pretty good handle on how the church works. The way it is reporting that bill right now is well within their rights according to the Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church that we are in. Doesn't make it right though. I believe a more open policy should be the order of the day. It's kind of easy to hide some things as there are line items for salaries, but then things like health insurance and retirement and so on aren't always broken out for everyone unless you sit on the Finance Committee or are a really inquisitive member of the church. I can understand some of the smoke and mirrors, but generally speaking I think a completely open policy is the right one. Hopefully things will work out.

[Bridog6996]

Originally posted by RABid:

Originally posted by Mr. Nightime:

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

Oh, I should add that I at least entertained the idea of joining, as a professional musician, the praise band at a church I do not attend, primarily for the paycheck. ]

That's not an option at my church. Before you can even apply to be a member of the praise band, you have to have been a regularly attending church member for at least 6 months.

Which to me is how it should be.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, I play in a church band, but I am not religious at all. What it comes down to is that the church needed a keyboard player and they contacted me through a friend of a friend that does attend the church. I was completely up-front and honest with them about the fact that I don't share their beliefs. They understood, and hired me anyway. Do I feel guilty in any way about taking their money? Not at all. The church doesn't have a problem with it, so neither should I.

 

The fact is that it pays (pun somewhat intended) sometimes to have a hired gun. Volunteers, be they for church or otherwise, can be flaky. There have been occasions where none of the volunteer members of the worship band have shown up on Sunday morning. That would be everybody except for me and the drummer, who is also the pastor. So, no problem. We do a piano/drums duo and play a bunch of southern gospel. But otherwise, the pastor would have been left with no band whatsoever. I always show up because I'm getting paid to do so, so the pastor can at least count on some form of music every week. I think he's getting his money's worth.

[Eric VB]

Just to further explain, the P&W I considered joining was for a brand new house of worship, and they put their ad on craigslist looking for musicians. It was along the lines of other houses of worship I've visited.

 

Like my friend's congregation. Just a little 10,000 member house of worship in north Atlanta. They have three large rooms, each with its own stage, and for at least some of the music each room has its own band. They must use IEM or something to sync all three bands; I seem to recall camera images of the other bands being projected behind the live band. The pastor speaks on one stage and he is broadcast on large screens to the other two rooms. It is a huge production every Sunday, although you may not be able to tell from the NPCC website .

 

For a more detailed look at what went into the design of the place, check out this link . (You can bypass the page that first pops up or just wait 10 seconds.)

 

Now, with equipment like that, I can't see them doing anything other than hiring pro musicians. And the music is a huge draw for them. They would have never grown as large and as fast as they did if they used volunteer/amateur musicians.

 

Going to service there is like going to a concert. If you checked out their video on the "before you attend" link, you'll see parking attendants in full gear directing traffic flow with orange flags. I seem to recall they had three services each Sunday, so only 3,000 or so at each one. Still, a lot of cars to move in and out in a short period of time. (I bet the parking attendants are paid, too.)

 

We got there a little late and it was almost "standing room only" by the time we got in. The main room fills up first, so we got to see the virtual pastor instead of the live one.

 

My point is that yes, some places of worship make music a priority and depend on professional (paid) musicians.

 

I visited another friend's services in rural mid Michigan. The format was basically the same as NPCC, but their congregation only numbers maybe a couple hundred. Their music is also a draw, but the level of musicianship isn't as top notch as NPCC. I don't know if that's because they are volunteers or that's just the best they could find in the area. It's still effective, though, and everytime I've been there it's been the same personnel on stage, no one missing.

 

[edit: just to clarify, there are more to these services than just a band concert. The pastor gives a themed talk and quotes from the Bible. Further reflection may take place outside of the Sunday services. It's all done within a Christian context.]