I am so dang frustrated right now, I thought I would go ahead a blog about it. I really hope I get some comments concerning this issue. Feel free to reply to this blog with your comments.

I was recently doing a gig, and I contacted some music/technical directors from the churches around the area, to see if they would be interested in getting their tech guys involved in this relatively large event. The main draw was that we needed help setting up all of the gear, but the fringe benefits for the group was that they got to spend time in community with each other, developing relationships with other people with the same interest, crossing over church membership and denominational lines, to serve God by offering their knowledge. It also would have been a great training and learning experience for them all (for free), and lastly, it would have given them the chance to be part of something bigger than themselves and the monotony of Sunday morning hymns.

Out of 15 or 20 emails I sent out, I only had one reply. That alone was discouraging enough, but the content of that reply is what really made things bad. It set off such a sadness/disappointment/anger in me, that I needed to write this blog, just to see if I am just way off base here. I of course won’t use personal or church names, but the reply came from the music minister of a well known church in the city, and his reply was to the effect of (paraphrased):

“….I am too busy right now for anything like that; I just have too many things on my plate to add anything else to my schedule…”

As I got this response, I was disappointed, but deleted it, and moved on with my day. But after a while, I began to start thinking about the values that we (as church staff) should be trying to uphold; and I got pretty angry. I have two major conflicts with his reply statement. First of all, what are you doing there? As a church staff member, our job is NOT to do all of the work ourselves, nor is it (in a music ministers case) to produce a great worship service. Our job is to produce great people, and help them excel in their field of interest. If you do this correctly, great worship services will come by default. And you produce good people by investing time in them, getting to know them, being there for them, and most importantly, providing them the resources they need to carry out the tasks you have asked them to do. You don’t ask a soloist to sing a special without giving them direction, music, and a microphone. You don’t ask a drummer to come play drums at church on Sunday morning, but don’t provide a drum set. Likewise, you shouldn’t ask someone to operate sound (or any other technical equipment) without giving them the sound console, and the knowledge of how to use it. Many churches don’t spend enough time (or money) giving the appropriate amount of resources to their volunteers, yet wonder why they have a high turnover rates. There are two aspects to every single job function in the church: The operational side, and the relational side. The operational side is the stuff that has to be done, or the tasks at hand. Your sound guy knows he has to come in and run sound at the 10:00am service, he just knows that. The relational side is what the majority of most churches miss, but is the most important. That’s where the staff needs to make it fun, or make it so the engineer looks forward to coming to run sound at 10:00am. Give him the knowledge he needs. Give him the gear he needs. And most importantly, give him the attention and atmosphere he needs to produce great work for the Kingdom. Remember, they aren’t just button pushers, they are silent worship leaders, and the spirit of the leader, will be the spirit of the team.

In short, to say he was too busy mystified me, because the very thing I was asking of him, should be what he is there to do. He had a perfect opportunity to let his team grow and learn (again, for free) and be in community with other, and all he had to do was take 5 minutes on Sunday morning while his team was there, and ask them. But he was too busy. That’s a shame.

Finally, the second thing I was disappointed about was the cop-out line itself. Too busy?! We should never be too busy to take time and invest into someone else. Volunteers are the life-blood of the church, and when they get burnt out after doing sound for 10 years without so much as a “Thank You”, you’ll wish you had taken the time. I work at the largest church in the city of Las Vegas. We are adding a 5th weekend service because we can’t contain everyone who is showing up, we are about to start of 4th 40 Days Series, we are in the middle of a $16 Million expansion project, and we have more money and people than we know what to do with. Yet, I and my fellow co-workers saw the opportunity to reach out into a spiritually coma-induced area of the US, and they allowed me to step away from my obligations here, to reach out to those in that area. But he was too busy. That’s a shame.

My last two paragraphs ended with “But he was too busy. That’s a shame.” What if that were true of God? What if when we needed Him to reach out to us, and invest in us, he was too busy? Where would we be? Our job as church staff and as Christians is to reach out to those both inside and outside of the church. For those on the outside, Invest in them, and then Invite them to church. For those inside the church already, invest in them, and help them to be 110% all the time. Volunteers are what make ministry happen. They can’t be forgotten. But he was too busy. That’s a shame…..