Why Don't Choir Members Get Paid?...Everyone Else Does!

The instrumentalists get paid.  The preacher gets paid.  Heck! Even the janitorial staff gets paid, so why not the choir members?  Do they not have skill?  Do they not put in work (often after work)? Why the double standard?

Back in the day

As a kid, joining the youth choir was one of the driving forces to accepting Christ as my Savior.  Yes, I wanted to affirm my belief in Jesus Christ.  And no, I didn't want to go to hell.  But week after week, seeing my peers jam in the choir stand also motivated me to take that critical step toward salvation.  So once I came of age, I did just that.  I got baptized, received the holy spirit and joined the choir!  Everyone had one goal in mind and that was to minister through song to the glory of God.  What did that look like?  Well, you had to remember the lyrics and your individual part, but most importantly you had to watch the director!  The director had the responsibility of navigating through the song and was given the liberty, if the spirit led them, to switch up the order from the way we rehearsed.  This unpredictability kept us on our toes.  No one wanted to be the one to mess up or jeopardize the delivery of the song because they weren't paying attention.  It was that serious.

7...AM?

I recently decided to join the choir at my church in Chicago.  I attended rehearsal and thankfully picked up the songs quite easily.  At the close of rehearsal the Minister of Music reminded us we were scheduled to sing Sunday and the call time was (everyone chimed in) 7 AM.  I gasped.  But service starts at 10!  In all my days of singing I'd never heard of waking up before the sun in preparation for a service that started mid-morning.  I contemplated waiting until the next Sunday to sing. (I needed to mentally prepare for a 6 AM wake up call!)  But what is ministry if it doesn't require sacrifice, right?  I went to bed at 11 the night before and woke up every 3 hours in fear of oversleeping.  At 5:58 I woke up in fear for the last time and determined I would just get dressed.  I hopped in a cab and arrived at church at 7:03.  I was proud.  In the sanctuary the praise team had already started the sound-check and many of the choir members were assembling in the pews.  I was inspired.

None of these choir members are on the payroll.  I am sure most of them have full-time jobs and families, but something pushes them to make it and to make it on time.  What is it?  Is it the coffee and pastries provided in the back?  Is it the warm smile from the Minister of Music?  I doubt it.  What pushes them is the same thing that once pushed me as a child.  It is the idea of being a contributing member of the body of Christ.  It is the satisfaction that comes along with leading others in worship without any strings attached.  It is fully committing to offer a sacrifice of praise that doesn't just look good to the human eye but to the eye of God.  It is the realization that God sees your every effort to please Him and understanding His reward is much greater than any reward given by man.

So should no one get paid?

As a recording artist, I know the importance of paid services.  There are actually few engagements I take without receiving some sort of honorarium.  This is due to my pursuit of becoming a full-time musician.  Since being a child, music has become more than a hobby, but a skill I have invested time and money to develop and perfect.  No one questions if an accountant or even a fitness instructor will receive pay for their work because we see them as professionals.  In that same way, professional singers and instrumentalists have an expectation of being compensated for their work.  So I don't knock the instrumentalists, preachers, and definitely not the janitorial staff, because their pursuit is of a different kind than that of a choir member.  As a choir member the intent is not to make a living, but to offer the gift of song as a sacrifice.  Although it requires time, energy, and skill, it's fulfilling in a way getting paid is not.  It is making a conscious decision to part from the way of this world that attaches a price tag to every service, and to devote time, energy, and skill in exchange of giving God glory.  For these reasons, I commend choir members.  Even without a paycheck their service is valuable and necessary.  And like them,  I believe all Christians should find something to offer the Lord that goes unrewarded by man.

{currently setting my clock for 6 AM every Sunday}

#walkthetalk

Sarah 

Testimonies Gone Wrong!

I want a testimony! 

Have you ever heard a testimony that didn't quite feel like a testimony?  One that started like "Back in the day, I did my thang!"  As a child, these testimonies would always confuse me.  They were often said in youth services by adults who seemed to both loathe and cherish their days before surrendering to Christ.  I remember one story being so excitedly told it was as if the person wanted to go back and relive those days.  Just like the others, I knew the story would soon shift.  Christ would suddenly, or slowly, change their hearts and save their soul, but that part paled in the light of the "YOLO" life they described initially.  

I have to admit, there was a part of me that wanted to experience that life; that "before Christ/after Christ" life.   Of course the adults would advise otherwise, but if they made it back to God, I could too, right?  I often told my parents "I want a testimony!" (read: "I want to live crazy and survive so I can tell an exciting story about it!")   My parents would then remind me of the myriad car accidents I'd survived and how the greatest testimony is to simply be saved, but in my mind that wasn't enough. I wanted a testimony like the ones I'd heard.  One with spontaneity, risks, and ignorant bliss.  I was the product of testimonies gone wrong.

If You Gone Tell it, Tell it Right (not necessarily all)

The purpose of testimonies are pretty clear.  They're how many of us realized we were not exempt from God's love.  They not only confirm the power of God to save sinners, but connects us all as children of God.  No matter your upbringing or pedigree, once lost and now found, is either your past or your potential future.  Testimonies essentially pat listeners on the back and say "If God did it for me, He can do it for you."  So what's the problem?  The problem is delivery.  There is a way to deliver a testimony that glorifies God, making Him the main attraction, and then there's a way to deliver a testimony that glorifies everything but God.  This is important to get right because it could either lead someone to Christ or right back from where they came. 

The way to avoid the latter is to tell the WHOLE story.  Not necessarily the gory details, but the whole story regarding your internal transformation.  Telling the fullness of what you experienced internally requires you to convey the brokenness of your before just as passionately as the healing of your after.  It is being transparent about how the spontaneity, the risk, and ignorant bliss affected you and still affects you.   It's not to focus solely on the look of sin but the sociological and spiritual penalty of sin.  When this is accomplished, the listener is able to relate, not only to a specific situation, but to your despair; not just to that particular sin, but to the burden of sin.  Testimonies have been most affective in my life when they were told fully.  This is how I pray my testimonies are received in this blog.  I may never get to testify about anything shocking like selling drugs or going to jail, but what I can say is I was born as a sinner and sin confused my mind.  Due to disobedience my heart was once broken, which led to more disobedience and alienation from the presence of God.  I am still not where I want to be but because of God's grace I'm right where I'm supposed to be;  benefiting from having a relationship with God and renewing my commitment to Him daily.  This is my testimony. (If you want more of my testimony check out my previous blogs.) 

#walkthetalk

Sarah