Category: Ministry

The Awkward Salary Conversations

1Several years ago I posted some thoughts on a “worship leader’s job description and pay“. And of all the posts I’ve ever written in almost five years, that one post has gotten the most hits, the most Google searches, prompted the most interesting conversations (especially from one guy who’s apparently sold more records than The Beatles), and emails to me from various worship leaders from around the country asking for advice about how to negotiate their salary.

Since I am not currently having this conversation with my church I thought it might be a good time to share a few thoughts (for whatever they’re worth) on negotiating a salary when you’re serving in full-time ministry. I just received a question from a worship leader about this yesterday, and here’s basically what I said:

1. In principle, your church should pay you around the average income in your area, for a person of your age, with your experience, education, and taking into account whether you’re single, married, and have any children. Wikipedia has this info for most cities, I think! It’s not unreasonable to ask your church to pay you a fair salary. Too many church employees think that it is.

2. Bill Hybels says that “facts are your friends“. So, get your monthly expenses really organized and categorized. Put down what your monthly and/or yearly expenses are. Do it in transparent detail. Rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, bills, savings, gas, insurance, etc. Does your spouse work? Put that down too. Get a complete picture of the facts of your financial situation.

3. Do this so that you can know what you NEED to make in order to be comfortable and to provide for your family. Throwing out a figure, or just guessing, or just wanting MORE is not a good idea. But do some research on the average income in your area. Then get your facts straight. Then put it down in a succinct, to-the-point letter to your boss and your pastor, and have a very specific ask. Ground it in the fact that it’s what you NEED, not what you WANT. Do it humbly but don’t feel guilty.

If they respond positively, then well done. If they respond negatively, then you’ll need to prayerfully (and with wise counsel) evaluate whether God is calling you to a situation where you’re not paid enough, or whether it might be more wise for you to look elsewhere.

Of course, God calls people all the time to serve in ministries and capacities where the compensation isn’t all that they NEED and they have to rely on raising support, or having a second job, or having their spouse work. If God has called you to this sort of ministry, then he will provide for you

This advice is for the full-time (or even part-time) worship leader who’s serving at a church that’s relatively stable financially, and able to pay him/her a salary. If that’s you, and you’re entering into those awkward salary discussions, then get your facts straight, put it down on a paper (in a memo, not a novel), and ask for what you need. And pray a lot too.

UPDATE: I forgot to add a very important thing: Very often, when churches can’t afford to pay you the average salary for your area, they can make up for it in other ways. Perhaps they have a house you can live in, or perhaps (and this is how my wife and I are able to survive in Northern Virginia) there is a family in the church who will rent you a place for a less-than-market-value rate. These are two examples of ways a church can help you and your family survive and be comfortable, even if they can’t pay you what a spreadsheet says you “need”.

Interview with Worship Links

1Worship Links is a great website with tons of good resources for worship leaders. A few weeks ago they asked me a few questions and today they’ve posted the answers here. Check it out.

(You’ll also get some chocolate chip cookie dunking advice in there as an added bonus.)

Lessons From Lawsuits

1Earlier this week, my church got final word that our long 7+ year legal battle with the Episcopal Church, our former denomination, is over. Completely over. Over over. Stick a fork in it because it’s done over. Even though we had left our former property in May 2012, we had continued our appeals to the Virginia supreme court and then to the United States supreme court, believing that we had a responsibility, particularly to other churches who might not have the same resources as we do, to see it through to the very end. So, we saw it through to the end, and we’re not looking back.

I’ll never forget the Sunday we took the vote in late 2006 to leave our denomination. It was Advent, and as we sang the line from “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” that asks God to “bid Thou our sad divisions cease and be Thyself our King of Peace” I looked out and saw grown men, respectable men, Northern Virginian professional and powerful men, with tears in their eyes. They were in my eyes too.

This coming July I will celebrate my ten-year anniversary of coming on staff here. Over seven of those years were marked by a fairly high degree of uncertainty about where God was leading our congregation, whether we’d win or lose a particular case, whether we’d keep or lose our property, where our new offices would be, where we’d worship, whether we keep this or that piece of equipment, etc. It has been a wild ride. There have been low lows and high highs. We’ve had Sundays where I thought the roof was literally going to lift off, and Sundays when I wondered if the Holy Spirit had taken the Sunday off.

I’ve learned some worship leading lessons through these years of never-ending lawsuits.

First, the Gospel is our song. The songs that have resounded the loudest and longest over these seven years have been the songs that declare the good news of Jesus Christ. Whether we’ve been feeling good about ourselves or discouraged about a bad ruling, declaring the power of the Gospel has always tapped into something powerful. Always.

Second, the songs we sings should rest on the sure victory of Jesus, not on our changing circumstances. We won our first court case in April 2008. In our worship service after hearing that good news, we sang “On Christ, the solid rock, I stand…” We lost our second court case in June 2010. In our worship service after hearing that bad news, we sang “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing…”. We lost (big) our third court case in January 2012. In our worship service after hearing that shocking news, we sang “Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne…”. In our final worship service in our old building, we sang “And as He stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me, for I am His, and He is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ”. We experience changing circumstances but we rest in the victory of our unchanging Savior who was and is worthy of our praise. If we’re singing songs that only “work” if we’re happy and things are going well, then we’re singing the wrong kinds of songs.

Third, people are looking to sing songs that are true. We captured this in our recent live worship album (recorded one year after leaving our former property). People live in an uncertain world, full of harshness, full of law, full of lies, and full of sadness. The faithfulness of God and the power of the Gospel are the source of our joy, our hope, our lives, and our ministry. I’ve never gone wrong choosing songs that help people “teach and admonish one another in all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16). God knows they need it.

Fourth, comfort is overrated. I almost wish every church and every worship leader could experience what my church has experienced over the last seven years, especially the last two years since we left our building. It has been good for us. Our idols of comfort and convenience have been exposed. Our weaknesses have come out in the light. The dead branches have become more obvious. It’s hard for a church’s muscles to grow when it’s sleeping on the proverbial couch. We’ve been feeling the burn for a while, and it hurts, but it’s good for us in the long run.

Finally, you can’t manufacture the Holy Spirit (but you can try). A lot of worship leaders don’t realize that they spend a lot of time trying to manufacture the Holy Spirit in their services. Whether it’s by trying to recreate something produced on an album, trying to use certain audio or visual effects to produce your prescribed reaction, trying to bring rapid change in a matter of weeks, or turning the worship knob to 11 every week, worship leaders can easily slip into dangerous territory. Honestly, just relax. Choose songs that point people to Jesus, lead them in a heartfelt and humble way, make sure the music and musicians alongside you are as skillful as possible, and let the Holy Spirit do his job. It’s a beautiful thing to behold the Holy Spirit at work in a congregation.

It’s a tragedy when churches deal with lawsuits and litigation. I hope most churches and worship leaders never have to. But whether you’re in court, or a portable church in a basketball gym, or whether you’re nice and comfortable in your own permanent building, never lose sight of what’s really worth singing, who’s really worth singing to, and who’s really the worship leader (it’s not you).

How to Approach Guest Worship Leading

1This coming Sunday I’ll have the privilege of filling in for a friend who’s the worship director at a local church. He’s on vacation and asked me to be the guest worship leader. Since he’s filled in for me in the past, and it was easy for me to find a sub at my own church, I said yes. It will be kind of fun.

I wanted to share how I approach serving as a guest worship leader for a church that isn’t my own. This kind of opportunity pops up for me 3 or 4 times a year, and I’ve made enough mistakes and learned a few lessons that I thought sharing them might be helpful.

1. Approach it as a servant. You are not a celebrity.

2. Don’t just come in and do your own thing, in your own way, with your own songs, and your own personality on display. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when some people in the congregation didn’t really notice that you were there.

3. Ask as many questions as possible about what they’re used to. Have them walk through a normal rehearsal, and a normal service with you. Once you’ve settled on a song list, ask them if they do any of those songs differently from how you do them. Get lots of details.

4. Collaborate on a song list. You want to pick songs that the congregation knows really well. You’re a guest, so it’s OK if you err on the side of really familiar songs. Ask what songs they might suggest you lead.

5. Come alongside their musicians. Get a feel ahead of time about the skill level of the musicians you’ll be working with. Tailor your song choices to them. Come to the rehearsals and services with a lighthearted, humorous, and humble spirit, and the musicians will look forward to when/if you come back.

6. Lower your demands. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made when serving as a guest worship leader somewhere was, in essence, insisting on my own hotel room, when a room at a home was available to me not very far away. The budget was already very tight for this group, and I was extremely insensitive to this. It wasn’t worth it and I handled it poorly and fairly arrogantly. Don’t have a big list of demands. Know what you’ll need, and graciously accept whatever hospitality they are able to extend, but don’t demand special treatment.

7. Arrange all the technical stuff in advance. One time I traveled all the way to San Diego to lead worship for a conference at a church, and when I arrived I realized they had no cable or direct box for my guitar. They assumed I’d be bringing my own. I led worship for the whole conference with a lapel mic strapped to the front of my guitar. Arrange these kinds of things in advance.

8. Make sure the lyrics have been checked. When you say you want to do “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and they say “great! We know that one!” it doesn’t mean they do the same verses with the same wording as you. Make sure there aren’t any awkward surprises on Sunday morning. This

9. Try to be low-maintenance. It’s a lot of work for a church to bring in a guest worship leader. Once they secure one, they have to worry about travel details, accommodations, honorarium, rides, meals, all the correspondence in advance, getting them up to speed, etc. You think it’s a lot of work for you to fill in? It’s more work for them to make it all work. Do what you can to make it easy on them.

10. Preach the gospel. I’ve been asked to lead worship occasionally for conferences or retreats for groups that are Christian in their statement of faith, but in reality have members from all over the spiritual, theological, and political map. When this is the case, it’s even more important to choose songs that focus on and preach the good news of Jesus Christ. It’s good to do this at a normal Sunday morning service too, of course, but you’ll find yourself seeing and depending on the power of the gospel even more when you find yourself guest leading for a diverse group that isn’t usually assembled together. Even if no one is really “into it”, you’re still accomplishing quite a lot.

The role of a guest worship leader is not to come in and perform and leave his mark. The role of a guest worship is to sneak in and point people to Jesus and then go back home. Of course there are more details to work out, but it really is that simple.

Now Just Wait A Minute

1For some reason when I was in college I signed up for an elective called “Marketing 101”. One of the marketing concepts that we discussed was the “innovation adoption lifecycle” (are you impressed?) which breaks down customers into different categories based on when, in a product/innovation’s lifecycle, customers choose to adopt it.

Innovators adopt a new product at the very beginning. They’re the first in line, and they don’t wait to read reviews. Not very many people fall into this category.

Early adopters wait a little while to make sure the new product is dependable and then they quickly jump on it. There are more early adopters than there are innovators.

The early majority is just what it sounds like. The largest bloc of customers who adopt a product fall into this category. They get in on something just before it’s no longer new.

The late adopters aren’t too far behind. They didn’t need to prove anything and they knew how to control their impulses. This considerable population of consumers waits until the novelty wears off.

The last category of people have the unfortunate title of “laggards“. They’re the ones who are just now buying a cell phone and it’s 2014.

OK, so why all the marketing talk from a worship leader who majored in Psychology? Because I think far too many worship leaders can fall into the first couple of categories listed above.

Too many worship leaders try (or think they have to try) to be innovators or early adopters. Up on all the new fads. Incorporating all the new songs. Buying new equipment or new keyboard patches or new software or new albums. It’s a never-ending hunt for novelty which significantly increases the risk that they’ll unknowingly adopt a product or an innovation which has significant weaknesses.

There is wisdom is waiting. There is something to be said for taking a deep breath, taking a step back, gaining perspective, analyzing something, considering its integrity, and thinking carefully before adopting something new. It’s better to wait and see whether or not a new song is really worth singing, or if a new piece equipment is really the one your church needs to buy, or if that new church member who’s an awesome bass player is really committed to your church before putting them on the platform.

It’s not that being an innovator or an early adopter is always bad. The problem is when your quest is to always be an innovator or always be an early adopter, so much so that you can’t make yourself wait, discern, and consider whether you’re making the right decision or not. Novelty often covers up weakness. So wait until the novelty wears off.

But just like it’s unwise to be an impulsive, knee-jerk innovator who will find himself having adopted a new product full of problems, it’s also unwise to be a laggard. Laggards miss out, plain and simple. They bury their heads in the sands of security and miss out on opportunity after opportunity to participate in the life going on all around them.

Worship leaders shouldn’t miss out on the life, the songs, the movements, and the innovations that God is stirring up around them. Use whatever you can, whenever you can, for the glory of God. But worship leaders shouldn’t rush to always be the first in line to adopt what’s being stirred up. Some of what’s being stirred up is good, and some of it is weak.

So just wait a minute and learn a lesson from Marketing 101: it’s better to wait and be happy then to rush and regret it.