Oldcontroller's Blog

Remember when I said this?

…but it’s going to be nice to be working for someone whose focus is on the worship service and music ministry.

The new boss and I seem to be having a bit of a problem connecting. We’ve had a few conversations, all brief, all consisting of him telling me to come in early on Sunday or go up into the balcony and watch the tech guys and critique. Never once have we gotten together to discuss music for Sunday, except a moment or two here and there when the chief topic was key signatures or me explaining the musical road map. Never once have we gone over the words on the slides so he can be certain I’m giving him what he wants, really.

My soon-to-be-ex boss and I used to go over the slides every Wednesday evening. Every Wednesday evening, with remarkably few exceptions. This Sunday, as in the previous two Sundays, I’m going in hoping that I’ve given him what he wants. I am giving him what the music charts call for, but whether that’s what he actually wants… I don’t know.

After twenty years in the military, I’m well versed in changing supervision, working for the new guy, or being the “new guy” and having to adjust to what the in-place supervision wants. This is not new territory for me. He’s stated we need to communicate better, and he’s right. We do. But… and this is just me, here, he’s not here to state his case… I don’t think I’m the one with the problem. I’m in place. He’s… at home. Or somewhere. Not in the office much.

Not my call. Not my business. Not my problem — except when it is. When things go sideways. And then you bet it’s my problem.

His latest remarks to me included repeating input he’s received from somebody. He didn’t say who. Doesn’t matter, I guess. He’s being told we can’t hear his voice sometimes, and we can’t hear his guitar. He plays an acoustic guitar, connected to an amplifier. I was in the congregation last Sunday and I didn’t notice a problem. It all seemed fine to me.

Here’s my take on it, for what it’s worth (arguably, nothing). As our senior pastor never has any volume issues, nor do our two junior pastors, it’s possible the voice volume thing is directly related to his own volume and pitch. And as the sound guy explained to me a few days ago, there isn’t a microphone in the world that can suck the sound out of a person’s face — they just have to speak (and sing) clearly and loudly enough. As to the guitar not being heard — well, when the electric guitars (there’s at least one, usually two) and drums are whaling away — no, we’re not going to hear the acoustic guitar, amped or not.

The microphones and/or amps could be turned up, to a point. And then you get feedback.

So, I’m in the balcony starting this Sunday. To make sure the congregation hears him properly.

Lord help me. I really mean that. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to manage this.

That’s my soon-to-be-ex boss up front, pointing at the tech guys in the back. I can’t remember why. And you can just see me, looks like I’m perched on his right shoulder. I don’t remember what was going on to the right of the frame that had some of us so amused — there were a lot of players and dancers running around the sanctuary that evening.

Article at the title link, if you’re interested.

Let me tell you about this change, real quick, before I run off to work.

Sunday before last there was a situation, apparently, that upset my new boss. I was in the congregation and I noticed nothing wrong, but he’s a bit wigged out about it.

I told you previously that we’ve been having conversations about key signatures. That Sunday morning I was in the process of throwing things into the crock pot for dinner when the phone rang. It was about 8:30. It was my new boss. He said I’d pulled the wrong version of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Said it wasn’t “the one the church knows.”

There are two versions in the old hymnal, and there are members of the congregation who, as I’ve said before, have the whole thing memorized. So the “not the one the church knows” statement makes zero sense. But it was the one he’d said he wanted, as printed on the flow for worship that I got off the PlanningCenterOnline.com website that we’re now using. It was the one in D. The other one is in E-flat.

I told him I’d pulled the music we had, didn’t understand the problem. He said he’d check my office and see. A few minutes later he called back, said I’d given him the wrong one. So I finished filling the crock pot and got dressed and ran out the door.

When I got there, he’d solved the problem by giving two of the visiting musicians the originals out of our music chart books. I don’t like doing that, but as long as we get them back it’s no problem.

I checked the flow chart I had and confirmed — I’d given him exactly what he asked for. The problem is he doesn’t understand key signatures. He doesn’t read music.

During the service he was singing (in a key lower than he was comfortable with — by half a step, for cryin’ out loud) and couldn’t hear himself. He looked up at the sound guy in the balcony to get his monitor or mike turned up, not sure which. But the sound guy wasn’t looking at him. He was doing something with the sound board. That’s his job.

The new boss was sufficiently distressed by the failure to react immediately to what he wanted he’s decided to make this change, beginning in the new year. He’s pulling me out of the choir. He wants me to sit in the balcony and watch what goes on, take notes, critique. And he wants me to supervise the tech guys up there so I can poke them when they don’t give him what he wants.

Hands up, everybody who thinks that’s going to be well received.

Those guys don’t need me up there. They know what they’re doing. They’re very good at it. If he had a problem with not having eye contact with the sound guy for a few seconds, he should have taken it up with the sound guy. I suspect he didn’t because he’s already annoyed the sound guy to the point that he’s talking about quitting. Seems they went to lunch a couple weeks ago to get acquainted and according to the sound guy (we talked about this last week), the new boss’ attitude is, well, arrogant. His word. The sound guy’s response was, “I don’t need this job.” And he doesn’t. He is, however, very very good at it. He’s also not a jerk, he’s a very nice guy, very professional and very supportive. We need him worse than he needs us. And if he quits, I honestly do not know what we’re going to do. They don’t want me on the sound board — it’s only slightly less complicated than the cockpit of a Boeing 787. I couldn’t do it.

I am very upset about not singing in the choir. I love singing in the choir. They don’t need me, although we’re very short on altos. I’m not a great singer and they’d be fine without me. But I’m not going to be fine without them. This hurts my heart, not to be able to sing with them. Singing is worship to me, this is how I serve Jesus during the service. It’s not fair that he’s taking this away from me just because he’s uncomfortable with something that happened that involved somebody who isn’t even me.

I’m hoping this is temporary, that once he’s more comfortable he’ll let me come back to the choir. But there’s one thing that isn’t changing, I think — he’s got me coming in at 8:30 Sunday morning to follow him around and help him for an hour before Sunday School starts, so if he needs something I’ll be there.

Previously — I set everything up, got everything done, all the music pulled and organized, and all the boss had to do was show up and work with the musicians. This guy wants me right there, because… he doesn’t trust me to do my job correctly? Isn’t really all that sure about what he’s doing? And he wants me to do this, in his words, “from now until Jesus comes.”

Not happy. Not happy. But God has a plan. There is a reason for all of this. He’s in control and it’s all playing out the way He wants it to. Even if I don’t understand. Even if it’s breaking my heart.

(Sorry about the ad, can’t help it. Mute your speakers before clicking.)

I think it’s because of what’s been going on at work. It’s unbelievable.

Wednesday night we had a Singing Christmas Tree rehearsal. At the end of it, as we weren’t having choir rehearsal because the tree is up in the sanctuary, we had a bit of fellowship with my soon-to-be-ex boss and gave him a gift we put together in secret. A few weeks ago he was out of town and another fellow filled in. That was the day I had to run the slides on a moment’s notice. We crowded the choir and the instrumentalists in the choir loft after the service and took a picture. The photo was enlarged and framed, we all signed the mat. Wednesday night was the first time most of us had seen the finished product. It turned out really well. The boss loved it.

So, after the presentation I was talking to our pianist and our organist. The pianist was telling me about how she’d been working with our new worship pastor. She leaned in and said, “You realize he doesn’t read music.”

My response was brilliant. I said, “Wha……?” She just nodded at me, as did the organist.

So, here we are. We just hired the new guy, really nice young man, lovely family. Has been the worship pastor for a church in Florida for the past 10 years. He’s our worship pastor, our music leader. And he doesn’t read music.

This explains a few conversations I’ve had with him, the context of which baffled me. It also explains why he came in my office the other day with a piece of music and had me run through it, from the beginning to the first ending, then back to measure 3, then to the second ending, then to the chorus, twice…. as it’s written. Because he couldn’t read it.

How will he direct the choir? How will he direct the musicians? And here’s the big question — how will he ever be able to direct the Singing Christmas Tree next year?

If we don’t have one, there will be a lot, and I mean a lot, of very upset people. This is our one great event all year, that pulls more people out of the community into our church to hear about Jesus Christ than anything else we do. Every year we get comment cards from people telling us they’ve accepted Jesus as their Savior because of the message they heard during the Tree performances. Every year we get comment cards from people telling us how much it means to them that we do this for the community every year, how much a part of their holiday traditions it is and how much joy it brings them.

He’s not going to be able to do it. Even if we started training him now, between me and the two keyboard ladies, there’s no way we could have him reading and directing from orchestral scores by next November, or December. And that doesn’t even address the learning curve he’d need to manage to direct a choir of 120+ people (the Tree will hold 144; last year we had 130, this year we’ve got 124).

There are classes he could take, but whether there is a plan to send him… I have no idea.

My soon-to-be-ex boss told me something the other day that makes way more sense now. The senior pastor approached him about doing the Tree again next year. He doesn’t want to do it. Not because he doesn’t love the Tree; he does. It’s a massive amount of work, but he loves the music and he loves the choir and he loves the orchestra and he loves being a part, in his case an extremely important part, of getting the message out. And he loves Jesus. But he’s very much afraid of a conflict. He doesn’t want to come into the church where the music pastor has his program going the way he wants it and using his choir and musicians (in addition to a lot of other folks) to pull this monumental undertaking together. His statement was that there was a danger of taking a friendship and turning it into something else.

I understand his point. And he’s right. But the new guy is simply not going to be able to do it — if he can’t read music.

I’m going to have to leave this to God. He has a plan. He has a reason for this — and I have no idea what it is. Maybe we’re supposed to train up the new guy — but left to our own devices there’s no way we’re going to be able to do it in the time we have before planning for the next Tree starts. In January. Not kidding. So, God, step in here. Please. We’ll never make it without You.

*sigh* Also, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

By the way — here’s a picture of the Tree in the sanctuary. It’s even cooler when the lights are working.

This past Wednesday, the 6th, was the first time we had the 2013 Singing Christmas Tree in Tree formation for rehearsal. We set the chairs up in rows replicating where people were going to be standing.

The boss had warned me there would be complaints. When people sign up for the Tree choir they fill out a card on which they indicate any preferences they have for where they stand on the tree. Some people (like me) can’t be very high up — for some it’s an unwillingness to climb, for others (me) it’s because of a fear of heights that would require the fire department’s intervention should I somehow be convinced to climb higher than I wanted to. Some people have health issues that make it necessary for them to be at the end of the rows, and some people can’t stand for very long so they need to be on the first, lowest row. That row has stools to sit on. And then of course the choir members who are soloists or members of ensembles or involved in the drama have to be at the ends of rows so they can get out and then back in when they need to. It’s a lot of work, trying to keep people happy and still make the production happen the way it needs to. Plus there’s the height issue. We use styrofoam blocks duct-taped to the structure for us short folks to stand on so the Tree choir is sort of a uniform height. More or less. Some of our members are over 6 feet tall. The shorter folks have to be towards the middle of the Tree, as it minimizes the tripping hazard while people are getting on and off the Tree.

My boss does the deciding who stands where. We have a board with velcro on it, and round tags with people’s names, parts (soprano 1st or 2nd, alto, tenor, bass or baritone), and height on them so he can place them, move them around, whatever he needs to do to figure out who’s where.

And somebody’s always unhappy.

Wednesday I had printed up the standing chart and had them available so people could see where they were. I got collared almost immediately by one member who was very annoyed that she wasn’t higher on the tree. She was borderline nasty about it. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything I could do, and she didn’t seem interested in talking to the boss about it, see if he would be willing to move her. And then there was the woman who confronted me during rehearsal.

I was sitting in my chair, minding my own business, rehearsal had started. The boss was talking to us about something when I heard a voice hiss my name in my ear. I turned around and she was standing behind me, in front of the people in the row behind me, holding one of the seating charts. She pointed to the name of the woman who had been assigned the position at the very top of the tree and asked me if she was a soprano or an alto. And she informed me that she wasn’t present for rehearsal.

I didn’t know what part she sings. I told her so. I wondered (to myself) what on earth it had to do with anything. I didn’t mention that several other people had also failed to show up for rehearsal. I was astounded that she’d chosen to address the issue in the middle of rehearsal.

Several responses occurred to me, none of which would not have gotten me into trouble. One of the women sitting next to me volunteered information about the woman in question, which I wish she hadn’t but there wasn’t anything to be done about it.

It’s possible the concern was centered around whether or not she was singing the same part as the woman who was worried about the situation. Turns out she is, they’re both altos. The woman who was worried about things is on the row directly below her. She’s sharing the row with one other singer — a soprano. She didn’t complain about that, though.

There’s no hierarchy attached to any particular location on the tree. The person at the top isn’t necessarily the best singer. As it happens, she’s in one of the ensembles, so she’ll have to climb down at some point and then back up. She’s all by herself up there, so it won’t interfere with anybody. And she doesn’t mind being 400 feet in the air (I’m exaggerating — a little).

What I couldn’t say? “What difference does any of this make? Go sit down, we’re in the middle of rehearsal and you’re disrupting things for several people right now. Lots of other people didn’t make rehearsal tonight, are they a problem for you too? I’m trying to listen to what the director is saying and you’re bothering me about something I have no control over. Sit. Take it up with the director, or get over it.”

*sigh*

Thanks for listening.