Crossroads

So you know that point in life where you think you finally have it all figured out and things are going your way? ...then someone or something comes along behind you and pulls the rug out from under your feet and you can't seem to catch yourself before you splat facedown on the concrete? Welcome to Sunday.

I love playing the piano at the church where I am, but I also do more than just accompany; I write the music for and direct the orchestra, I write a lot of the music for and direct the handbell choir, I play piano for the choir and direct/participate in the praise band. I play two special music pieces per week, both requiring rehearsal time, I choose/accompany two cantati per year, choose all the music for worship services, and the list goes on. I have the same paycheck as the lady who moved so I could obtain this wonderous position. She played the piano as long as she had a few months of notice to practice, and that was all she did. I get almost $70 per week to do all these wondrous things for our church.

Last week, I got offered a position in another church, further away from home, that would pay me about 2.5 times the current amount. I don't particularly want to leave my church since I did start so many programs there and they need me since the choir director can't write instrumental music easily, but today I went to talk to the pastor to discuss my options. I consider him a close friend--he's known me most of my life--and basically he said, "well, do what you have to do." I thought that at least he'd take my proposal to the SPR committee to look over and decline, but it didn't even make it out of his office. He did tell me that priorities in the church were (1) an assistant pastor, (2) building a multimillion dollar expansion on the building, and (3) hiring a Sunday school adminstrator. He said that in five years or so, maybe an assistant music director was going to be a priority, but now, my orchestra, bell choir, etc. would just have to wait.

I understand if a church has little money and has to scrape by to exist. This church isn't like that. The most wealthy people in town attend this particular church (though their tithes are miserly), and none are musicians. There is one other lady in the church of 500 that plays the piano, which I find sad. She's a student of mine.

So with this in mind, the pastor also told me that he hadn't had a raise in over three years, but was going to be asking the SPR committee to give the staff people a 5-8% raise in the fall. Wahoo. Let's see, carry the 2, move the decimal, that comes to between $16-26 per month more. Whoopee. Maybe if I were grossing say $10G, I could get more excited about 5-8%. That isn't even enough of a raise to make my net (after mileage) a positive number. Argh.

I'm not a big fan of crossroads. I like my life to be stable, to know what my schedule is going to be, and have complete organization. These kinds of decisions suck. At least he could present it to SPR. Geez. An extra 5 minutes at a meeting they're already holding on Tuesday. Is that really too much to ask?