I’ve been asked to serve as my new church’s choir director, and I just don’t know what to answer. On the one hand, when this happened to me at my last church I was terrified (never having received any training in directing) but it ended up being the highlight of my last two years at that church. I got to know people in a way that just isn’t possible if you aren’t fully committed to an activity. I also got to work with a wonderful group of people who didn’t laugh at my completely comic attempts to learn to conduct, and who chose my tenure there as the time to really sink their teeth in and make some truly beautiful music. Then I moved here.<\/p>\n
This time I can’t plead as much ignorance of the craft. I’ve had two years of experience, and while this doesn’t make me an expert it certainly makes me more of an expert than I was the last time I faced this choice. But this time I’m also half an hour away from the church, which means that I’d be facing a minimum of two hours away from home on one of my three free week-nights. Tuesday night I feed whomever from my department wants to come over. Wednesday nights I work the evening shift, and Thursday nights would be choir practice.<\/p>\n
And while this would be enough to give me pause, I know from experience that the hour of practice with the group is usually only a fraction of the time I would spend planning music, learning parts, and basically figuring out what to do during rehearsal. I just don’t know if I can handle it with the way work is right now.<\/p>\n
So my pastor will be calling soon for my answer and I just don’t know what to tell him. I need to ask him if there’s a budget for buying music, and how much money is in that budget. I need to ask him if Thursdays would even work for them. I need to ask him how many people I could expect and what voice ranges. And I need to ask him if I’d be preparing anything for the contemporary service as well as the traditional service. But these are relatively minor questions compared to whether or not I’ll be their director. I want to be. I don’t want to be. And I want both of those things in equal measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been asked to serve as my new church’s choir director, and I just don’t know what to answer. On the one hand, when this happened to me at my last church I was terrified (never having received any training in directing) but it ended up being the highlight of my last two years at … Continue reading I Just Don’t Know What To Do<\/span>