The pastor of the small church will usually
not have a full-time minister of music and a paid staff of supporting
musicians. Therefore, the pastor will have to be the resident church music
philosopher along with a myriad of other pastoral tasks. Also, he or she may have to act as the music
worship leader. Furthermore, the pastor may,
of necessity, have to be the church choir director, the instrumental conductor,
organizer of all special music, and whatever else happens musically in the
small church.
As I said earlier in our discussions
of “Music Matters to Pastors”, a regular part of a pastor’s “life-long
learning” and continuing education should include continued training in music
and music philosophy. Understanding
problems of developing and administering a Christocentric biblically based
music philosophy must be a preferred claim of the pastor’s continuing
education. Churches should support Bible
Colleges and Seminaries that provide an opportunity for continuing education in
church music for their pastor.
Pastors
must take a” hand- on” approach to church music. This does not mean destroying all initiative
of the novice church musicians who give selflessly of their time and
energies. Many pastors who are strong
leaders make the deadly mistake of choosing all the music for the worship and
evangelistic services. This is demeaning
to a church musician. Although it may be
easier to pick all the selections and push the musicians around like they were
pawns on a chessboard, it is the wrong decision to make.
This style of leadership is not
“pastoring” or “mentoring” but rather the work of dictator. Pastors with strong personalities often treat
professional church musicians the same way they do novices. Rather than defining exact style and sequence
of worship they desire they become silently frustrated with what is happening
in the worship and evangelistic services and blame most of the problems on the
musicians and the music.
No comments:
Post a Comment