Until recently, I never really paid attention to the comings and goings of the WCCC staff members. The latest departure was someone that I worked closely with, Brian, the worship minister.
Everything, from my standpoint, seemed to be normal. The choir had started meeting again in preparation for Christmas. The Sunday before this happened was a choir work day where we pulled one of every piece of music from the music library for cataloging and packed up the choir robes for the impending move to our new facility. I was dumbstruck when I received this email that our senior minister sent out to the congregation.
I am writing today to inform you that Brian Donaldson will no longer be serving as the worship minister at WCCC. Brian resigned last evening, October 17th and will be seeking God's leading concerning his future service. For various reasons, it is not our practice to discuss specific details of any staff resignation; however, let me assure you that this is not the result of any moral or ethical failure. I, along with the elders, want to thank Brian for the 4 years of work he has done in leading our worship gatherings, and we pray for God's very best for Brian and Marla.
The timing of this transition just weeks before we open our new building is less than ideal. But we have quality people here we are counting on to step up and help us during this important time, and I pledge to do my best to find the best person available as quickly as possible, to lead this significant area of our ministry. Thank you for your amazing support of this church and please continue to do so as we face the most challenging and exciting days in our history.
My first thought was to email Marla. We'd been close but hadn't really chatted in the last couple of months. I didn't feel like that I could just email and say "hey, what's going on?" So, I emailed "I know I haven't had a chance to talk to you lately and I'm not pressing for any real details about what's happening. But...are you moving? I'll miss you. :(" I really didn't know what else to say.
Needless to say, the current choir was disbanded almost immediately. The next couple of Sundays were weird but we still had familiar people up front leading worship. I did pass some emails back and forth with Brian but he didn't feel free to discuss the particulars of his resignation. I had a few brief conversations to see if there was any news through the grapevine as to why but there wasn't. It was just bing, bang, boom, done.
Sadly, my life was hectic and this got pushed to the back of my mind. My life is funny that way. I get so much on my plate that I can only focus on what seems to be the most critical or the one with the closest deadline. Is this common or just me? I had to find places for the things I'd purchased for/during the cruise, get the digital pictures cropped and uploaded somewhere for my extended family to view, make a trip out to Iowa for Mike's grandmother's funeral services, and get ready for my final MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting at our old church facility.
Imagine my surprise when this email meets my inbox fourteen days later.
Hi WCCC Choir participants. (past and present) I am writing today with some extremely exciting news. I am finalizing a plan to bring a very gifted person to serve as an interim worship leader at WCCC. This individual would be here to lead our worship service on November 11 (our last service at Glenmore) and then be available from December 2 (our Grand Opening) on for a 3 month period. This person specializes in utilizing choirs as part of the overall worship experience.
That's all I can share at this point, but if all goes well, I'll be making an announcement this Sunday at our services regarding this. In anticipation of this, I am writing today to ask you to reserve the date of Thursday night, November 8th for a special choir rehearsal at the Glenmore building. 7:30 p.m. is the time. If you know someone who likes to sing, please invite them. There simply couldn't be a better time to jump in.
My first thought was "Crap, this is the same night as MOPS. I can't go." I immediately turned around and emailed to see if this was the only practice for the final worship service at the old facility. I gave up on attending. It wasn't until MOPS that night that I was strongly told by the speaker who was a member of our congregation that I simply must go to the practice.
So, I went. I can't say that I was happy to be there. I felt guilty leaving my mentor moms to run my MOPS meeting. The new worship director seemed like a nice enough lady. I left the meeting in a funk. I was upset about all the new faces that had never shown up for Christmas or Easter choirs while Brian was leading. I was upset that I'd missed my MOPS meeting that I really did want to attend. For the first time, I didn't feel like singing and that scared me.
Fast forward to Sunday. I didn't feel like singing so I didn't report when the choir was supposed to report. Since we aren't allowed to wear jeans on the platform, I purposely put on blue jeans so that I couldn't be pulled up into the choir. I cried serious tears whenever music was played through the whole service. If Ben had not done his crazy dancing while the rest of the preschoolers sang the closing song and made me laugh, I would have left service that day completely heartbroken.
I ended up talking (and subsequently crying to) our children's minister over the phone on Monday. She could tell by my voice that something was off and I broke down. She contacted our chairman of the elders who called me and set up a time to meet and talk.
Below are some of the concerns from the document that I created so that I'd cover all the points I wanted to get covered when I met with the chairman of the elders.
Brian's Resignation
I do not believe that Brian's resignation was planned by him and was done to avoid having to say to future employers that he had been fired from his previous position. Why do I believe that?
- Nothing in Brian's behavior or attitude reflected that this was coming.
- In the choir scheduling, Brian included an open house Christmas party at his house and promised that the M&M train would make another appearance. If someone is planning on leaving, they schedule practices and performances but they don't schedule parties.
- Some members of the choir spent the Sunday prior to his resignation packing up the choir robes and sorting out one copy of each piece of choir music from the music library so that it could be cataloged. Brian would not have purposely left the music library in such a state of disarray.
- Brian would not have left the church in such a lurch this close to the opening of the new building.
- What we were told about why Brian resigned is sketchy. We were told that Brian did nothing morally or ethically wrong and will be seeking God's leading about what he is to do in the future.
- If a resignation is planned, usually you get the “they're leaving to pursue other opportunities” excuse not the “they have no idea what they're doing next” excuse.
- This gag order that is in place has kept Brian and Marla from being able to discuss and get support from their church friends during this most stressful ordeal in their lives. It's not right that there has been a wall built between them and us. They are loved and should be allowed to be loved by the church body.
- Brian and Marla would not have been in such shock in the days following.
- When I got the email that Brian had resigned, I immediately emailed Marla asking if they were moving and that I would miss her if she was. After almost a week later, her reply was that it was a surprise and they didn't have any specific plans yet.
- While leading Adopt-A-Highway, Mike ran into Brian and Marla packing up Brian's stuff at the church offices. Mike could tell that Brian was using every bit of his strength not to break down.
- Brian's parents showed up at Trunk-or-Treat looking for them. Brian's mom underwent surgery a few days after Trunk-or-Treat and he didn't tell her before the surgery so that he wouldn't worry her.
Follow-Up: Definition from Wiki: A gag order (or "suppression order") is an order, sometimes a legal order by a court or government, other times a private order by an employer or other institution, restricting information or comment from being made public. For the last several years, we have been encouraged to live in community with the other members of our congregation. This may have been done to protect the church body but it cut off our hands and feet in being able to reach out and help Brian and Marla through their hurts.
Cancellation of Currently Planned Choir Music/Rehearsal Schedule
The current choir, which already had a month or so of practicing under our belts, was disbanded. Nothing that we were practicing is going to be used by Paula in upcoming services. I sacrificed precious family time for seemingly nothing.
Call for Choir Members
An email was sent out to all past and current choir members to get them to mark their calendars for a practice with a yet unnamed worship leader for the November 11th and December 2nd services. At first I wanted to go but I couldn't because the practice was scheduled on top of my MOPS meeting. I emailed Diane to see if that was going to be the only practice for those services or if another practice would happen for the December 2nd service. Her answer was that she wasn't sure.
Announcement of/Practice with Paula
I didn't understand why David talked Paula up as much as he did. He really oversold her and it made me suspicious.
I got a chance to meet Paula prior to meeting/practice and she seemed like a nice person.
Because my MOPS meeting in Connection Central started at 7 PM and the choir practice in the Worship Center started at 7:30 PM, I created signage to keep people from cutting through Connection Central during my meeting. I felt totally rude doing so especially when people came in and groaned about not being able to cut through. I fully intended to stay and listen to MOPS speaker that night but she told me I had a gift and needed to go to practice. She sent me and a handful of others out of the meeting.
When I entered the Worship Center, I was so mad because the number of people who turned out for this practice was more than when Brian would put out calls for the Christmas and Easter choirs. It didn't seem right to me. If God gifted you to sing, you should sing no matter who is directing.
I stayed for the whole practice although I wanted to leave.
Follow-up: That night then threw me into the funk that I was in. Getting a chance to sleep on it, I believe I was upset because it was the first instance when the "resignation" was real. It was the first time that any sort of worship was led by an "outsider." It was the first time I realized Brian was truly gone. I'm sorry to say that I'd been caught up in my own little world and didn't process any of this until then.
Saturday/Sunday
On Saturday, I discussed the details of Brian's "resignation" and that I'd lost my desire to sing with a dear friend of mine. She advised that I take this opportunity to take a break from the Worship Arts Ministry until things settle down.
Come Sunday, I didn't feel like singing. In itself, it was enough to cause me to worry. I never imagined that I would ever not feel like singing. I didn't dress appropriately or report when the choir was asked to report. I spent almost the entire worship time crying. At the time, I didn't know why I was crying. They weren't tears of joy. They were tears of heartbreak. I've since been able to identify two reasons I was crying but I know there are more that I haven't processed yet. The main one was that I felt that it should have been Brian up there on that historic day. The second was that I wasn't up there on that historic day and if Brian had been there then I wouldn't have lost my desire to sing and I would have been up there. I almost cried through David's sermon, too. If Ben had not done what he had done at the end of service, I would have left absolutely heartbroken.
This Week
Mark called and asked me to sing on worship team. I turned him down at first because I feared that I wouldn't be able to hold it together. The more I thought about it the more I regretted turning him down. I feared that I wouldn't be able to sing for the December 2nd service for the same known and unknown reasons that I couldn't sing last Sunday. I believe I can work with Mark because I don't see him as a replacement but a placeholder. I also didn't want to miss out on singing at all of the historical services. The opening was still available and I plan on singing this Sunday.
Follow-up: I ended up not singing for the December 2nd service so I'm glad that I at least was a part of the church's soft opening service on November 18th.
The Future of the Worship Arts Ministry
David has stated that he felt that Paula filled our congregation's need. I believe her to be a band-aid to the current situation. While I do not necessarily feel that Paula's previous issue is cause enough not to hire her (for we are all sinners in need of forgiveness and second chances), I have other concerns about her.
- Paula life is still based in Lexington, a commute that is around 3.5 hours round trip. It drained Brian and Marla when they had to drive in from Indiana before moving into their new house.
- How quickly will the drive become tedious?
- How often will she be able be here? How available?
- David stated that Paula would be available when she wasn't touring.
- How many weeks a year does she tour?
- Who is going to be responsible when she's unavailable?
- What level of consistency will we be able to maintain when she's not here?
- If we hire another part-time worship minister, how much fun would it be for that person never to get to do the special services (ie Christmas and Easter)?
- What happens if NECC goes through a period of healing and wants Paula back? From what I've read, the elders had been preparing the congregation for her eventual return.
- Worship Arts is more than just music. What is her experience with directing drama?
I truly hope that we are continuing to look for another full-time worship minister. There are too many aspects that need covered and I fear that a part-time commuting person in this role will not provide the consistent excellence we've come to expect from the Worship Arts Ministry.
Follow-up: Paula is still with WCCC and the interim part of her title is gone. As I understand, she works in the office all day Thursday and leads 3 of 4 Sundays a month as she still is committed to perform with/for some other group. We've had a couple of other worship leaders come in on the Sundays that she's not performing but I've heard that some of them had been told that the full-time position is not currently available due to budget constraints.
Epilogue? It's now spring...a time for new life and growth. As I wrote above, I'm hoping a positive can come out of all of this. I'm pretty sure it will. I'll post more later, but for now I need to turn off my laptop and pick Ben up from school. TTFN!
