Music Minister #5 Most stressful job that pays badly...

[stephen_can_man]

Most of you have probably felt it at sometime and now CNN confirms it...your job stinks! No not really, but according to CNN Money.com Music Minister is #5 on the list of underpayed and overworked jobs:

Stressful jobs that pay badly - Music ministry director (5) - CNNMoney.com

I remember awhile back there was a thread on the forum asking why the average tenure of worship leaders is roughly 2 1/2 years. I think this is your answer right here. Curious enough, Minister was #10 on the list.

I don't want to start a gripe session or anything, but its nice to know that the stress I am feeling is common to the job. What are your thoughts?

[Smitty]

My thoughts are that the survey...as far as it goes...is accurate. Sadly.

Smitty

[efrisch]

I wrote about this one last week:

Stress and Spiritual Warfare - Eric Frisch - Musician & Worship Leader

[theworshipfiles]

I am very glad that this isn't true for me. I don't feel much stress at all. Of course, at $0, maybe I am underpaid

[russhutto]

What are the contributing factors that cause said stress?

It can't be the actual "work" - I don't find anything stressful about playing music, arranging music, working out harmonies, leading the band, etc.

I would dare say that it might be the relationship dynamics between the WL and his supervisors (pastors/committees/etc).

I know for me the most stressful parts of any of my positions were those relationships. Kind of sad really.

[Lance]

Lutherans have something called DCE's, Directors of Christian Education. It is a five year degree from a Lutheran University. Once they graduate & take a call to a congregation, a DCE winds up being a Youth Minister Plus. That is, Youth Minister Plus Anything Else the Head Pastor Doesn't Want to or Doesn't Know How to Do. That's what I did for six years. I was the Youth Minister, the Children's Minister, the Young Adult's Minister, the Contemporary Worship Leader, & even taught some classes for the Senior Citizens. Stressful, yeah. I enjoyed all of it, but altogether it was too much. Now I'm a volunteer worship leader & I work in a warehouse, but I'd like to get into a DCE position again, if I can find one with a more clearly defined & limited job description.

[bluenotemkvi]

Originally Posted by russhutto

What are the contributing factors that cause said stress?

It can't be the actual "work" - I don't find anything stressful about playing music, arranging music, working out harmonies, leading the band, etc.

I would dare say that it might be the relationship dynamics between the WL and his supervisors (pastors/committees/etc).

I know for me the most stressful parts of any of my positions were those relationships. Kind of sad really.

If the relationship with your senior pastor and leadership committee has always been the most stressful part of your job, you're either very lucky to have great jobs or very unlucky to have such difficult leadership. I'm not sure which.

Some other "contributing factors" that I've seen:

-the arranging, rehearsing etc might not be stressful in itself, but with tight deadlines and high expectations it can be VERY stressful
-long hours, lots of nights away from the family for rehearsals/evening services/classes/trying to finish arrangements/whatever other work gets thrown to you as the resident creative/artistic person
-dealing with volunteers and conflicting priorities - how many threads can you find on this board about dealing with volunteers, how to balance inclusion vs. excellence, etc?
-different members of the church requesting conflicting things musically - louder, too loud, do more hymns, do more modern music - especially when those people are elders, large donors or otherwise "powerful" members of the church
-all of the crap that goes on with church politics - not fun
-dealing with all of that while not being paid a living wage

All churches are different, for sure. I've known some worship pastors who were very well paid but I've known many who had to take a second job to make ends meet. It seems to me that a lot of the issues with politics are more present in older denominational churches with a lot of history (the family that's been at this church for 6 generations) but anyone can play the game. The 2.5 year average tenure statistic is very telling, and it doesn't take much reading here on the board to see that a bunch of folks are stressed about their job.

[Viclyn]

I think any job where your responsibility is "people" (notice that many of the jobs are very people oriented) you have stress. They are unpredictable and things that you think should work, and you work hard on, don't always.

Relationships can be very stressful and almost all the jobs listed are relational in nature. If you also have to take on extra jobs because the pay is low, you may be compounding the stress.

Not to mention that the results are very intangible. How do you know you are doing a good job? It's not like a cabinet maker where you can stand back and see the accomplishment and know you were directly responsible for that. There are so many variables that the direct impact of your ministry gets a little hazy.

I see many parallels between my job (high school teacher, #15 on the list) and music ministry. Although I have never been in a paid ministry position I have had similar and dissimilar experiences.

I think it often comes down to expectations. I expect the church and its members to be different because of Christ, and I get very discouraged when I see too much similarity between it and the world. That's what makes the bumps a little hard to deal with sometimes. I deal with difficult parents, administrators, kids, other staff member with much more grace than with fellow brothers and sisters because I expect too much of Christians sometimes. Maybe the expectations are too high for music ministers as well or maybe we expect too much from ourselves and don't let Christ dwell in our weaknesses enough. If we did, we probably have much more peace.

[twc_admin]

#5 - Music Minister
Stressful jobs that pay badly - Music ministry director (5) - CNNMoney.com

Jonathan Riggs eluded to this in his recent blog post.

What say you?

[Maggievt]

So, I spend who knows how many hours at #15 and about 20+ 'unpaid' hours a week at #5 - I guess I am crazy - HA! Maggie