When Is It Over?

I feel like I'm on the verge of a break-up. It's a strange sensation, considering I'm blissfully married.

I'm at a crossroads with my church. It's not the first time- and for the previous times, I'm so glad I stuck it out. I've never regretted staying, despite mistakes, conflict and hurt. I'm proud that my church takes to heart the concept of redemptive conflict- it's one of the things I value so highly.

Here's the deal, though. While my lead pastor and I are in significant conflict about the way a new decision was handled (again), that conflict really isn't the problem. He and I will work it out- we always do. And we have a stronger relationship because of it.

The bigger problem is that, for a while now, he has been pressuring me to shift my values around the worship services. It's subtle, but definitely there. As a church culture, we've valued experiential, hands-on, tactile ways of engaging with God's story. We've always tried hard to engage followers of Christ from a variety of stages of faith, as well as people that are exploring the faith. We felt it is important to hold in tension worship being both for the believer and the seeker. That usually played out in observing the church calendar, engaging different spiritual practices (contemplation, lectio divina, etc.) and doing a lot of explaining- what we're doing and why we do it. Most of the time, we always gave a variety of ways to engage in those practices so no one would feel left out.

We chose music based on its lyrical content first. The songs absolutely had to have a strong theological core, promoting an understanding that worship is something we do 7 days a week mostly by the way we serve and love people. Also promoting the idea that Sunday services are the corporate (community) expression of what God is doing in our lives, our community, our world. Secondly the music is selected based on its singability and musicality. That involves a number of considerations too detailed to get into here.

Observing the church calendar has been a very important part of our worship because it ties us to the worldwide church both present and past. It gives us a rhythm for our worship as we go through different seasons. I have loved incorporating this and letting it guide us. We've never ventured into the totally traditional side of including all the liturgy for the seasons, but it has directed our art visually, our music, and the tone of our Sunday services.

Over the last year, but most noticably the last 6 months, my pastor has been intentionally steering us toward a more typical model of worship culture. He would still say he values all the things I just mentioned. But really, what he wants is a "worship experience"- the music is there to "set up" the message (ie the focal point of the service) and the church calendar is more of a nuisance, unless it is Christmas or Easter. All fall I have felt like I have been fighting to keep the culture I am so passionate about- the reasons I fell in love with this church. I am, quite frankly, exhausted.

Recently a new hire has been added to our worship staff. He is not a worship leader and is not interested in remaining involved in the worship planning process for the long term. He's here because my pastor is desperate for someone who will "take charge" of the planning process; and honestly because this guy speaks the same language as my pastor. They both wants lots of people through the door, with a lot of emotional engagement with the messages. Neither of those things are bad- but clearly that is a different motivating center for planning worship than at least where I am coming from.

Now I no longer have the decision over what we do on Sundays. It is a 'group effort', with my pastor and this new guy making the final call on everything.

The killer is that this guy is admittedly just learning the culture of my church. He suggested a song to do that has neither lyrical or melodic integrity (so is therefor a big hit on the worship charts). I kindly responded with why we have chosen not to do that song (giving him a break down of the matrix we put all new music through). He gave me the "well, people love to sing it" reason to do it, and later commented that he doesn't want any more heady reasoning around chosing a song. He asked that I instead just trust his intuition.

I'm at a serious crisis of church-dom. Do I stay and trust two people, against my instict? My husband, while supportive of whatever I need to do, is trying to help us not act hastily, reminding me that we have trusted the leadership of this church for 8 years. He's not sure enough has changed to warrant distrust of the leadership team. Of course, we believe strongly that it is important to stay with a church, and not just jump ship when things get rocky.

So my question is, at what point do you decide that fighting is no longer productive for yourself or for the church? At what point do I concede that I am no longer the right worship leader for this church?

And the scarier questions- if not this church, what church? There aren't many out there like my church- one of the reasons I love it so passionately and have been willing to fight through the crap for the last 8 years. What on earth would I do, if not this job? Where would we worship, if not at this church and with our community family here?

I have no answers. I do have a coffee meeting with my pastor tomorrow, and I have no idea what the outcome might be. I think the best I can offer is a few months trial where we can both evaluate the situation. I don't want to make a hasty decision. I also know that I can't "fake it" when it comes to leading worship on Sundays with integrity. If I'm miserable, everyone knows it. It's one of my greatest strengths and weaknesses as a leader: I'm pretty darn transparent. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.