To Pay or Not to Pay?
Over the past several weeks, the question of paying musicians and singers in a worship environment has been a hot topic. If you ask churches who are paying their musicians, they have valid reasons for doing so. If you ask those who aren't, they too have valid reasons. What is the best scenario? What is the ideal for the local church?
To answer the question of whether a worship team member should be paid or not is a difficult one. There are so many factors to consider in every situation. For example: I have a rocking worship band in my church. We have set a high standard of musical excellence as well as a high standard of worship. Then one day I lose my piano player. Ouch! To make things worse, I have no one in the church that can play at the level needed. What do I do? Do I bring in someone with less talent and bring the level of music and worship down? What if there are no options but to hire someone?
This happened to me in my church. I lost a key player and had no one to bring in to replace the position. What were my options? To go without or to pay someone to help out. I decided to offer a stipend to an individual who lived in a neighboring city to come in and play. The amount was not much considering what we got. Now, was this the right thing to do?
Before I went looking for someone, I had my criteria in place. He had to be a believer, love worship, be a worshiper, and he had to be a team player. If he couldn't meet all of these requirements, I couldn't use him...no matter how good he may be. To make a short story long, I brought him in on a small weekly stipend that mainly took care of his gas and a coke. What was the result? We didn't lose a beat in our music and he brought a level of worship to our group that was needed. I know that this is the exception to the norm, but God blessed in this situation by allowing us to pay for someone that had professional quality to help us in worship. He has since joined the church and is a contributor to many other ministries.
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This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.