Perspectives On Musical Leadership In The Church

Musical leadership is a great challenge, with musical and pastoral demands. It is also a great privilege, with opportunities to celebrate the gospel and work among God's people. This article describes the practical life of the church musician in terms of these challenges and privileges. Church musicians are all too typically regarded as those who sustain the church by providing musical services. This view has them responsible for creating fellowship and good feeling in the congregation-dispensing services that keep everybody happy, entertaining the troops, and giving everybody warm fuzzies. This job description creates two intolerable tensions. First, if a congregation is even in the remotest sense Christian and not totally a reflection of the culture, its church musicians feel the gnawing sense that simply meeting people's needs is wrong. Church musicians are not trained to be theologians so they cannot always articulate this feeling, but it is there and it can be downright painfu…