Chapter 19: Congratulations! You Are Today’s Biggest Whiner.

I am pulling into this cul-de-sac for a break in the middle of this book because we fielded an endless barrage of complaints on the worship team, and in a larger church leading a team of over 40, whelp. You know your brat relative who complains about everything? She goes to church, a place she can find good Christians who have to listen. So, let me take you on a little trip:

Top Ten Ridiculous Complaints We Fielded While Attempting To Produce Great Worship:

10: Third Party Complaints, or My Brother’s Wife’s Best Friend’s Cousin Told Me So:

People have a natural fear of confrontation. It’s plain human to fear telling people things directly. It is also, however, extremely important to do so. It is beyond me how people think talking to anyone other than the person who can actually do something about a problem can fix anything. This happens in the church constantly (prayer chain, anyone?) and makes small problems explode into much larger ones, the offended party spewing negativity everywhere, a wayward sprinkler of vitriol. When anyone had a complaint about the worship team, they would almost never bring it to us, they’d skip right past DH’s office and waltz off their complaints to the Senior Pastor instead. Thankfully, Pastor Real pastored long enough that he understood people will complain about music no matter what you do, and he had our backs. We were safe, for now.

#9- Auditions, or God Told Me I Can Sing Even Though I Sound Like Dying Cattle:

Boy, if you really wanna piss people off in church, audition. Which, of course, if you don’t want the music to suck, is absolutely necessary. I discovered how to create the angriest of all enemies-and how to gain a stalker-by wanting to maintain amazing worship music. I had one woman who claimed she sounded just like Whitney Houston. She didn’t. And that’s just one of a thousand singers who…just weren’t. If you have ever watched an early season episode of American Idol, you have seen how vocal auditions typically play out. Some people who can’t sing know it, but many have no idea. And they are furious when they are turned down. Problem is, just one well-placed clam can ruin a choir, as can a single poorly played tambourine. I wound up with the strategy of always having at least three people run auditions, so that no one could have a majority of the blame for someone not making the cut. And you HAVE TO DO THIS, or your music is gonna stink. Hey, guess what? It’s also biblical. Keneniah chose choir singers and instrumentalists for King David’s legendary worship team of thousands ACCORDING. TO. THEIR. SKILL.

But, yeah, when someone doesn’t make the cut, they typically don’t handle it well. One woman stalked me for over ten years, more about her later… but guaranteed my face is still on some dartboards out there.

#8: Clothing, or Why It Takes Me Three Hours To Get Dressed:

I was up front each week, atop a three-foot tall platform. Everything about my appearance was evaluated and sternly judged. I had a sweater that had zipped pockets with a ring pull on them. I guess from a distance it looked like nipple rings. I had a shirt with a butterfly on the front. The wings emphasized my boobs. I had a dark suit I liked. I wore it too much. I wore black too often. I had a white shirt on and was nursing at the time and leaked. I have two wet circles on my shirt and I’m singing in three minutes. I turned my shirt backwards so the stains were on my back, seconds before walking onstage. I fielded constant critique over what I was wearing. I have clothing PTSD.

#7: Babysitting Unmarried Couples, or If I’m Not Getting Any, then Neither Can They.

Sometimes, there would be an unmarried couple on one of the teams, or someone who was single and dating, and we would get complaints that people suspected someone who was unmarried might be having sex, and mayyyyybe shouldn’t be up front. Now, personally, I feel that anyone complaining that someone else is having sex probably isn’t getting any, something confirmed by the many miserable marriages I saw. I will be elaborating on this a lot at some point. When you’re miserable in your own relationship, you definitely don’t want someone else’s success story dangled in front of your face, the carrot you’ll never reach. People hate when they are following strict rules and see someone else gleefully breaking them. So, yeah, I was required to pull them aside and ask about their sex life. This was incredibly awkward, as you might imagine. “John, I know you’ve been dating Jane, have you been… well, you know,… have you popped her… umm… what base… uhh…is there… copul…nahhh…ARE YOU FORNICATING???”

This effectively rewarded anyone willing to lie about it, and punished those honest enough to tell the truth.

#6: Opposite Sex Friends Rules, or Oops, My Pants Fell Off:

Always the rules in the church about opposite sex friends. These rules invariably made things weird. If someone saw two cars in the parking lot, something illicit had to be going on. I recall once when everyone else had left and I was chatting with a male friend of mine and he said, well, we’d better go before something happens. I had to bite my tongue hard to not bust out laughing. Yeah, buddy, we kind of have control over that, your pants don’t just fall off. Not to mention, in your dreams. There were always rules about not being close friends with the opposite sex, hoping to prevent impropriety, but I can tell you this. Even in the strictest churches who didn’t allow the men and women to fellowship together and we were all dressed like Little House on the Prairie extras, people STILL managed to have affairs. It’s what’s in your heart that matters, and a cheating person will find a way around the rules, while a person of integrity could have Channing Tatum himself naked before them and turn it down (Pamela Anderson at her peak, if you’re a guy. Or gay. You get my point.) You can’t legislate faithfulness, but boy do people try. It’s either in your heart, or it’s not.

#5 Acknowledging Excellence, or Why Does She Get A Trophy??

One of our most complained-about events was also one of my favorites. We brainstormed how to show appreciation to tho top-notch hardest working volunteers, of which there were a great many. There were a lot of ministries, from a food pantry to helping ministries, from small groups to young adults groups, from decorating committees to float-building teams, we just had a ton of great volunteers, and we wanted to make it cool and fun instead of just having the typical luncheon that half the people wouldn’t show up to anyway. I should have know better than to attempt fun in the church. We brainstormed an Oscar’s style format. We built a massive city skyline backdrop that created a backstage you could walk behind. We had a gold podium and the five pastors all wore tuxedos. A nice dinner was served to the 100 or so volunteers, and we had the band and choir singing “We Are Family”. The pastors would enter stage center from a cloud of fog, with lights flashing. Then, they would give a speech showing appreciation and acknowledging all of the volunteers by name, then gave a trophy with the person’s name on it to those who had really gone the extra mile. It was a blast.

The Churchies HATED IT.

Ironically, we had more blowback from attempting to show appreciation than any other event we ever put on. They didn’t like the showy music, not the first time excellent music in the church would be punished. They hated the fancy dinner, shouldn’t we be feeding the poor? They despised the tuxedos and gowns, shouldn’t we be more modest?(read frumpy). Being from a small town, the city skyline I had a team work on for days didn’t go over well, either. Maybe I should’ve done it in camo. And dear God, you never, EVER acknowledge someone’s accomplishments with a TROPHY!! From their perspective, we might as well have built the proverbial Golden Calf and danced around it naked. Probably would have been more fun.

#4: Dance in the Church, or Why Can’t They Just Hold Still?:

Our team had great passion and energy, we are worshipping the Creator of the Universe, why wouldn’t we give it everything we have? Many liked the high energy and moving to the music, but again, of course some thought that the demonstrative worship was too worldly, too lascivious. What never made sense to me is that these were the very same people who would absolutely lose their shit at a football game or concert. Doesn’t God deserve some enthusiasm, too? King David, addressed in the Bible as the apple of God’s eye, danced with all of his might, loincloth aside and balls-out. The woman who complained about it was struck with leprosy. Curious how much leprosy would be around if God still dealt with complaints in this manner…

#3: Volume, or God Doesn’t Show Up If It’s Louder than 94 Decibels:

Oh my God was this annoying. How does someone go see a band play at around 110 dB and then complain it’s too loud at church when it’s significantly quieter? I recall a lady who was in the front row and then stood during worship, elbows out, hands slammed against her ears, a visual complaint for all to see. Not sure why she didn’t simply move farther back. We fielded more complaints about volume than possibly anything, the irony being that half of those complaining wore hearing aids, and that we had a section off to the side that was significantly quieter. I remain convinced when churchgoers see an electric guitar, it’s suddenly too loud. We occasionally had a horn section, can you turn down the trumpets?? No, no sir, I haven’t found the volume knob on the horns. Someone eventually had the bright idea to bring in a Db meter, and we had a sound tech running around trying to make sure it was under 94. I think we eventually “lost” the dB meter. Or maybe that’s just a fantasy I had. It’s the one bit of electronics I would have loved to burn in effigy.

#2: Music Style, or The Older the Music, the Closer to God:

DH had a saying, where there is music there is an opinion. He was right, the problem with church music opinion is that whatever style someone prefers would be what they assumed God liked, too, and was what He was listening to on His Holy Chariot Radio, KHEV, This Side of the Pearly Gates. They call it “Spirit filled”, or anointed, or holy… the problem being, if a certain style has the stamp of God’s approval, and we aren’t doing that style this Sunday, well, our worship just isn’t Godly anymore, and the Elder board had better well do something to fix the music. It was common for Churchies to think that hymns were somehow more spiritual, but sometimes they would feel that country style, or folk style, or acoustic style, or ANY style, was somehow more spiritual. It’s not. It’s just a style. King David used every damn instrument he could get his hands on, which of course brings us to:

#1: DRUMS, or Pharoah, Pharoah, Let My People Go!

If you have gone to church anywhere in the last 20 years, you have probably seen the abomination known as the Drumaquarium. Here’s how it goes: Church realizes it’s pathetically behind the times musically, church gets drums, church people who were raised on the Beatles and Rolling Stones or even Buddy Rich banging the shit out of these things inexplicably cannot handle this sound as soon as it’s in a church building. I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THIS. These folks will be just fine on Saturday night at a wedding with a full blown band, get up eight hours later and complain about the literal same set up… just because it’s in church. So then churches try to acquiesce by either

1-getting electronic drums or

2-putting up a drum shield

either of which effectively gut the sound of the music. Anytime you see one of these in a church it means the complainers won against the musicians. Have you ever seen one in a live performance anywhere other than the church? There’s a reason no professional uses them. But, yes, once you bring in the drums the complaints begin, and then you find yourself looking through Plexiglass at the drummer, trapped in his tiny plastic prison. It’s just silly. I’ve been playing in regular bands for 30 years, I have yet to see a plastic box drummer anywhere other than the church. The funniest one I saw was electric drums behind a shield. You know there was a ridiculous meeting behind THAT bonehead decision. If you want every professional drummer who darkens the door of your church to flee, just keep putting these things up. it’s working.

SO congratulations, Biggest Whiners.

Back to my story, I have some news…