It has been two months since the Christmas dinner in which Pastor Jock told me I have done everything he has asked.
It won’t be enough.
We struggle on, a crippled version of our former worship team and other ministries we lead, moving forward but now creeping along, an extra in a zombie flick, limbs hanging on by a string, eyes having lost their light. The worship team has been very strangely and unnaturally rearranged by Pastor Jock who has no clue about music, and it’s tragic for us. I’m learning the New Normal for me, and have resigned my fate to obedience. I am still allowed to sing, but am restricted from teaching on the platform, and my leadership role has been effectively gutted. We hold Christmas service, and my brother visits, commenting that it wasn’t the quality it used to be. No shit, Sherlock, that’s what happens when you micromanage, especially with musicians. Great music is honest, and we honestly weren’t feeling all that great.
I have been working on a CD of original Christian music while all of this is going on, but as I compose, my writing is getting darker, ink-black cumulonimbus clouds moving in announcing one helluva a storm is on its way. You can listen to it on Spotify if you like, Broken Pieces by Monica Be. (If you look it up, Alien Race is my favorite. Most of the songs are pretty religious to my ears today. If I knew how the hell to insert a link here, I would. Maybe I’ll figure it out. Oh my God I think I did it. Ha.) The title track was written during this time, the lyrics of Broken Pieces parsing out how my life felt shattered… how I’m trying to get the pieces to fit, but with smashed splinters and slivers, it’s a lost cause. It’s a desperate plea for God to take the shards and rebuild something meaningful, create maybe a mosaic, or something, anything out of my broken life to somehow still be useful. Oh, my dear God you can hear the desperation and darkness in my voice in this album. My voice has an undertone please God just help me I have no idea what to do anymore just pleasepleaseplease help me
We continue meeting with Pastor Jock, a Hail Mary attempt to see eye to eye. I’m just trying to stay out of trouble at this point, a challenge I turn out to be spectacularly bad at, the last kid chosen at kickball once again, the punk breaking the rules. The sideways glances and odd behavior in our presence at church is telling the story of a building momentum against us amongst the Churchies, a handful of people in the church who, despite their small number, still somehow have managed to seize the reins.
But we should be okay, right?? We do a phenomenal job, the congregation in general loves us and is extremely supportive of our leadership, we love the people here for the most part, and they love us. There are some great people here, and they are our brothers and sisters. The majority of this congregation has been our family for ten years, we have no relatives in Tiny Town, and they have been there for us, and us for them through the births of my two children, through food drives and fundraisers, when my brother suddenly passed away at 42, the teens through youth ministry, the homeschool group, having run their drama team, teen choir and small groups and leadership groups and entertaining and running events, I could go on… and on… and on. These people were our support system, and we were happy to be theirs. We were very close to a lot of the congregation, relationships have always been paramount to me, and I truly loved these people.
On a sunny, crisp February morning as we are leading the very last worship song that closes out the service, a fantastic way to do the benediction, by the way… I’m noticing that Pastor Jock has his head down, buried in his hands while we sing, what’s up with that? I am up front singing with a close friend, let’s call him Singer Sam. I have been working with Singer Sam for years and we cast each other a familiar friendly glance. We are working together, I’m playing my guitar and singing and it is all about us coming together to lift up the Creator of the Universe, and we are leading worship together, and it is awesome, and uplifting, and as I lead I feel, yes, it’s all going to be okay. This is where I belong, this is what I do. So what if it’s not a perfect situation? The congregation is with us, all together in exultation. It’s beautiful. Love, unity, worship.
We are singing a Lincoln Brewster song:
“You are the everlasting God, the everlasting God,
You do not faint, you won’t grow weary
You’re the defender of the weak,
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings
Like eagles…”
I will never, ever forget this moment.
We have been serving God at this Tiny Town church for ten years now. The entire church, heck the entire community knows us as DH and Monica, the Pastor of Worship and his wife.
At the end of the song, I look again at Pastor Jock, who still has his head down. I wonder what he is going through, I hope he’s okay. DH is leaving for a pastor’s conference with him in the morning, maybe he will be able to help him out, it’s obvious something is not right. We conclude, and all head out to lunch somewhere, I don’t remember where.
I absolutely remember what happened the next morning. We’re talking the grassy knoll kind of remember.
The postcard-perfect snow falls silently on a February morning, a lovely Norman Rockwell painting we are treated to all too often in Wisconsin. By the time February rolls around in these parts we are ready to pitch the canvas on a bonfire, classic painting be damned, get rid of this snow already. DH leaves for his pastor’s conference, and I get started working with my kids, now 8 and 11. I have been homeschooling them since kindergarten, a difficult task but one I absolutely loved. I will never regret the time spent building personally into their little lives, every minute was totally worth it. I’m hauling out workbooks and projects, my usual cup of coffee with more creamer than I should be drinking perpetually stuck in my hand, practically an appendage by now.
I hear a stomping on the front deck of the house, who the hell is here on a Monday morning, unannounced?
DH opens the door, and instantly my stomach leaps up to my throat. Something is very wrong. He is back barely after he left for the pastor’s conference he was attending with Pastor Jock, was it canceled? Is someone sick?
He has a weak, unconvincing smile…
“They fired me.”
Worship Leader Gone Wild 