After years of serving a congreation, no matter what faith, burn out occurs. Often times as a Church Musician a person may not feel appreciated and that there hard work is taken for granted for. Consider the following points in your decision making process.
1) You have lost respect for your minister and or the church board.
2) You feel like you do not have the support you once had either from parishoners.
3) People are leaving the church.
4) You lack the joy that you once had in serving this particular church.
5) Has your church increased your job responsibiliities without increasing your pay.
5) Do you feel like your being forced out of your profession either through lack of affirmation from other church member and choir members and the church staff or are you not getting appropriate cost of living raises, etc.
Of course, we can all feel discouraged a different times. It's the nature of the 'business'.
I firmly believe that happiness is an inside job. Doing a personal assessment I think is the first step. Try to determine by talking to colleagues and friends whose opinion you trust whether what your experiencing is primariliy from the 'outside' and not based on other issues you may be personally experiencing in life.
Cultivate friendships in the ministry outside your own church body to bounce ideas off of and gain objectivity. I know that in general men tend to put too much stock in their jobs and look up their profession to establish their self-worth as a person.
Gaining perspective no matter what situation you find yourself in is important.
Sometimes people will 'leap ship" and go to another church but, the one issue people fail to realize is that you take yourself with you. If a person tends to be negative and down in their disposition, changing churches will not make one happy.
I used to own a resume business and over a period of over 20 years assisted over 4,000 people with improving and producing new resumes. I noticed that people who were positiive and tried to stay optomistic usually got new positions with better pay and benefits quicker.
It's all in the attitude.
Joy in your journey today,
Art Scott
PS - I am always open to your feedback and if you wish to submit an article of interest to other members, feel free.
