Rock Show at a Rest Home
How one church made me want to quit ministry, and why I didn’t
This is NOT about the church I’m at now. Let’s get that out of the way first.
Twenty years ago, my husband Andrew and I were standing in front of a room full of frowns. By this time, it was nothing new to us. We had spent the entire previous year growing intimately acquainted with those frowns.
The discouragement, however… well, that had settled a little too deeply into my bones. By this time, I wore discouragement like a comfortable old sweatshirt that I’d had too long, but just couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Being a worship leader isn’t always fun
When Andrew and I got married, I had just graduated from bible college, and he was in the process of earning a degree in music.
We were both brimming with enthusiasm and ready to turn the world on its head, about to begin an exciting career in full-time music ministry!
Unfortunately, the first church that hired us wasn’t ready for us.
Rock ’n’ roll is a young man’s game?
The pastor brought us in to attract more young people.
I understand the logic here… okay, no I don’t — because the glaring problem was that we were also pretty much the only young people.
That meant that we were playing contemporary worship songs for a congregation of saints in their seventies and up. They had been perfectly satisfied with traditional hymns led on a Grand Piano, and then we came barging through the doors with our emo hair and electric guitars.
We were doing what we were hired to do: play modern worship.
The result?
Sometimes, there were people in the pews literally covering their ears and scowling during worship.
I don’t know the exact decibels that might have resonated in that room, but I sometimes wonder whether the visual ear plugging was more protest than protection.
Hymns or bust!
The pastor quickly recognized the catastrophically poor fit between his worship leaders and his congregation, so he asked us to start incorporating two hymns at the beginning of each service to mollify the flock.
We obliged.
And we were hilariously not good.
I grew up in Calvary Chapel, where Dave Messenger’s gentle 80s-90s contemporary rock dominated every Sunday set. I didn’t know any hymns besides Amazing Grace! Andrew knew a few more than me, but since I only knew one, he didn’t fare much better.
The congregants started introducing themselves — and they were not pleased to meet us…
I won’t belabor this point. Suffice it to say that we were not well-liked.
Okay, let’s belabor it a little.
There were more than a few people who would regularly come up to us after church, wielding their hymnal like a knight with a sword, tapping their fingers assertively on whichever part of the sheet music we had sung incorrectly in an attempt to show us the light.
I genuinely do not believe this was malicious, but it was demoralizing nonetheless, as it was not usually balanced with a kind word.
Mary Poppins was right: a spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down, and at times, it felt like we were being served straight arsenic.
The drums heard ‘round the world
After a few months, a fifteen-year-old drummer expressed interest in joining the worship team. He was a cool, kind kid who loved Jesus and had decent drum skills, so of course, Andrew said yes.
You can imagine how that went over.
I remember one Sunday in particular when a man came up to me after church as I was packing up gear on stage. I smiled and started to say hello, but quickly noticed that he was not smiling back.
He began to yell at me that “that boy” (pointing a finger in the drummer’s direction) was playing too loud, and that “we can’t be expected to put up with this anymore.”
He was so angry.
Glowering, pointing, and angry.
It was during this moment that something inside me snapped…
I was always able to take it on the chin when criticism was directed at me, and even at my husband since he’s able to stand up for himself.
But when that energy was being aimed at a high schooler who was giving up his weekend to serve at church, it sent a heat rising through my chest that I couldn’t ignore.
I was very young myself, just out of college, but I remember a maternal instinct taking over as I defended that kid in a way that I hadn’t done for myself.
I countered that he was only fifteen and needed our support and encouragement. I pointed out that he could be anywhere on the weekends and chose to be here because he wanted to serve. I tried to help him understand that this was what we were asked to do.
It’s not to say that the man didn’t have a point. I do not doubt that the addition of drums was jarring. But I just couldn’t bring myself to smile and swallow the critique this time.
I ended the conversation there and went to sit in the car.
The car: my new sanctuary
I hit a wall.
I started going straight to the car every Sunday immediately after the closing song was finished, speaking to no one.
Probably not the answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?” but I had nothing left to give and no more energy to shoulder the spite of those who never wanted us there.
Andrew was left to fend for himself after that. He’s always been better at soothing the dragon that is a church scorned by loud music anyway.
For the first time in my life, I’d given up.
I was conquered and that car was my white flag.
(Don’t) Be Yourself?
We gradually lost ourselves.
There was a strict, “Sunday Best,” dress code.
Since we were newlyweds with no money and no nice clothes, we went into debt to pay for skirts, dresses, slacks, ties, button-ups, dress shoes, etc.
Some of the more disgruntled congregants wrote letters to the superintendent of the denomination complaining about us or outright asking for us to be removed.
Andrew’s worship leading was filmed every Sunday and then played back during the weekly staff meeting to discuss areas that “needed improvement.”
No other part of the service was analyzed in this way.
Dreams, drying out in the sun
When I graduated from bible college, I had dreams of grandeur. I wanted to go to great places where God would use me to do great things.
But here, the fountain of God dreams I had been carrying in my heart evaporated into the scorn of my critics.
I couldn’t understand why God had equipped me with so much ministry training just to dump me in the desert.
Or at least that’s how it looked to me at the time.
God’s favorite training ground
The desert seems to be one of God’s favorite training grounds. He sends people there to die (to self) so that they can become more like Him.
We see it all over scripture, but most notably when Jesus was sent to the desert to be tempted by the enemy before His public ministry officially began (Matthew 4:1–11).
That church was one of my life’s most important deserts.
Would I go back? No-thank-you-please. But I wouldn’t trade it either.
I learned more about myself, my shortcomings, and my long list of weaknesses there than I have at any other church since.
At the end of the day, it was just a bad fit born out of a pastor’s wholesome desire to see more young people in his church. That’s a worthy pursuit that I’ll never hold against him.
The congregants weren’t at all ready for what hit them, and that’s not their fault either.
Grace is essential in God’s house, and I’m as happy to give it here as I am to receive it.
Two major lessons
- Love is a mandatory foundation for ministry.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8, NIV)
- If I’d had more love, I genuinely believe I could have endured better and given more of the peace, patience, and servant’s attitude that love produces.
- If the people of that church had had more love, they could have responded better to us, patiently growing the two twenty-somethings in their midst, rather than driving them away.
2. Hiring a young worship leader will not necessarily bring young people into your church.
“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers…” (1 Timothy 4:12, NIV)
- Young people should be serving and leading in every facet of church ministry, not just the part seen on stage. Otherwise, you’re just bringing a rock show to a rest home, and that’s a recipe for disaster.
- The church is meant to be diverse and multigenerational (Daniel 1:17, Proverbs 22:2, Revelation 7:9–10).
- Make room for young ideas. That will keep your church’s heart beating.
Why I didn’t quit ministry: tale of two churches
Good God and good people.
After about a year there, Andrew found a job at another church not very far away.
I don’t know if the pastor at the next church could sense how emotionally beat up we were, but he and his family took us in like we were their own kids.
He took the two of us out to lunch once a week with no agenda. He just wanted to know us and wanted us to know him.
He and his wife invited us to holidays, movie nights, and family gatherings.
We had a standing lunch party every Sunday at Chili’s where the pastor and all of the worship volunteers would eat together, laughing, joking, and just being generally light-hearted.
Regarding our worship-leading, whenever we needed to change something, it was addressed with gentleness. And because we were in a relationship of mutual respect, those conversations were always easy.
We wanted to give whatever was asked of us because we loved the people asking, and they loved us.
We were so happy there, we started inviting our friends. Our young friends!
Go figure.
Restoration
Twenty years later, we’re now at an entirely different church than the two I mentioned here.
A church we love.
A church that lets my husband sing as loud and proud as he wants to.
A church that saw the exact same qualities in my husband that the first church did, but instead of trying to change him, they put him in charge of worship for the rock service.
That’s how God restores. Poetically. Cleverly. Full circle.
Final Thoughts
I can’t imagine how our lives would have gone differently if we had let one bad experience turn us off from serving Jesus and the people He so loves.
I can see now that the enemy was trying to stop us before we ever truly began.
Yes, churches can hurt, but they can also heal.
He shows us who He is and who we are when we lean into the hard.
Thank God for His desert training ground and His readily healing hand.
This video clip is from Easter, 2023 at our home church. There are two drummers, two electric guitars, keys, bass, and Andrew and I shouting like someone just rose from the dead. Because Someone did.
God has brought us a long way.
Thank God we didn’t quit.
Thanks for reading!
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