Paying Church Musicians? We all have our views. However I would not want to limit my discussion to personal thoughts on this subject. From recent research, a number of church musicians shared their best reasons for and against paying musicians in their churches.
VIEW 1:
Some believe that music is a ministry therefore; it must be done with volunteers. There always seems to be someone available who will play the organ or direct the choir in the weekly anthem. And as we would expect every member to offer their time and talents to the work of ministry in the church, so we also are musicians expected to support the ministry. For example ‘Sunday school teachers are not paid…neither do elders or deacons.’.
VIEW 2:
There are other churches which maintain a prestigious standard of either classical or pop Christian music. They expect to pay a salary to maintain the standard repertoire of vocal, choral and organ music. Often some large churches even employ choral and instrumental arrangers on their music staff because they do a great deal of original music in their churches. The music budget is often quite large to make certain that this great tradition continues. These set of group uses the scripture about the workman ‘being worthy of his hire’ In addition, they believe that when a person is paid, the church has a right to expect a higher level of commitment.
I’d like to hear your view on this subject.
Joshua Tosh 