The implications of a national search for a position

kevinf

Some thoughts for churches who post nationally to fill a music and liturgy position:

1) Posting on this forum and other possibilities such as the AGO, NPM, Catholic jobs,etc invite people from all over the country to look and apply for the position. That has implications for the church offering that position. In other words, if you do not wish to deal candidates who live some distance, be honest enough to say "regional candidates only apply". If you do want candidates from all over, you need to be aware that you will have to assist them to visit you. Saying national candidates please come and then not being able to assist with travel expenses is at worst insulting and at best saying you are not prepared to make this a true national search. i once had a church ask me if I had any family nearby the church and I could visit my family and visit them at the same time without having any assistance from the church. Yeah, right!

2) using the words "salary commensurate with experience" is not useful if you cannot truly live up to those words. A person just out of school will not bring experience that someone with 25 years of working in the church will. There is a difference between those two people and one will be worth more than the other, providing the more experienced person is competent. But above all, be honest with people about what you really can pay. It solves a lot of heartache and bad communication. Many churches have not even bothered to know the regional scales and national scale offered by professional organizations. They exist to assist you. Use them.

3) There are many of us who actually do this work professionally and make a living out of it. Doing this work for a long time says that you have no illusions about how churches work (or don't, as the case may be). Churches who offer these positions would do well to know that while many of us are not out to get rich (hardly a possibility), there is a matter of justice and economic realities. We do want a reasonable wage, tools to do the job and help to make it work.

4) Know what your resources really are. If you have no organ and all you have is a small electric keyboard, then please say that.Saying that there is something "over there" or " in the choir loft or that place over in the corner" IS not useful to those of us who actually play the things. We want to know. It helps you and us.

5)Above all communicate with us. We do not read minds or do telepathy.

This can be a useful process or a miserable experience. Work professionally and you will find a good professional. Or you can take the attitude "you get what you pay for" and that is what will happen. It would appear that is acceptable also.

From a professional who dearly loves Holy Mother Church and would like to see churches find the best candidates for themselves.

PaixGioiaAmor

This should be a sticky at the top of the message board listings.

noel jones, aago

I agree.

I'd also suggest a glossary be included...what does "vibrant" really mean when used to describe a parish?

Charles in CenCA

Hey Noel, I'm not sure, but I was perusing one of the newly posted archival issues of "Caecilia" over at the Cafe, May/June 53, and Sister Millicent offered this up in the lead article, "A New Song"-

Song has always been an element of Christian Liturgy, for the Church has always employed song
to vivify her Liturgy and to add solemnity and devotion to her official ceremonies.

I suppose we could counter an interviewer asking how we would address a vibrant parish with "I come to vivify our liturgies!" Think that'd work?

Jeffrey Quick

The vibrant parish has massage cushions in the pews. When they're all turned on, they drown out the crappy music.

CharlesW

HeHe :-) In a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago, we concluded that we had a much higher opinion of the Church before we started working for it.

Kathy

The vibrant parish has cushions in the pews to absorb the contrabourdon.

David Andrew

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Kathy

Wow, David, those are a lot of rules.

noel jones, aago

It's always a bad sign when they describe a new instrument, of lesser quality in one way or another, in glowing terms.

kevinf

David's "rules" (if thats what you wish to call them) are not so far off. Having done this work since 1984, I have seen the Fr "goodtimes" kind of guy who is casual about everything, including his ars celebrandi And David's statements about the "keyboard" skills are spot on. And the relationship of the "search committee" to the Pastor in many cases has never been made clear to the committee BY the Pastor.

So, if you take the words of an ad seriously, then one must ask themselves if that is where they want to be. Often, churches are unsure of those questions themselves or they are following the latest "trend" they have seen in periodicals.

i believe the statement extended by a dear priest friend, "There is no accounting for taste or the words of a church position advertisement."

francis

I agree. Words tell all. A large percentage of ads stop me dead cold from investigating a position. And those catchphrases are the giveaway. Another one is "various styles" of music.

Randolph Nichols

And no one has yet mentioned the implications of the geographical disparity in cost of living. A sustainable wage in Iowa or Kansas just won't make it in the Northeast or urban areas of California. I generally tell Catholic musicians looking for work in my area that unless they've inherited money or married well they should look elsewhere.

Kathy

I guess I've never before heard it put so strongly, from "our" side, the idea that "I won't work with someone who xyz." I've heard/seen/read about pre-emptive judgments from liturgical left to right, but not so much from right to left.

kevinf

Kathy,

I dont think its judgment so much as much as matching gifts and strengths to what churches are asking for. There is a church in Atlanta that a lot of the clergy and people call the "the Baptist" catholic Church because they barely follow the order of mass in the sacramentary. The musician who works there is a perfect match to them because he does not care one bit about tradition and neither do they. Its a great match and everyone is happy. Would I be happy there. No way!

So I think judgment is a strong word. There are things said that constitute clues about what churches are looking for. David says it one way. Other may have other possibilities. You have to read VERY carefully the adverts and see what is being asked and not being asked.

noel jones, aago

I think that this issue is of more importance to those who make a living doing this - when it's a volunteer or part-time in addition to regular employment, things are more relaxed. But when one's entire income is based upon the job, a Catholic position, being tentative at best in most situations, pre-emptive judgements do come into play.

David Andrew

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francis

"the Baptist" catholic Church? Not a happy situation-simply heresy.

Charles in CenCA

This seems to me ruminations essentially built upon speculations. Is that what we're about now?

noel jones, aago

They don't call it Heresy, they call it being Pastoral. Singing Happy Birthday almost weekly during Mass, asking visitors to standing up an tell us where they are from...

David Andrew

.

Charles in CenCA

~

David Andrew

Charles,

I stand chastened and rebuked. Previous comments deleted.

noel jones, aago

There is no Catholic Handbook for Priests and Musicians. That's not speculation, that's fact.

Such a handbook, present in other denominations, is helpful there and could be very helpful here.

CharlesW

No handbook, inconsistent and contradictory regulations, no one clearly in charge in many - make that most - places, and no denominational publishing house producing standardized materials. Makes you wonder how we have survived at all, doesn't it?

francis

I am willing to put a handbook together... would take a few weeks like my last booklet.

"A Guide for Establishing and Building a Position for Sacred Music in Your Parish"

I think it should include three lists in the back, by Title or musical work: This would be a recommended list, not an authoritative one per se.

Approved music for the Liturgy
Unapproved Appropriate music for the Liturgy
Unapproved Inapproriate music for the Liturgy (look out big three!)

As I have been thinking about this for a while, it would include categorical judgements. This is partly based on the SttL conditions.

Liturgical (music fitting to the liturgical action)
Musical (technically, aesthetically and expressively worthy)
Theological (in accord with Catholic truth) {in other words, free of heresy, nature worship, or even skewed theological content)

It would also have degrees of rating:

Liturgical
1-Good
2-Fair
3-Poor

Musical
1-Good
2-Fair
3-Poor

Theological
E-Encourages Devotion
X-Harmful to the Faith

So you would have something like this:

Best (1-1-E)
Bad (3-3-E)
Worst (X)

Of course, if anything receives as X, it automatically is not acceptable on any account.

This would be akin to a white list, black list approach, but not as 'black and white' so to speak since it is a recommendation that would come from Catholic Church Musicians.

St. Edward's Catholic Church in Newark has a "minimum parish repertoire" which is an excellent list to start.

http://musicasacra.com/pdf/minimumrep.pdf

If there is interest to do this, let me know. We can start another thread and contribute thoughts and content.

dad29

Umnhhh.....I actually do retained searches for a living.

By and large, Kevin's essay is dead-on. If the parish is NOT prepared to front up interview (and some relocation) expenses, they should not be running national ads.

As to the terminology--"vibrant", "multi-cultural" (etc., yadayada)--I can tell you that a well-run search will be as 'inclusive' of potential candidates as possible at the beginning. After all, if a candidate's "multi culturalism" includes Chant as well as Haugen/Haas, the candidate can be told about the Parish's preference during the screening process.

The problems that most amateur search committees have are two: 1) they don't really know how to screen someone over the telephone to reduce the volume of candidates to "the best 5" and 2) they have a very bad understanding of what the pastor actually wants. (It's licit to argue that both of these are closely related.) Worse, of course, is the tendency to paint the Parish in glowing terms, paint the pastor as a not-yet-canonized Saint who can work well with anyone at all times of the day/night/year, and all that other foofoodust about the parish choir(s), etc.

Better to put out ALL the straight stuff on the front. Some candidates will drop out. So what? They've told you that they don't really want to work with what YOU have to offer.

And yes, the parish better be prepared to pay competitively.

DougS

I agree with dad 100%. There is no reason to expect that a parish knows all the ins and outs of running a smooth search. Additionally, very few parishes have a great sacred music program in place, but that doesn't mean the rest are averse to it. Brick by brick, right?

My wife, who is a full-time DM, interviewed in person at 3 churches within a two-month period, and all paid travel expenses; even a local parish paid for mileage and meals. All were upfront about this because she asked. She was offered two of the three positions, and the job she took paid our relocation expenses as well. This was an OCP, "vibrant" parish cluster. She has a doctoral degree and negotiated the pay substantially higher than the original offer. In my opinion, everything was done properly, though not without some prodding on our end. Had we expected a red carpet to be rolled out, we would have been sorely disappointed! Open communication allowed everyone's expectations and requirements to be met, and attitude goes a long way.

Maybe we are just very lucky, but we would never know if she hadn't applied for what sounded like jobs with a lot of potential. No job is "perfect" and it seems naive to wait around for one to show up. A person certainly can and should have standards, but at some point you price yourself out of the market; that's just the way it works.

CharlesW

My experience has been that pastors can be somewhat ignorant of what it takes to run a music program. I have known priests who love and appreciate good sacred music, but have no real understanding of how it's done. That's a situation many of us could gladly work with.

kevinf

Thank you dad for your analysis. particularly that of search committees. When I have consulted with parishes regarding their searches, your two responses are dead on. And Pastors have no way of directing them because they themselves are somewhat clueless about what they really want.

Its interesting sitting on the other side of the table, looking for a job these days, knowing the analysis we are discussing. C'est ;a vie!!

G

"My experience has been that pastors can be somewhat ignorant of what it takes to run a music program. I have known priests who love and appreciate good sacred music, but have no real understanding of how it's done. "

(I may have related this anecdote before, forgive me)

A friend was offered what seemed a princely sum per hour as MD, but then realized the pastor thought he would be working 6 hours a week, four on Sunday morning, and another two at most on Thursday evenings.

"Father," the musician asked, "your sermon takes about five minutes - should people assume it takes you five minutes to write it as well?"

The point was made.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

noel jones, aago

It often takes a situation, or situations, that ends badly before some employers learn what they are doing wrong. A well-written booklet by Frances with input by Carl D. AND some priests on the list would be of great value.

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