What's your attendance policy? And do all the children and their parents know it?

In light of this and other things you have posted about in recent months, it seems these volunteers are communicating to you, passive aggressively (the culture of Catholic parochial life is fertile ground for passive aggressive communication). And you are aware of that they are communicating something. Now you have to find out what the real substance of the communication is, and it may vary from person to person, albeit with similar symptoms. Doing that without personalizing things requires finesse. I suspect that it's not that all of these people are incapable of commitment.

I will admit, I do have some dedicated singers, but the majority have a mentality of "come when you want". Because the choir is so small (children--10, adults-12), it's impossible to get a great sound on a regular basis. I've offered free music classes (without compensation), and made myself available to anybody who needs extra help, but few people have bitten. The fact that I have to hire outside help to get through masses, is testimony to the fact that, while I have some decent voices, they are not willing to do what needs to be done. I gave the adult choir the summer off (different thread), and have only seen a few people in church going to mass at all. My comment was about the children, however. It really disturbs me that parents are instilling in their children the same mentality.....go to church when it suits you, and don't go to church when you don't want to go. The same goes for rehearsals. I've driven the 30 miles to get to church many times, only to have 3 kids out of 10 show up. And, that's with a signed commitment form. It's just a waste of paper. It's been very difficult to work with these kids, telling them the graces of being in ministry, only to have parents destroy it by letting the children themselves make their own decisions.

And viewing the parents as destroying things is a bad place to start from; that perspective breeds distrust (and it's very very likely that people are picking up on this from you), and distrust breeds a feedback loop of impoverishment. Love cannot grow in the soil of distrust, and nothing of lasting good ministerially comes from that soil, either.

This discussion raises a question I'd like to ask the people who were in Salt Lake last week - how does the Cathedral Choir School deal with these issues?

David Andrew - I am very sympathetic with your views! In one situation I knew of, the boy and girl choristers were given a monetary scholarship paid monthly to their parents for their education. It was a significant amount of money and that parish was very wealthy. In another situation I knew of, every singer, adult and child, was required to pay a fee that covered the cost of running a music deparatment / program.

It was understood by everyone (child, adults, parents and families), and contracts were signed, only three (3) absences per season and NO MORE! No exceptions whatsoever. You were strictly made aware that joining the music program - that specific choir - was a REAL ministry to GOD, one another and the community at large.

Attendance records and pictures were made and kept on a regular basis for archives, aural recordings were made for decades, summer camps were attended, concerts and trips planned, dinners given and awards presented in front of large attendance. The music programs were run on a professional level - a serious level and thus serious commitment was expected and demanded!

Thus, the choirs were full and well maintained. At first they were small but things grew over the years. AND, every pastor was expected to support the music program and its policies regardless of the present, incoming or outgoing music director.

A Christian music ministry is THE most serious of ALL musical endeavors by Christian mankind regardless of whethere you are a small parish or large cathedral. Many are called but few are chosen. Wide is the gate that leds to destruction but narrow is the way unto salvation. The Bible has the answers to everything. No matter how we might not care for its prescriptions, we would all be better off if only we would follow it for the answers.

Oh, and lets not forget the parable about the "plow." If you can't recall that one, look it up. It too has the answer to many of our problems.

Sounds like a child missing mass is the least of your problems. Still a good idea, however, is to not try to change everything at once. I was in a situation a few years ago, where my best option at the time was to improve the hymns. For about a year, I worked on better hymns. Then I was able to move on to working with something else.

No children's hymns, but did move on to better mass settings after the hymns were in better shape. Had I changed both hymns and mass settings at once, there might have been a congregational revolt.