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[Jay Ballard]

I, too, believe that this is one of my ministries to the church congregation.  I do get paid, but I subscribe to the theory that so does the pastor.  I didn't ask to be paid, but was offered the salary by the church.  I had been volunteering for the same duties for about 13 years before I ever received a check.  

My church looks at it from multiple angles.  First, if I were to be strictly volunteering, they would have no way to require me to be at a function.  As audio is a necessity (our sanctuary seats 1600), someone has to be there for any event.  Secondly, a volunteer does not have the same level of, for lack of a better word, responsibility to the church. If something breaks or doesn't go just right, a volunteer may not feel it necessary to follow through to completion whatever repairs/remedies may be needed.  This would fall on one of the ministers, who has better things to do (serving the congregation).  Thirdly, my church looks at it as a way to say "Thank You" for providing a consistent level of service to the church.  The salary is no where close to market value, but it is a small token.  When the salary started, the Personnel committee looked at the difference between what I do and what a Sunday School teacher does.  A Sunday School teacher can prepare for a lesson anywhere and does not necessarily have to be away from their family.  My duties require me to be at the church.

I also am a deacon at my church and serve as the chairman of our Properties Team.  In addition, I help maintain the telephone and data systems of the church.  I look at these as also giving back to the church.

The church does not balk at paying for other professional services, why should they not pay for yours?

[andrew gissing]

>The church does not balk at paying for other professional services, why should they not pay for yours?

I think the heart of the question is that for a sunday service with a live band on stage, usually none of the band are paid.

Sound guys normally like to associate themselves with the band, and therefore you've got a situation where one of the crew is paid and the rest is not.

Also a lot of the paid positions in church are for things other than sundays - admin, comp network, maintenance or - the very act of running things like mission when it's too large (or important) a task to be done in someones part time.

I mean, look whose at the church on a sunday and being paid to be there compared to how many people are there doing jobs and not paid - ushers, sunday school teachers, canteen people. I'm guessing that in most cases, even for large churches, the ratio of paid to unpaid is very low.

I guess another way to look at this if you've got a large auditorium that is used during the week is that it could be your job during the week to maintain/train etc and sunday's are your giving ?

Then again, paid roles are usually below market value so then maybe a tradeoff is that sunday is paid allowing a mid-week day to act as your weekend ?

As I said before - I think it comes down to the circumstances of the church, the person and how they are journeying with God. And that's going to be different in every case.

[Dan Timon]

Quote:

Then again, paid roles are usually below market value so then maybe a tradeoff is that sunday is paid allowing a mid-week day to act as your weekend ? As I said before - I think it comes down to the circumstances of the church, the person and how they are journeying with God. And that's going to be different in every case.

Like you say, it comes down to the circumstances of the church.

Our church insists on excellence everywhere, and do not tolerate people who fail to show up for their ministry, leave when they feel like it, do a poor job cleaning bathrooms and carpets, or make a poor cup of coffee.

At our church, almost everybody on the tech crew, in the band and the singers, the janitors,the bookstore, the Starbucks, the cafeteria are getting paid. Exceptions: teachers who only work 2 hours once a month, junior techs in smaller rooms and parking lot/assistant ushers. The biggest reason they might not be paid are they are in training, do not want to be paid, or do not work enough hours to justify pay. Why do they get paid? Because the church believes it would be a disservice to our Lord to not have the highest skilled people serve Him. To get them the church knows it has to take them out of the marketplace.

If the carpet is dirty, the singers are off-key, the bass is muddy, the coffee is lousy, the sermon is crummy, projectors are too dim, the church looks bad and God looks bad. We are in the business of glorifying the Lord, not making Him look like He runs a second-rate operation.

Regards,

Dan Timon

[JeffW]

Perhaps if it's getting to be too much of a burden on you then it's not time to ask for pay but time to recruit other help so you can divide up the tasks... or time to consider taking a break from it for a while.  

Doing sound (or anything) for too long without a break can lead to real burnout, and sometimes a break for 6 months can brings us back refreshed and renewed... or lead us to move on to something else)

Give it some thought... don't grow bitter.  God doesn't lock us into these roles, we do it to ourselves more often than not.

(I don't know what is appropriate to your situation and I'm not saying you shouldn't be paid, but IMO what you write sounds a lot like exhaustion and discouragement to me, that might be better cured with a break or help)

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