01/04/2025
Okay. There have been many, many hits on this page in the past ten days, but no comments left by anyone. In my naivitae, I'm taking this to mean that some folks are wondering where I am, and why. I'm also assuming that, since folks are wondering those things, perhaps someone may be moderately interested in reading what I have to say about what has transpired.
On November 6, I met with the Pastor and members of the Staff and Parish Relations Committee at Pinehurst United Methodist Church for my annual employee review. At that meeting I received a glowing performance evaluation of my fifth year on the job, and also received a generous 5% salary raise for the new year. At the end of that meeting, I indicated my interest in applying for a soon-to-be-vacated choir director position in order to add to my job and thus develop it into a full-time position – but that never even got to the resume-submitting stage. A couple weeks later, after not being able to find the job posted in the normal conference listings, I eventually asked for a copy of the job description, or the site where the job was posted. My question seemed to have offended the Pastor and committee when I was told later, that the job had not been posted and the job description would be written after the candidate was hired. I was unaware of the changes in the procedure from when the previous music director had resigned. Back then, the job was posted online and the description was written in advance.
A few days after that, I was contacted by a committee member and told to not even consider applying for the position. I was given an ambiguous statement “about a couple choir members not liking the way I treated them” during a recent collaborative event, but no details were provided to clarify and back that up, and much more importantly, no opportunity was offered to address the concerns of those choir members. And, of notable importance to this narrative, I was certainly NOT put on any sort of 'improvement program' (as is a usual precursor to termination proceedings).
Then Friday Dec 20, when I went to the church to organize my equipment plans for the Christmas Eve service, I was called into the office and fired from my 1/2-time, salaried position as leader of what I have helped build into a very good Methodist worship band -- good enough that it has been praised in the past as one of the best in the state by an official of the North Carolina United Methodist Conference. This unannounced termination took place just four days before the huge annual community-wide Christmas Eve services that draw 1200 to 1400 people and raises upwards of $20K for various local charities.
Yes, this scenario has dimmed the season for me and my wife (who was also significantly involved in the activities and charity work of the church); but the most disturbing factor is that I have no idea what the REAL reason for my surprise firing is. When pressed for more 'termination reasons', there was a statement that "the quality of the band has been declining for quite some time", which seems rather contradictory in light of my recent (Nov 6) annual review and salary raise.
The final statement in response to my quest for answers to the reasons for my termination was that they wanted a "leader who stressed faithfulness, rather than performance quality", again a bit of a contradiction since it was the Pastor himself who, two years ago, specifically asked me to quit delivering the prayers that I had been writing for each service because “someone felt they were too contentious.” (By the way, I have each and every one of them on file if anyone is interested.) These statements make it clear that my musical direction was NOT the issue, and the quality of the band was NOT declining as they had claimed.
One would think that to remove me from my position just days prior to the church's biggest public event of the entire year (which I spent many hours preparing for, and was to play a fairly important part in) must have certainly been the result of some major breach of legal and moral law, such as: molesting a child; or beating one of the musicians;, or embezzling thousands of dollars from the church – but of course nothing like that ever happened and nothing of any such consequence was listed in the letter of termination. One would also think that, given the nebulous nature of the previously mentioned reasons for my termination, good employment practices would dictate that I should have been put on an improvement program, or at the very least been invited to a meeting with the pastor and/or the committee to discuss the alleged performance issue(s?) prior to any termination actions, but no such program or crisis meeting ever took place.
I have also heard it mentioned that one of the Connections members had expressed concern about my outside work as a professionally performing musician and that perhaps I should not do gig work on Saturday nights before Sunday morning church. I cannot fathom why that would be any of his business, especially since any Saturday night shows NEVER, EVER, affected my Sunday morning work. I was never late, never unprepared, and always gave 100% on Sunday morning. Of course, nobody ever mentioned this to my face so that I could address the issues, it was just innuendo and rumor, but apparently was taken seriously by the committee.
I have always enjoyed my work at PUMC, especially during the last five years that I have been the contemporary music coordinator. I think I have made a significant contribution to Pinehurst United Methodist Church with my dedication to high quality performance standards; and with my innovative ideas, such as: creating and developing Car Church during Covid; conceiving, planning, and producing the immensely popular October tent services and picnics; and the two Veteran’s Day Concerts. And, in addition, whenever I was asked to help in ANY capacity for the church: graphics during the Chocolate Festival: providing multiple percussion parts for years of choir concerts; pulling together the combined service during the US Open; and of course years of work (including writing and producing radio commercials) on Christmas Eve at the Fair Barn, to mention just a few contributions; I was always there, always giving 100+ percent, and always expending well over my requisite 20 hours per week.
I will miss the good people of the church. However, I feel that I was treated very poorly during those last two weeks and never given the respect and fairness that any employee should receive, and I was certainly never given any real, valid reasons for my firing... again; just rumor and innuendo. My wife and I will move on, survive, and prosper, but there will always be a lingering hurt and sadness from this very un-Christian-like treatment.
