Aaron Unthank

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Destination Florida… My wife and I left our first church position a little knocked around but having learned a whole lot about ourselves and the nature of this thing called “ministry.” Even though the past year had been less than blissful we were hopeful about a position I accepted at a church in Jacksonville, FL. In truth I’m not sure how I even got the job. My wife’s cousin’s husband was on the staff at the time and played our wedding video for the pastor. (We sang the benediction.) From that we began to engage in a series of conversations that eventually led to a trip to sunny Florida for a meeting, to lead worship at a Sunday morning service, and to conduct a vocal seminar. Not too much later we were packing the Uhaul. I felt grossly under-qualified to lead a 3,000 member church in worship every week. It’s one thing to be on the road and sing or lead worship at a large church but now I would be living life with these folks. I would come back week after week. They would know all of my tricks, habits, and flaws. SCARY! The road can be a safe place to hide from people even though you may be in front of audiences from coast to coast. I spent a whole lot of time in prayer and study my first year in the position. I needed wisdom and understanding. The Lord was faithful. I was originally hired as Vocal Director but about six months after I was hired the instrumental director left and I was promoted to department head. Now I was the responsible party for the entire Music Department. Thus, more prayer…. More petitioning God for wisdom and understanding… The next couple of years my time was spent learning people and investing in them. Thursday night choir rehearsal was my favorite day of the week. We worked hard to establish a solid musical community. We sang together, worshiped together, and prayed together… God was doing things. We began to stretch and become more stylistically proficient. We were singing well. There were the expected personality conflicts and misunderstandings that happen between people that work passionately together toward a common goal. Nothing crazy or insurmountable… Just regular “family” stuff. Around two years in the Pastor decided he wanted to promote and support a drama ministry in the church that was at that point in the developmental stages. He named it. Living Parables, it would be called. He put together a team of organizers to facilitate the drama ministry which turned out to be a mistake. You can’t really organize a drama ministry you accommodate it for the most part. All of the creative folks need room to breathe. If you try to “organize and facilitate” them you kill their creative spirit. After the organizational chart proved dysfunctional (as I predicted it would), I put together a creative planning team of about 6 lead people and turned them loose. I gave them boundaries and direction but over the next year the results of the work of this team went far beyond anything I (or anyone) expected. Now I was officially the Worship Arts Pastor. This was the sweet spot of my time there. The choir was singing well, people were engaging in worship on Sundays, the drama ministry was growing, and we had just completed a live recording of our Christmas concert. Things were good. Well, for about a year longer that is. The next fall we began having a “guest” artist/worship leader showing up somewhat frequently on Sundays. It felt strange but I didn’t say anything. More and more I was indirectly being asked not to sing. I was a team player and if the leadership wanted to promote this person from out of town then so be it. Besides, that Christmas season we did the play, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” It was a huge undertaking that was literally theatre company quality. I welcomed the reprieve from regular Sunday responsibilities during the busy season. Musically, we planned to down-scale our annual Christmas concert a bit. The previous year we had done the recording and that music was too good not to showcase again. We added some new material but I put most of my effort that year into the drama production.

Just after the first of the year when everyone was back from holiday vacations readying for a new year, I scheduled a meeting with the pastor to discuss ideas for the coming year. I had no idea what that meeting agenda would turn out to be. I led off the conversation with a renewed vision for the year. As I spoke I noticed that the pastor was awkwardly uncomfortable. Then, in the middle of my annual plan, he basically just blurted out, “Aaron, I don’t think we are going to retain you here any longer…” It was literally like he could hold it in no longer. It just flew out of his mouth. There was no easy way to say it… At first I felt angry but then, thankfully before I opened my mouth, I felt the presence of God come over me, rationalize my thoughts, and wash over me with peace. The pastor did his best at making an analogy pertaining to a difference in styles. He wanted me to know that he valued what I had accomplished there and let me know he wasn’t dissatisfied but just wanted to change gears. A different style…A different person…A different gender even. My main disappointment was that I didn’t get the chance to explore the musical diversity that I was capable of. Over the next three months I began to develop a relationship with this pastor that far exceeded any relationship that we had over the past 4 years. He tried to help me find a job, made his way onto my list of personal references and, well, finally began to be my pastor instead of my boss.

This transition was hard for me because it was a surprise and I wanted a chance to try to make the transition with the team that I had built. But, in retrospect I suppose that wasn’t in God’s plan and with the direction this church eventually took I know it wasn’t for me. Within a year everything my team had built into the worship/musical community was for all functional purposes allowed to fall apart. The choir dwindled and sang with less frequency, the drama program was basically non-existent after just a few more productions, the focus on corporate worship fell prey to a kind of worship music that emphasized spontaneity and for the most part alienated the congregation. All of this was okay though because I maintained a good relationship with the leadership of the church. My family left on good terms and that would have a direct impact on a later twist in this continuing saga…

Aaron Unthank
http://www.aaronunthank.com

Reader Comments

Thanks for your comment Michele. I am hoping that this "circle" is on its final corner. The next part of the story is the hardest to tell but perhaps the one that needs to be heard most.

This story WILL have a wonderful ending...though, do life stories ever have an ending before we end up in Heaven?

I suppose life stories are ever unfolding...

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