January 14, 2021
When I was still a believer, I was very involved with my church’s youth group as a youth leader.
One of the other youth leaders—we’ll call him Jim—was fantastically talented:
- He was a musician and could play many instruments.
- He was a skilled video creator—filming, directing, and editing.
- He was a very good cook.
Not only did he have the determination to curate these skills, he was also a full-time student at a major state university getting his degree in accounting.
Jim was a fantastic and dedicated youth leader. He rarely missed any of the responsibilities that came with the volunteer job—attending the youth group program on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, leading a Bible study in the middle of the week, and attending the Monday night youth leadership meeting.
Despite his schoolwork, schedule, and various side interests, he always maintained a high amount of energy and positivity.
Unfortunately, people like Jim are a gold mine for the Church. Why? Because it means they can help themselves to all of his talents and skills in exchange for literally nothing.
The youth director presumed that Jim would be available to execute any idea that happened to fly off the top of her head at any given moment.
During the Monday night leadership meetings, she’d say something like, “We’re beginning a new sermon series on Sunday. We should have a video that introduces it. Jim can handle that.”
I’d look across the room at Jim and I could see the forlorn look on his face. He was already laden with other responsibilities—attending the youth programs, school work, and even his own social life and personal time. Yet he just couldn’t bring himself to say no.
The youth director simply had no idea what kind of effort went into creating videos. Jim would spend hours upon hours filming and editing a high-quality video that would end up being only ninety seconds long.
It didn’t end with the youth group videos.
Since Jim is a virtuoso at many instruments, he was the go-to guy when a regular member of the worship team couldn’t do it that Sunday. Whether you needed a guitar player, bass player, drummer, or a singer, Jim could handle it. And, just like with the video editing, he just couldn’t say no. Subbing in to the band also meant adding Wednesday night practice to his already full schedule—yet another commitment to take him away from school work and personal time.
Unfortunately, Jim’s experience is far from unique. The Church has no qualms about screwing over creative people.
The Church teaches that all of your gifts and talents are given to you by God. They also teach that you should use these gifts and talents to glorify God only. So, with some generous leaps in logic, the Church feels totally justified in helping themselves to the creative output of its members.
Often, these churches have no clue how much time, effort, practice, and patience goes into developing these talents and abilities.
The churches know very well that they’re screwing over their creative people. Since the church is a business, they’ve damn sure looked at how much it costs to hire a worship leader or a video creator. They took one look at that annual expense and said, “…or we could get Jim to bless us with this need as a volunteer.”
These creatives who volunteer their time and skill week after week often get nothing in return.
During my time in the church, I knew several people—not only Jim—who confided in me that they were being worn down by how much the church was asking them to do. And yet they all found it very difficult to say no.
Why is it so hard to say no to the church? Because people feel that in doing so, they’re saying no to God. After all, they’ve been taught that God was who gave them these gifts and talents in the first place. Therefore, to decline to use them for God’s glory is wrong.
This mindset unfortunately leads these creative people to burnout.
One of the best things about deconverting and reclaiming your life from the Church is that now creative people are finally able to use their gifts and talents for themselves rather than giving them away to the Church and God.
Were you ever a creative person that got used and abused by the church for nothing in return? Let me know in the comments!
This post is way too relatable! Been out for a couple years and while its done wonders for me personally, it’s sad to know some people still caught up in this stuff. Luckily I didn’t burn out like some. I had a worship pastor that decided to leave the church shortly after offering me a job tell me that my getting to know and talk with him was a big part of why he decided to leave. I was partway out at this point. He also warned me against taking the position for many of the reasons you mention in this article. He’d been beating his head against a wall for months trying to organize a worship event to unite the churches in town, but nobody at our church was interested in funding or hosting it unless they could plaster it with the church name everywhere. They already sold T-shirts with the church name on them so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised but… yeah I didn’t stay much longer
Glad to hear that you made it out and that you’re doing well!