What to do? No one is getting back to me about helping out

[JM3]

The short version of this story is that I started out talking to the director of the music ministry, and offered to fill in at the organ/piano and as a cantor when needed.

I’ve offered to play for funerals in the summer for free, in exchange for practice time at the organ once a week.

I’m curious. Are you expecting to be paid or was your offer to fill in when needed for free?

I only mention this because of your wording in the second part. You say “play for funerals in the summer for free”, but then add “in exchange for”. At this point it is no longer free. Perhaps, and I’m not saying this is true, there may be a problem with your ‘offer’ as the parish understands it. Of course, if I am way off base, just ignore me.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

So very true!

**In my parish **with very few exceptions, those 25-30 people virtually control all the lay ministries. They do a very effective job of keeping the ministries from growing based on their actions. Not only is it difficult to “get involved”, it can be very distasteful to associate with some of these people. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t merely attack newcomers. There is always a quiet, political battle going on amongst themselves as well.

Until we get a strong pastor, things won’t change here.

Please don’t extrapolate to all parishes based on your expereince. It is certainly a universal truth that in most volunteer situations (not just church) that 20% of the people do
80% of the work. But that is not because the volunteers are nasty, backbiting people. It is often because the other 80% doesn’t bother to volunteer, or wants to work under only certain conditions.

To the OP, patience and humilty are virtues and should be developed in any situation.

The advice to speak to the pastor is good. He can tell you if the positions are volunteer, paid, or a combination of both. If he directs you back to the music director, make an appointment to speak - don’t just chat after Mass. Bring your music resume and let him know when you are available. Also, since it is summer, things may be off schedule (ie, someone in the cantor rotation on vacation etc.)

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Of course the people who are currently serving in a ministry usually continue. However, there may still be a need. My parish had a ministry fair a little over a year ago. Some ministries indeed have new faces while the familiar ones continue. Other ministries have since seen people leave with no one taking their place. Our catechetical ministry desperately needs catechists.

I’ve seen this happen also. Not because of any meaness or action on the long-time volunteers part - but because people only want to volunteer under certain conditions. So one program will get 20 volunteers when only 10 are needed, and other places are always short. CCD is usually perpetually short of volunteers in most parishes.

I have had people give me detailed schedules and conditions as to when they are able to help. At that point it becomes more difficult to have them help than to do the extra work yourself. If we sincerely want to help, the way to do it is to say “Here I am, how can I help” and then be willing to clean up after the spaghetti dinner.

 

[asia53]

Please don’t extrapolate to all parishes based on your expereince. It is certainly a universal truth that in most volunteer situations (not just church) that 20% of the people do
80% of the work. But that is not because the volunteers are nasty, backbiting people. It is often because the other 80% doesn’t bother to volunteer, or wants to work under only certain conditions.

I’m part of the 20% who does 80% of the work. We simply can’t get our fellow parishioners to volunteer, or if they do volunteer— show up for the work, or call at the very last minute to say they can’t make it.

 

[Exorcist]

I’m part of the 20% who does 80% of the work. We simply can’t get our fellow parishioners to volunteer, or if they do volunteer— show up for the work, or call at the very last minute to say they can’t make it.

Interesting how that works. 5% of my parish claims to do “all of the work”, and much never gets done because they don’t do it and they keep others from getting involved.

 

[Exorcist]

Please don’t extrapolate to all parishes based on your expereince. It is certainly a universal truth that in most volunteer situations (not just church) that 20% of the people do
80% of the work. But that is not because the volunteers are nasty, backbiting people. It is often because the other 80% doesn’t bother to volunteer, or wants to work under only certain conditions.

Please don’t try to apply the Pareto Principle to any of the parishes that I have attended. It’s hardly a “universal truth” when it comes to Catholic parishes. “Being involved” (particularly when it comes to the liturgy) is often highly political, yielding what I term “closed shops.”

“Closed shops” do great damage to many, many Catholic parishes. I will stand by that statement.

Out of curiosity exactly what do you tell the family of a decedent when there was no music at their beloved’s funeral Mass even though someone offered to provide it for free? Oh, wait, you don’t tell them anything. They never heard of the free offer! That sort of callous behavior is tolerated without question in many parishes becase “it’s always been that way.”

I distinctly remember a parishioner passing and their family trying to make arrangements for a funeral Mass and graveside service. They contacted the “bereavement services coordinator” at my parish who simply said “no.” The “coordinator” tried that because we were between pastors even though there are more than enough priests here locally to cover such things. The “coordinator” simply didn’t want to deal with it. That was despicable and it wouldn’t have happened if a fellow insider had lost a member of their family.

The family contacted the chancery and everything was arranged via that office, that’s when I got involved. That sort of behavior leaves behind a very dim very of many insiders.

 

[Cat]

I’ve been following this thread over several days.

I’m a pianist, and I play for Masses in my parish when I am needed. (I converted to Catholicism in 2004.)

I think that some of us are reading far too much into the “rejection” of the OP by her parish.

I suspect that the reason no one gets back to the OP is poor office management.

From what I have seen in the eight years that I’ve been Catholic, parishes are very short-staffed in their offices. Often it seems that 1 person does the work of 10 people. This is not a good way to run an office, but what is a parish to do? There is no money to pay additional staff. Many people in the parish would be offended if the parish were to cut back their charitable donations to various worthy organizations in order to hire additional office staff.

The parish receptionist or secretary has a boatload of work, many hundreds of messages to relay every day, and on top of everything else, is considered the “pastoral associate,” whatever that means, but I think it means more than just being a receptionist in an office.

The last few days, I know that many dozens of parents are signing their children up for religious ed classes, and many of these parents are asking questions about the schedule, the absence policy, the fees (usually they aren’t happy with the fees), the teachers, etc. And all of these questions must be dealth with courteously by the parish receptionist/secy, and the difficult questions must be passed on to the Religious Education Director.

At least email makes things a little simpler for the office staff–or does it? I’m sure it’s rather daunting each morning to open the email and see hundreds of messages from people asking everything from, “May I schedule a private Confession?” to “My child was attackedn the church bathroom and my lawyer will be contacting you.” Yikes.

I would last about two days in this setting, and then I would quit and go work somewhere peaceful, like a Presidential candidate’s campaign office!

I’m guessing that the church receptionists/secy’s use some kind of “triage system” to organize all the work into categories of “Urgent” and “Important” and “Can Wait.” And I’m guessing that the OPs query has been placed into the “Can Wait” box.

Even if the OP has actually communicated with the church music director, I’m still thinking that the request has been forgotten about by a person who is incredibly busy and doesn’t have enough hours in the day for all the practices, planning sessions, and Masses (including funerals and weddings) that they are currently doing. Yes, having an additional musician would be helpful to them. But it’s tough to try to find the time to “vet” the volunteer, and perhaps the Music Director just can’t seem to jump off the work treadmill to find the time to interview the OP, vet them thoroughly, and plug them into the parish life.

So my advice to the OP is to not give up. Keep leaving the messages. Bring a portfolio to the parish office and place it into the hands of the Music Director–this will give them something tangible to look at. Make sure all the appropriate references with emails and phone numbers are easy to find in that portfolio. Include a recording if possible.

I would also suggest calling the diocescan office to sign up for whatever classes the diocese requires for those working with children. In our diocese, this is a class that takes about four hours, and it educates us about the need to protect children from crimes and sexual abuse. Get that done and get the certificate and include it in the portfolio.

As a musician, the OP knows the importance of perseverance. If you want to get work, you keep on keeping on. You make contacts, you follow up on those contacts, and you stay in touch with those who you hope will one day hire you. You also try very very hard to never, ever make an enemy, but to remain on the good side of everyone. It’s really important that the OP keep on attempting to break through at their parish, but to do so in a cheerful, polite, and encouraging way.

One more possibility–if there is a diocescan nursing home in the parish, call them and volunteer to play/provide music for the Masses. These places are often without music because everyone is busy at their parishes. So that might be the place where the OP could find the opportunity to use musical talents to serve the Lord and His people.

 

[SMHW]

Thank you Cat for adding some useful insights.

I belong to a parish that is able to hire more staff than some but I can tell you that the staff is still very busy. In addition to whatever assigned duties parish staff members have they also have to deal with people (strangers, parishioners, volunteers, you name it) who happen to wander in and just want to talk about whatever is on their mind. For a while the parish keep the staff behind a locked door so they could have some privacy to actually do their work. Of course that didn’t stop people who called on the phone.

The other issue is that anyone who works with volunteers will tell you is that potential volunteers need to be vetted in the same way that potential paid employees are vetted. A volunteer represents the parish much the same way a parish does. A parish risks legal repercussions if a volunteer turns out to be a child molester, a drug dealer, or a check forger and uses the volunteer position to perpetrate crimes. Volunteers who attempt tasks for which they are not well trained can damage parish equipment or suffer injuries.

It’s easy to take that attitude that someone who volunteers to do something for free should be utilized. But it is often the case that managing volunteers can take up a great deal of the time the paid employees should be using for other matters. That’s one of the reasons there seem to be cliques of volunteers. The existing volunteers may not do things the best way but they know how do things without close supervision. This isn’t to say that new volunteers should not be used; just that volunteers have to be brought in slowly. And volunteer leaders probably need to be chosen from those who are already familiar with the expectations of the job.

In my parish those who are involved in music are requested to go through VIRTUS training and to be fingerprinted. This is because instrumentalists, cantors, and choir members are often around children. (We have a childrens’ choir and the adults and children sometimes sing together. Any instrumentalist might have to play for the children.) All musicians are encouraged to go through the diocesan formation classes and to specifically take liturgical formation classes.