Church Hiring series, Post 2
Since the first post in this series went up, the response in our community has been immediate and pointed. Directors, singers, and more than a few people who are both have weighed in with observations that deserve to be part of this conversation. What follows draws on those voices — from our private Lauri’s List community and from comments on the Facebook page — along with some broader context that helps explain why the math has changed.
The short version: it’s not one thing. It’s several things happening at once, and they’re wound together tightly.
The pay rates haven’t moved. Everything else has.
The most consistent thread in the comments was simple outrage at stagnant pay. One singer noted that some LA churches are still offering the same rates as 1996. Another, working in Portland, laid out the comparison plainly: section leader calls in her market pay $50–75 for what amounts to several hours of work, while her private teaching rate runs over $100 an hour. That arithmetic doesn’t work, and singers are doing the math. (Yes, we’re businesspeople, too.)
This isn’t a new observation, but it’s worth saying clearly: church music budgets in many congregations haven’t kept pace with inflation, cost of living, or the professional value of the work. The singers most qualified to do the job are often the ones who can least afford to take it.
One choir director put it plainly from the institutional side: rates for section leaders have gone up, but the budget hasn’t moved. Donation-based funding constrains what many churches can offer — and that pinch is real. But she also named something that doesn’t get said enough: in some of those same institutions, praise band musicians are compensated at higher rates than the section leaders anchoring the choir. That’s a budget priority decision, not a budget impossibility. The human voice requires the same years of training and financial investment as any orchestral instrument — the fact that it isn’t visible on a stage or listed on an invoice doesn’t make it cheaper to develop or less valuable to the program.
The full cost of the job
Pay is the most visible issue, but working singers are evaluating more than the per-service rate. They’re calculating the real hourly value of a commitment that may block an entire Sunday morning, require a midweek rehearsal evening, and demand premium availability during the holidays — often with no premium pay.
Several community members flagged the holiday problem specifically. Many churches treat major feast days as simply included in the existing arrangement, with no additional compensation for what are, in practice, the most demanding and high-stakes performances of the year. One singer noted that churches routinely classify section leaders as independent contractors while treating them operationally like employees — getting the scheduling control of employment without the benefits or legal obligations that come with it. This distinction matters beyond the theoretical: misclassification has legal implications under IRS guidelines and in many states, including California. It’s a conversation most singers are reluctant to have, for reasons that are entirely understandable — but the reluctance doesn’t make the underlying issue less real.
Speaking of benefits: one community member raised something the series hasn’t addressed yet. Many churches already carry health insurance for other staff. The question of whether that coverage could be extended to music staff — even part-time — is worth a look. It won’t be feasible everywhere, but in institutions where the option could be available, the retention impact would be significant — and loyalty built on genuine investment tends to outlast any individual contract.
Flexibility matters as much as money
Post-COVID, the professional landscape in LA and elsewhere shifted in ways that compound the pay problem. Singers who are working at higher levels are traveling more — regional opera, touring, out-of-state engagements — and the inflexibility of a weekly church commitment conflicts directly with that kind of career. The singers a director most wants are often the singers least able to guarantee consistent availability.
This doesn’t mean those singers are unavailable. It means that clarity about sub policies, advance notice of the calendar, and genuine flexibility around conflicts can make a position viable for a stronger candidate pool than rigid expectations will.
The pipeline question
One observation that came up from the director’s side is worth sitting with. Several voices noted that fewer young singers coming up through conservatory and university programs today have any church background at all. That’s not a moral observation — plenty of excellent church musicians have no personal faith commitment, and that has always been true. It’s a practical one: the familiarity with liturgical structure, repertoire conventions, and the particular discipline of weekly sacred work used to be absorbed earlier. Now it often isn’t.
The downstream effect is visible in directors who’ve turned to general-public job platforms (e.g. social media and general job sites) when traditional searches come up short, and found themselves fielding responses from enthusiastic singers who are genuinely surprised that music reading is expected. It’s a symptom, not a solution — and it adds a significant vetting burden to directors who are already stretched thin.
A broader frame
A longtime Lister brought to my attention a piece published this spring by Brian Witkowski on his Substack, The Lucrative Artist, written at the invitation of the United Church of Christ Musicians Association. It’s one of the most thorough treatments of this subject I’ve encountered, and it names something that helps explain why the hiring crunch feels so sudden to directors who’ve been doing this for decades.
His argument, briefly: for most of the twentieth century, churches were running their music programs on a hidden subsidy. Musicians had traditional employment — or household structures that provided stability — and that outside income quietly covered the gap between what the work was worth and what the institution was paying. Churches received graduate-level artistry at a fraction of its value, and the arrangement held because someone else was absorbing the cost.
That buffer is now gone. Traditional full-time employment is less stable and less available. AI is compressing the administrative and coordination work many musicians relied on to supplement their incomes. The math that used to work doesn’t work anymore — and the institutions that built their music programs on the assumption that it always would are now feeling the consequences.
Brian’s full piece — which includes a diagnostic framework worth reading carefully if you’re navigating this from either side — is here. He’s a thoughtful and consistent observer of the economics of artistic labor, and worth following on Substack and Instagram. Thanks to longtime Lister Amy Engelhardt for bringing this piece to my attention.
Where this leaves us
The picture that emerges from this community conversation isn’t simple, and it isn’t one-sided. There are directors who genuinely want to pay more and can’t move their budgets. There are singers who would take church work if the terms were workable. There are institutions doing it well — a singer who now lives in Santa Fe mentioned finding a cathedral that pays fairly, treats professionals with respect, and runs a youth program that feeds the adult choir. That model exists. It’s just not universal.
The question for the next post is what directors can actually do — and what institutions that want to remain competitive for strong singers need to be willing to examine. Let’s discuss, and we’ll be back with more in a couple of weeks.
Directors: has your search process changed in the last few years?
Singers: where does church work fit in your current portfolio, if at all?
Feel free to comment here, or join the discussion on our social media pages.
This is the first in a short series, as we’ll be exploring this topic into the summer. Click here to start at the beginning.
The problem I have with hiring young musicians is getting them to show up, (many don’t show up and don’t tell the director they’re not coming), showing up on time, properly attired and staying off their phones during the rehearsal and the performance.
These are behaviors that should be addressed, but this is not the focus of this piece, I’m afraid. Better to save this for another time.