Osterville Q&A: Dave's Job & The Move

What Exactly Is Dave's Job?

The official title is "Associate Pastor for Worship and Arts."  One way of describing it would be to take a traditional Music Minister and move the style of music he coordinates toward a modern sound.  Then add everything your pastor does, but subtract regular preaching.  Another way is to add together a part-time Worship Leader and a part-time Associate Pastor. Yet another way is to take your Pastor, subtract from him the responsibility to preach every week, and replace that with leading the music each week. 

Another way is to forget the math and just tell you what I'll actually be doing.  They want me to have the main job of leading their Sunday Morning singing, but they want me to be a pastor about it.  This is one of the reasons I was drawn to this church, because that is exactly how I look at leading the singing.  So I'm called to lead them in singing, coordinate the musicians who accompany it, and shepherd the worship service the same way a pastor makes sure his sermon feeds the flock.  I'll make sure they're singing truth, that it's appropriate to the time in which they're singing it, and that it's being done as well as it can be done.

When you look at leading worship like this, and then consider that worship is only true when it is done all week, is becomes apparent that the person leading it needs to have both the authority of a pastor when leading and the responsibilities of a pastor throughout the week.  Is he qualified to lead you in worship on Sunday morning if he can't give you wise council in the Hospital?  We don't believe so, and thus throughout the week I'll act more like an Associate Pastor than a Music Minister. 

When and How Are you Moving?

Tonight, September 15th, is my last night at Morton's.  OBC voted and offered me the position on the 1st.  So today, two weeks later, I leave Morton's.  Tomorrow we're going in one last time for my annual free dinner for two, and that may be the very last time I go into the building.

Our apartment is close to being all packed up, and we will use the next three days finishing that work.  Then Saturday we will attend our 2nd wedding this month.  Sunday will be my last week leading Eagle Heights Baptist Church, and after a farewell lunch we will drive down to Hattiesburg.  Then, next Friday, we plan to drive up to Liberty, TN for a rehearsal dinner and our third wedding this month before heading back home.

The next Monday, the 27th, we plan to load up the Penske and my parents plan to fly up.  Early Tuesday we'll drop Emily and Sarah off at the airport and point the cars up toward Massachusetts.  We'll tow the Camry behind the Penske.  Then Emily and Sarah will spend the night in the Condo that is waiting for us in Osterville, while my parents and I will stay in a hotel somewhere on the road.  Late Wednesday we hope to arrive, kiss the girls hello, and go to sleep.  Then we plan to unload everything into the Condo, a Storage room another church member has provided us, and the Church office on Thursday.  Then my parents plan to stay a few days before they fly back to Florida. I don't start at the church until that next Monday, and my first Sunday leading them will be Anniversary! 

We hope this satisfies a little more curiosity.  There's more to come, of course.  In the meantime, here's a picture of Sarah taking her bath!