“Nothing personal…” I’ve always found this to be sort of a platitude, and a vexing one at that. People say it all the time when they don’t really mean it. While it’s true that some people are more prone than others to take things to heart, I would argue that most things are at least a little bit personal. The business and personal aspects of life are hopelessly intertwined. Even if you lose your job in a “last in, first out” scenario, it’s still very personal to lose the situation that allowed you to provide for your needs; for your family’s needs.
I’m a sensitive person. In life I’ve been accused of taking things personally. In some cases I was vindicated, other times not, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts. When you think about what it means to be sensitive, this intuitive personality trait often works as an early warning system for BS. True, you’re going to get some false indicators sometimes. Generally, though, you’re tuned in to frequencies that those around you aren’t picking up on, and this can be very useful. Over the years, there were those who argued that what I experienced at HPC was #nothingpersonal, but rather a disconnected series of misunderstandings. Fortunately, others confirmed my suspicions, and in undeniable ways. Otherwise, mine would have been a very difficult case to make.
Pastor Dino Rizzo addresses the congregation in the Trinity Christian Center sanctuary c. 1994. This would have been the scene during Corey's surprise performance.
What's in a name?
Pastor (or, Clergy) Appreciation Day is a celebration held annually on the second Sunday of October. It originated in the U.S. in 1992. Some people think it’s harmless, or even good fun, while others are concerned that this modern holiday elevates man too much. Personally, I think it’s of little consequence. For better or worse, you’re going to treat your pastor mostly the same way year-round. It’s the daily disciplines in life that have the biggest impact, so does it really matter whether or not you celebrate a holiday every now and then?
Within my first year or two at HPC (then Trinity Christian Center), I got to be involved in such a celebration. Some staffers secretly arranged for a marching band to burst into the rear doors of the sanctuary during a Sunday morning service. The idea was for the band to march right up to the stage at full volume, just as Dino was to present his message. Then there would be a musical number and a little presentation to honor our pastor.
They asked me to dress up in a crazy costume, lead the marching band to the front, jump up on stage and serenade Dino with a parody of L.O.V.E. by Frank Sinatra. The lyrics were changed to spell D.I.N.O. and creatively personalized for him. I was around 17 at the time, and flattered just to be asked. I jumped at the opportunity to sing and dance for a live audience. The worship band did a great job with the song, and the whole thing was very entertaining.
I figured that this sort of moment would be a hard one to forget. So imagine how I felt when, after years of memorable ministry experiences, Dino still never learned my name. He would routinely call me random names like “Todd” when we passed each other backstage. Todd? Who’s Todd?! True, I have spaced out many times when being introduced to a random stranger. I just don’t think I’ve ever forgotten the name of someone who mattered to me. A man needs to make a difference and be appreciated for it. This was just another reminder of how little difference I made in my church.
A little backstory
At Healing Place, there was a rather large pool of musicians and singers who comprised the music ministry. We had more available personnel than we had weekly positions, so some folks had to rotate in and out of their roles. Frankly, some roles and some events were considered more critical than others, and for these situations there were default band line-ups that only changed under certain circumstances.
Some leaders in the music ministry held desk jobs at the church, and participation in the worship band was considered a part of their jobs. Others like myself were considered “contract staff” because we were paid per service and presumably held day jobs elsewhere. Interns and volunteers rounded out the rest of the team.
Over the years there were roughly 10 electric guitarists who came and went on the main stage at the Highland Campus. Some moved on to become indie record producers, others were hobbyists. I was one of the few working players among the 10, but I didn’t start out that way. From when I first arrived in 1996 until 2003, I mostly volunteered in the student ministries. It wasn’t until I turned 24 that I landed my first weekend service role at HPC - electric guitarist for a new "video campus," The Annex.
A fellow musician in the Annex band was the worship leader for the middle school ministry, Pathfinders. Eventually he asked me to volunteer as the lead guitarist for Pathfinders. After a while, the college and young adult ministry, Late Night, decided to add a second electric guitarist to their band, so I landed that job as well. This created a schedule conflict in which leaders from both Pathfinders and Late Night argued over where I should serve. Late Night leadership won the skirmish, and I became a permanent part of the Late Night band.
Corey, left, performs with David St. Romain for a sound check on the Louisiana State Fair Grounds c. 2005.
At 25, I began playing professionally outside the church on a weekly basis. Not long afterward, there was a major leap forward for me at HPC. A spot opened up in the Saturday evening band at the Highland Campus. Weekend services at the ministry's main campus were sort of the Holy Grail. This was my first opportunity to be included there, as well as my first opportunity to receive a regular check from the ministry for my involvement. My participation at the Highland Campus grew to include the midweek services and Chick Night events - all paying positions.
The Annex Campus eventually expanded to 2 services per Sunday morning, at which point the church began to compensate the Annex band as well. It was really interesting whenever a critical player was absent on a Sunday morning from either campus. This required someone else to work 2 services at the Annex and 3 services at the Highland Campus, or every hour on the hour for 5 straight hours. This was referred to as “the marathon” and was something that only a handful of players at HPC, myself included, ever experienced.
As previously stated, Healing Place had a roster of musicians who were paid per service for their involvement in the music ministry. I volunteered there for years with no knowledge of this arrangement. It wasn’t until they offered me a spot on the roster that I was finally brought into the loop. Checks were calculated monthly, and usually arrived by mail several weeks after the pay period ended. I think the ministry was working around some sort of technicalities related to their tax status, because they always bent over backwards to convince us that they weren’t actually compensating us for our involvement, but rather giving us gifts or “love offerings,” as they called them.
Corey lays down tracks in the Healing Place Church studio c. 2006
Be that as it may, we were scheduled for work and expected to be there. Every month we received a check from the church for a set rate multiplied by the number of services we had played during the previous period. Every year at tax time, we got a 1099-MISC in the mail. Explain to me again how this is not contracting work. Furthermore, some volunteer players and singers contributed just as much as did the contract players, yet were not compensated at all. I imagine that the rationale behind this practice was equally flimsy, which is why no one ever talked about it.
Our rate per service was half of what is widely considered scale for church musicians in this area. To make matters worse, when the ministry launched its campaign to build the Arena, they asked the music department to cut costs by 10%. The bandleader was left with the decision to either cut players from the roster, or cut the whole team’s pay. We all agreed to accept 10% less rather than see some of our colleagues lose their pay entirely. Once the Arena was completed, our rate remained at the new, lower figure.
Shortchanged
My involvement in the music ministry had started gaining momentum prior to joining the contract staff, and only continued to increase afterward. As a full time freelance musician, I began to depend on these growing monthly checks from the church as a part of my primary income. I would miss out on events in my personal life or perform acrobatics with my schedule in order to be available to the ministry at every opportunity. So imagine my dismay when I started to notice irregularities in my checks.
Sometimes there would be extended, unexplained delays in the issuance of checks. This sporadic payment led to a good bit of confusion. At one point, an audit of my records revealed that an entire month had apparently been skipped. I approached the ministry's finance department, and after a small internal audit, they too concluded that several months prior, they had indeed skipped an entire pay period. They soon issued retroactive checks to the players, and were very nice about the whole thing. However, no one in the band ever said a word to me about it, which I found odd.
Eventually, something else happened; something that I could not explain via a personal audit. My monthly checks started to come in randomly light, and the amounts were no longer divisible by the rate of pay per service. By this time I was easily the highest paid contract staffer on the roster, by virtue of sheer hustle. There were times when I played as many as 14 services in a month. The staffer who made the schedule knew that he could load me up with as many services as he needed, and could depend on me for a worry-free experience.
After some probing, someone on staff finally told me the reason why my checks had been light. Apparently, a leader high up the music ministry food chain had to approve every check request before the check could be issued. This leader saw how much I was earning by playing a high volume of services compared to other players. He decided to indiscriminately reduce my check amounts for no reason other than the fact that he personally felt I should make less money.
Here is some food for thought: Let’s just say that there are 10 services scheduled in October for which the ministry will need a drummer. Whether they schedule the same drummer for all 10 services, or give 2 services each to 5 different drummers, the cost to the music department remains exactly the same. It’s a wash. It is completely irrelevant to the budget of the music department whether the pay is distributed among less players or more.
This powerful leader, who had presented himself as my friend and ally within the music ministry, was going behind my back and taking money out of my paycheck merely because he was offended at my ability to supplement my income via music ministry. A shocking level of hypocrisy, given that this leader was a full time staffer at HPC whose salary was earned exclusively via music ministry; a sizable salary that was considerably more than what I earned in a year with all of my musical endeavors combined.
There I am, a young man living very frugally, busting my tail to scrimp and save all I can so that my wife and I can start a family. I always paid my tithes to the penny. Then along comes this favored, privileged guy with a comfortable staff position in this highly funded ministry, arbitrarily toying with my livelihood. Because he was in favor with the Rizzos, there was absolutely no accountability for his actions. I was left powerless to do anything about it if I wanted to remain at HPC.
Suspicions confirmed
I previously made reference to other electric guitarists who had been featured players on the main stage during my time at HPC. There was one player in particular, a talented guy that I just never really bonded with. I’ll just call him “Tim.” Tim and I were almost never scheduled together, and for whatever reason, never got to know one another. Since I’m trying to be as candid as possible, I will add that there were times when I even suspected it might be personal on his part. Tim was well liked, though, and I never gave it any serious thought.
Tim and I did, however, share a mutual friend outside the ministry. This mutual friend had been a confidante of mine since before everything went sideways at Healing Place. During one discussion with this friend, he sort of dropped a bomb on me involving Tim. He said that he had mentioned my name to Tim during a conversation about HPC politics. Upon hearing my name, Tim immediately said, “Yeah, that guy has really had a rough time at Healing Place. They don’t treat him well. And all he ever did was ask questions.”
Mind. Blown. Alas, this type of thing was never acknowledged to me personally. I faced such adversity there - made much worse by the fact that no one was willing to own the crappy way they treated me. To have a neutral third party such as “Tim”, who had rarely ever spoken to me, acknowledge what I went through... well, that just really meant a lot to me. This was a guy who had seemingly enjoyed favor at HPC. The fact that he said this when I wasn't around to hear it just made the whole thing seem all the more authentic. I can’t imagine how it would have felt to hear it from the parties responsible, though, because that never happened.
My wife and I don’t always see eye-to-eye about conflict. She is a conflict avoider, and I find that she is very slow to come around to the ideas and concepts that I discuss on this site. Early in our marriage, there was a young woman in the music ministry at HPC who confronted my wife about the way I was treated there. This was a surprise to me, because this young woman was barely an acquaintance of mine. They were talking one day, and out of nowhere, she asked my wife, “How does Mike V feel about the way the leadership just passed him over for <name omitted> ?”
Specifically, she was referring to a young man we served with in the music ministry, whom I’ll refer to as “David.” He had come onto the scene at HPC rather abruptly, and was more or less walked straight to the front of the line. David played second guitar for weekend services at the Highland Campus before I did. He got to fill in as lead whenever the first chair guitarist was out sick. He led worship and sang backing vocals often. He traveled to Italy with Pastor Dino as a part of the worship team. David got to perform on worship albums and I am pretty sure that he was eventually given a staff position.
The ministry gave David every opportunity that I had worked, paid my dues and waited patiently to achieve. This was not a matter of superior talent. In a meritocracy, we probably wouldn’t have even been in the same weight class, but due to rampant favoritism at HPC, he completely surpassed me as a core member of the music ministry team. As I’m generally a harmony-seeking idealist, I treated David with respect and got along with him well enough despite everything. There was never a cross word between us.
I refrained from discussing my feelings about the situation with anyone at HPC except for my music partner, who was one of the most discreet individuals I know, and whom also found the whole situation repugnant. Nevertheless, it became the elephant in the room whenever David and I served together. So much so, that it eventually led to some pretty serious allegations being cast my way.
Falsely Accused
One Sunday morning at the Annex campus, we had just wrapped rehearsal when one of the young pastors pulled me off to a dark corner backstage. This pastor was someone I’d served with for a couple of years at that point, and whom I’d considered a friend. He then proceeded to confront me as if I already knew what was going on. The Annex had also been used for student ministry services during the week, and some of those guys, including David, would leave gear backstage for convenience. Apparently, one of David’s guitars had recently been found with the headstock snapped clean off.
Some guitars have a separate neck that is bolted on to the body. A decent luthier, for a couple hundred bucks in parts and labor, plus the cost of a new set-up, can replace a damaged neck. However, a guitar with “neck-through construction” has been assembled all in one piece. If the headstock is broken off the neck, the process to repair the damage is considered cost-prohibitive for all but the most valuable of musical instruments. A headstock is usually only broken in one of 2 ways: either by accidentally stepping on a guitar that has been laid flat on its back without a case to protect it, or by deliberately smashing it.
I don’t know which of his guitars was damaged, how it happened or what ever became of that whole situation. What I do know is that I had absolutely no knowledge of it until this shocking confrontation backstage. After I categorically denied any knowledge of or involvement in this situation, this young pastor really leaned into me a second time, pushing for a confession. I was beside myself, both with empathy for a fellow musician, as well as disgust that someone in my church would do this and refuse to come forward.
Most of all, though, I was enraged that after everything I’d done to demonstrate a model attitude in the face of favoritism and adversity, I now stood accused of an actual crime by someone whom I had counted as a friend. I could see it all over his face that he didn’t believe me. I don’t think this pastor was particularly close to David, so if he was so convinced of my guilt, I can only imagine what more biased people must have thought about me. From that moment on, I knew where I stood at Healing Place.
Of course, as had become standard operating procedure at Healing Place, no one ever apologized for falsely accusing me of destroying this kid’s guitar. Life went on and David continued to enjoy favor at Healing Place Church while I continued to scrap and fight for every inch of ground. Even though I ascended to a certain level through grit and gumption, I never came close to experiencing favor at HPC as David and others did.
Mrs. Robinson
There is one final story from the vault that I’d like to share before I wrap up today’s post. After my freshman year of college, I found myself battling clinical depression. I had begun putting on weight for the first time in my life. Then I discovered that my high school sweetheart was cheating on me after she’d begun sleeping with some diesel mechanic. We broke up and she married the mechanic. Then I lost my job. Things were not going very well for me when I was approached about joining a new ministry at Healing Place Church that centered on acting.
The leader of this new initiative gave me the hard sell on joining her team, but she didn’t have to twist my arm because I was pretty receptive to the idea already. I never passed on an opportunity to jump up on stage. Also, being on the rebound, I had this naïve idea that being in the spotlight would help my game. It did not, but that’s a story for another day. The leader of this ministry was young and attractive, but married. Even as a red-blooded American male of 19, I always respected the sanctity of marriage, so I tried not to think of her in that way.
However, in time it became clear to anyone paying attention that this ministry leader was unhappy in her marriage and looking for an escape. Then she began inventing all kinds of ways for us to be alone together in compromising situations in the course of our ministry work. This went on for a good while. Boundaries started to blur and, even while she encouraged me to pursue a young woman on our team, she became increasingly more flirtatious with me. Eventually she started doing things like giving me a kiss on the cheek or walking with me arm-in-arm, her head on my shoulder. She would make comments and share things with me about herself that were clearly inappropriate for a married woman to say.
One of the most overt examples would have to be her behavior during a ministry-sanctioned road trip that we took with 2 other members from the team. We all stayed in a hotel over night. It was winter, but she insisted that we take a dip in the hotel pool after dinner. I wasn’t really into the pool idea, and didn’t have a swimsuit, but she offered to take me to a Wal-Mart so that I could buy one. After a while in the pool, she invited me to move with her over to the hot tub. By this time, the hotel’s indoor pool area was completely deserted.
So there I am, late at night, many miles from home, alone in a Jacuzzi with this young, married woman who’s wearing a little 2-piece swimsuit. She was the one who organized the whole trip, so who’s to say this wasn’t just built into her plan all along? We talked for a while, and the table was set for some really bad decisions, but I’m happy to say that nothing else happened. More than anything, I just really wanted to know how far she was willing to go with this little charade because it stroked my ego tremendously.
She was extremely flirty with me throughout the next day as well, to the point that people were visibly uncomfortable around us. One of my best friends at the time was with us on that trip, and he found the whole thing quite amusing. Nevertheless, I think that my refusal to pull the trigger that night in the hot tub was a pretty big clue to her that I wasn’t going to initiate anything. I suspect that she had certain lines that she wasn’t willing to cross unless I made the first move, so that was probably the beginning of the end for us. It had gone on long enough, though, that people began asking questions. When confronted, I didn’t deny that I felt she’d been inappropriate toward me.
She and I drifted apart, and she moved on to someone else on the team who was closer to her age. I suspect that the new guy was a bit wiser and didn’t want anything to do with a married woman. That little situation spun out of control, and this time it was a bit more out in the open so people were talking about it a lot more. I don’t remember the whole chain of events, but I remember finding myself alone with her again at the church’s offsite storage facility where she and I ended up having it out. She cried and said that I’d betrayed her by not defending her flirtatious behavior to our friends.
The last thing I remember is that she came to my house one night. Apparently, she'd just had a confrontation with our church leadership. I was 20 years old at this point, and still too naïve to realize what was happening. I’d never had an opportunity (or cause) to tell my side of the story to anyone except for my friend from the road trip. As a result, this young woman had remained in complete control of the narrative with regard to high-level ministry leadership.
I had not been involved at all in her current dilemma with the other man, or anything else for that matter. Still, she told me that night that our church leadership was forcing me to withdraw from her ministry completely. She actually said the words that she’d had to “stick her neck out” to get permission from them to recruit me in the first place. According to her, the church leadership had now determined that I was somehow the source of her problems. I was being forced out. She'd come to my house to tell me this in private. How convenient that no one else was around to hear the web of lies she spun for me that night.
What does it all mean?
It occurs to me now that what happened at my house that night was most likely one woman's attempt to turn me into her scapegoat in some Machiavellian-level scheme to avoid the consequences of her actions. Apparently she was successful, for despite her eventual fall from grace, my reputation at HPC never recovered. From that point forward, I was completely burned at Healing Place Church. No woman in my church ever dated me again. I was severely limited in my ministry opportunities, and in the 12 years that I remained in ministry there, I never again developed a rapport with any high-level staffers.
Nothing personal? I disagree. I'd say that my failure to thrive at Healing Place was #absolutelypersonal, and not merely some disconnected series of unfortunate events. I spent many difficult years at HPC wrestling internally with the big question, "Are there actually influential people behind the scenes at my church who have blacklisted me?" I think there is a preponderance of evidence that confirms she was telling the truth about one thing; the leadership at Healing Place had already made up their minds about me back in 1999. What do you think?