Music In the Pastor's Study: A Theological Conundrum

Ever since my high school days, when I would thrown on a pair of headphones as I scrawled away on my Algebra, I have enjoyed listening to music as I work. This habit continued through all of my schooling...I would often place a handful of CDs and my headphones in my bag on my way up the library to type seminary papers. I find that it helps me think to have something in the background. If the deadline is approaching, it is nice to have some more mellow, relaxing music in the background (nothing better than "Kind of Blue" to convince you that 20 pages can, in fact, happen in the next 12 hours)...if motivation is a problem, a more upbeat selection often helps (My last Hebrew paper was made possible by an energy infusion via Led Zeppelin III). I still enjoy listening to music when I am at home writing my sermons...those old habits continuing on today. I like God...I like writing...I like my job...and I like music.

But a question has presented itself recently, one that I have visited before at the other churches I have worked at: What can you listen to at church? What is considered appropriate?

I currently have a small CD player here in the office, and I keep four CDs here at work permanently. They are: "The best of Pavarotti," "Tchaikovsky: Greatest Hits," "Copland: Greatest Hits," and "Debussy: Compositions For Piano." In other words, four classical CDs that I enjoy very much and help soothe/inspire as I write. They aren't the greatest in the world, grant you, but I like them. There is only one catch.

I've been listening to them for eight months straight now.

Sure, I've brought in other classical CDs from our collection at home, but these are "The Rotation." The administrative assistant likes them...I like them...and (above all else) they haven't raised any congregational eyebrows. I keep looking at Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington...and I can't help thinking in the back of my head: "Boy...Miles Davis did a whole whole whole whole whole whole whole lot of drugs. Wonder if I should take him to church."

Why don't I do this with other CDs? Surely somebody in the orchestra playing "Fanfare for the Common Man" had some problems...plus, have your read any biographies on composers? And it's not like Miles' CDs are titled "Drugs are Great!!" and "The Church is Dead!" It's flowing, beautiful, instrumental jazz. Spectacular stuff. But I still haven't brought it.

And this doesn't even crack my CDs that have lyrics. There are several CDs that I would listen to (and have listened to) in front of parishioners...but I still don't bring them to work. I brought the new Bruce Hornsby/Ricky Skaggs bluegrass album to work the other week...I kept muting it when I answered the phone because I thought it sounded too upbeat and raucous for church work. It's not like there's language or even a whiff of a suggestive theme on the album...I just feel like this place is a serious place, you know, where GOD'S WORK gets done. Don't want anybody thinking I'm having a party here. Is there something wrong with me? I've considered bringing Ray Charles, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and the like into church...but always stopped short. Would people really get all that mad if they heard "Georgia On My Mind" playing when they came in the office?

Maybe it's precedence. Every pastor I have ever worked with who has listened to music in his/her office (that I know about) has listened to one of two things: Gospel music/hymns or Public Radio. I like both of these things...I really do...but I guess I just find myself wanting something else when I work.

And so...these are the things that crawl into my mind and don't leave. I have things to do, plan, and write...but instead I am trying to analyze my inability to bring jazz or vocal music to the church office and what that tells me about my theology of the pastoral office. I have come to the following conclusion: I have a hard time imagining all the pastoral expectations that I have clogged in my brain (those short films: "Pastor prays for 6 hours straight" and "Pastor debates taking a nap, curses sloth, gets back to work") played to a soundtrack of "The Boss Brass: Live in Digital" or Tom Petty's "Highway Companion"...it just doesn't work.

I'm guess that I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means to be a pastor...how much I have to listen to those expectations and how much I need to back off from them before expectations overshadow the reality of who I am. It is, in a way, like the times I feel guilty when somebody finds out that I'm a pastor when I'm walking around town without two-day stubble and an old ball cap on a Saturday. I want to be the pastor...but I want to be Scott, too.

I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I need to embrace and change in order to be both.