I am the backup drummer when our main guy is out of town and have been doing lead female vocals for a few months now. I am learning bass to be the backup bass guitarist too.
Our band practices are Thursday nights. Our current worship leader (unpaid, is searching for a job in sales full-time) is a good friend and a nice guy. But, every week, he picks the songs and emails them out along with the announcement about whether we're having practice Thursday morning/afternoon.
I've been "reminding" (OK, nagging) him about Easter for weeks, suggesting songs (something he has encouraged all of us to do and always thanks me for). Our bassist will be out of town. I told him I could play bass if he picked the songs a few weeks in advance. He still hasn't picked them, so we will have just guitar and congas, because there is no point in having drums with just the acoustic guitar. We lost a lot of band members this last year (unrelated to his leadership stuff as he stepped up, because someone else left).
I find myself feeling stressed and anxious every single week. It triggers all these feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, a sense that it is "on me," even though I realistically have no responsibility and have offered to do more to help us be more organized. It is past feelings. I feel like I can't do my best, because others don't have their act together. That I am constantly having to make do and scramble and feel like I'm not giving my all.
Also, I was super excited about the challenge of learning some songs on the bass. He tried to get our previous lead guitarist, who moved and didn't want to commute every week, to join and the guy changed his mind last minute. I would try, even now, to learn the songs, if given a chance. It probably wouldn't happen, but the practicing with other musicians, even if I didn't play on Easter, would really help my learning process. But, that decision is being made for me, because...we probably aren't even practicing AT ALL this week. So, I just have to show up Sunday morning, run through the songs once and hope we all sound good together.
Add to this that my T is having one of those weeks where he can't tell me the exact time of my session that is tomorrow morning and I am just f---ing stressed out of my mind! I am actually very good at "dealing with" disorganized messes like this. But, after a point, I just get sick of it and wonder if maybe I should just finally set a boundary around participating in activities like this that are not properly organized on a regular basis...that could be, but just aren't.
I really love being a part of of our worship team. And I love my friend. I just don't love not knowing WTF is going on with my week (i.e. whether/when band practice is) and being able to really put my best effort forward. I don't want to have to quit or give an ultimatum, but I don't want to keep being so stressed out every week either.
