Navigating Toxic Music Ministry

Rico Anthony shares powerful insights on navigating toxic situations in church music ministry through prayer, discernment, and forgiveness. He challenges listeners to seek God's direction before making decisions about whether to stay or leave difficult ministry environments.

• Remove yourself from toxic situations and pray before making decisions
• Consider that God might have you there to witness someone else's removal
• Distinguish between toxic leadership and someone pushing you toward excellence
• Forgiveness is essential to moving forward and "winning again" in ministry
• Church hurt is real but shouldn't permanently prevent you from fulfilling your calling
• No one can stop you from becoming what God called you to be except yourself
• Pray for direction and remember your future is better than your current feelings

If you're struggling with church hurt or ministry conflict, I encourage you to pray about your situation, ask God for wisdom and strength to forgive, and trust Him for direction on what to do next.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Toxic Music Ministry
• 0:38 God's Plan Amid Toxicity
• 1:13 Forgiveness as the Path Forward
• 2:17 Overcoming Church Hurt
• 3:36 Final Encouragement and Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, I'm Rico Anthony. Thank you for tuning into the Brother Musician podcast. If you're involved in any toxic situation in the music department, any heated situation in the music department, any uncomfortable situation in the music department, remove yourself and then pray about it. Give God everything that you feel. Let God make the decision if it's for you to stay or if it's for you to go, like, really listen. Some people would just say, hey, this is a toxic situation, I don't need to pray about it, I'm out of here, I'm going to use common sense, I'm going to use wisdom. Well, maybe you're there and God is going to remove that other person. Sometimes you just got to sit back and wait and see what God is going to do. But at the end of the day, make sure that you're getting your direction from God. Don't give up on who you are and who you're supposed to be because you don't trust God enough to pray about the situation and then evaluate yourself. Sometimes we think that we say that things are toxic and it's just the person pushing you to get to that next level. You have you seen great leadership skills and that person, more than likely that person is pushing you to get better, pushing you to get better, pushing you to get better, and if that's the case, you want your leader to push you to greatness, because, at the end of the day, we all want to be great and if you know it's a toxic situation or heated environment, forgive. Listen, this can fester in your heart. You could feel like you were done wrong, and you probably were. It'll fester in your heart and they'll be fine and you'll be still holding on to that unforgiveness. I've experienced these things in my life as well, and one of the greatest things that I was able to do is forgive. Once I let it go, I was able to win again. In this life, you're going to win and you're going to lose, and it's okay, but you don't want to be walking around here not winning because you're not able to forgive. You don't have the capacity to forgive whatever happened. I'm not saying that it's easy to forgive, but I'm saying pray about it. Ask the Lord to give you the wisdom and the strength so that you can forgive, because once you forgive, I guarantee you you'll start winning again. I guarantee you you'll start winning again.

Speaker 1: 2:25

No one can stop you from being what God has called you to be musically, intellectually, from a business perspective. From a leadership perspective, no one can stop you from being what God has called you to be, but you, you can. You can shut it all down by holding on to things because things didn't go your way or you experienced conflict or you experienced an abusive situation. One of the main reasons that people in church don't reach their potential is because of what they call church hurt. Don't get me wrong it does hurt, especially when it comes from people that you trust. But if you allow that to stop you, you will never become what God has called you to be. Listen, get it. I understand it. I apologize for the leader that actually hurt you. I apologize for the colleague that actually hurt you. I apologize for the person that has you not wanting to serve anymore. I get it.

Speaker 1: 3:27

But at some point after the, after the conflict, after the toxic relationship, after the toxic thing happened, you have to get back up and you got to keep pushing. You got to keep moving forward. There's greatness inside of you and I'm sorry that that leader greatness inside of you and I'm sorry that that leader didn't didn't understand leadership well enough to to push you towards getting better and not making themselves look good or look better. You can do this, you can do this. It's a fight, it's a journey. I get it, I totally get it, but you can do it. Let it go, push forward, move on, remove yourself from that situation if need be. Most importantly, pray about it. Ask God to give you direction on what to do next, because I promise you your next is better than the way you feel right now. Have a great day.