The summer of 2017 was an exciting one! It was my first acting job working for an equity theater. I was cast in a musical revue called Civil War Voices which included all the songs made popular during the Civil War. Songs like The Battle Hymn Republic, The Yellow Rose of Texas, Amazing Grace and, of course that old standard about confederate soldiers eating beans and farting around the campfire Goober Peas.
We had three weeks to put the show up. I was learning music at break neck speed. The first week I was scared. This was the real deal! It was exciting and I loved and hated it at the same time. In other shows, I’m usually a pretty quick study, in this show I was working with broadway professionals and felt I was in way over my head. Nevertheless, I was up for the challenge.
Now, I have a strong spiritual side. I believe in following Jesus and prioritizing my faith. I always try to be at church and as it says in Exodus: keep the sabbath day holy. So upon accepting the acting job, the producer and I had an understanding that I’d be off on Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, the director never knew about our arrangement.
After the first week of rehearsals, we were trucking along. I was truly blown away by the cast, not to mention our director and musical directors. I was so excited and grateful to be working with them. They were all brilliant.
The director had decided that we should probably schedule a rehearsal for Sunday and start at 10am. After all, we only had three weeks, why not use the time? The only problem was my conviction that I needed to be at church.
Now here’s the thing: I think God is bigger than all this. If I miss church, God gets over it obviously. But I want to show him how important He is to me. I don’t want my relationship with God to be one-sided, where he is doing all the blessing and forgiving and I make no sacrifices. So I decided to approach the director and ask him to consider a later call time so I could have a clear conscience.
Well, he wasn’t happy about it. I think he even might’ve felt bullied somehow because I mentioned how the producer and I had an agreement. This was one of those moments that I really agonized over. I still wonder if I had handled that conversation in the best way because I know how angry he got initially. My goal was to be as respectful as possible. I still wonder if I really achieved that.
We ended up running Acts 1 & 2 that day and rehearsal went better then anyone had expected. At the end of the day, our director announced that Sunday’s call would be 12:30 instead of 10:00, plenty of time for me to go to church and get back in time.
Later on, I privately thanked him for changing his mind. He replied, “Well, you’re all doing the work. Great job today.”
I have to say, I respect that director a lot. Everyone had heard our conversation and everyone knew that him relenting meant that I got my way. Rather than become narcissistic, he humbled himself to help me. He made me realize the kind of leader that I want to be for those I’m leading.
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