An artist shares his experiences going full-time

Dan Dúet from San Antonio, TX, recently decided to quite his full-time corporate job in order to focus full-time on music ministry. We all know how difficult it is to support oneself, let alone a family on full-time music ministry. Dan recently shared his experiences with the Catholic Association of Music community about the progress he was making as a music minister and agreed to let GrapeVine post his message. I believe his "nuggets of knowledge" and "words of wisdom" are very worthwhile for any artist to read, even artists that are part-time.

When I announced that I would be doing my first-ever concert tour, and that I had quit my corporate job in order to focus on this as a full-time vocation, I received numerous private e-mails from others involved in music ministry who have been praying about taking that step into the great unknown, leave behind an existing career, and give this whole music thing a go. I want to share a few thoughts, lessons learned, nuggets of knowledge, words of wisdom. (OK, the wisdom part might be pushing it a bit...)

1. I only quit my career because I was called to do this full time. Just like some are called to use their music to reach the youth specifically and others are not, or some are called to focus on liturgical use of their musical gifts while others may be called to contemporary usage, leaving behind the security of a corporate or other full-time career must have as its foundation, a calling to do it. If I were not so firmly convicted of this calling, I would still be in corporate America and wisely so.

2. If #1 is in place, tons of prayer is a must. TONS. And I have found that as important as my own prayer is for my ministry, perhaps even more important is the prayer of so many people around me. I am "too close" to my ministry that sometimes I lose focus of what I should be praying for. Having others around me who can see "from the outside looking in" keeps me grounded.

3. If #1 and #2 are in place, then total surrender to God. Period. Total surrender.

4. On the road I have learned that there are Catholic churches that are uninterested in contemporary Christian music, while others are hungry for it. When I consider churches in a diocese, I do not simply go down the list of churches and call each one. I do as much research (mostly via websites) on potential parishes before I make a call. There a many parishes I skipped after reading through the website. That is not meant as a negative, just the reality of the parish. For instance, I go to a website and find that a parish has five weekend Masses, and four of them are in a language other then English, I'm probably not going to benefit that parish very much. I do have to say that one parish I marked off my list b/c the tone of the information on the website indicated to me that the parish had no interest in following the teachings of the Roman Catholic church. Had I thought the Holy Spirit was leading me to go there, I would have called them. However, I did not find myself with any intense inclination to go there so I chose not to contact them, whether or not that was the right thing to do can be debated; its simply what I chose to do (or not do).

5. Be prepared for long hours on the telephone contacting parishes, but do not be afraid. At CAM, Denis Grady did a great job of showing us how he does a "cold call". I was heartened to see that it was very similar to how I do mine. I've contacted well over 300 parishes in the past four months alone and probably 99% of them had very nice people on the other end of the line. Only a couple had the dreaded "church lady" and only one had a very disinterested (and blunt) pastor. All-in-all, I've been treated with a great deal of respect when I speak to persons who work on the staff of parishes.

7. The big question others had been asking me: can you make a living???? If #1 above is checked off, then the answer is YES. God would not call someone to go out and do something like this if He did not intend to take care of them. While I am having some financial struggles unrelated to leaving my corporate job, I am finding that the audiences are generally very generous and even though I am not charging a stipend, most pastors are making a donation to my ministry. As others have previously posted in the past few months, be prepared both musically and spiritually, provide an evening of music and ministry that is meaningful, and the audience will show its appreciation. Just trust in God to take care of the needs.

8. What will I do differently when this tour is over? Now that I am "paying my dues" so-to-speak, by working hard to get my music "out there", and seeing that it is generally well-received, I may begin asking for a minimal stipend as well as a love offering to offset costs and add revenue to the ministry. Additionally, I will seek out even more advice from those who are "veterans" at this kind of living. I will pray more. And I will stock up on duct tape! lol.

These are just some things that have worked for me. If this can benefit anyone in the group, then praise be God. You may be called in a different way, or to do things differently. In the end, the question I ask myself after a concert is: was Jesus Christ glorified tonight in a meaningful manner? If so, it was a good night. If not, I need to look into my heart for some honest answers.

The experience has been awesome up to this point. I am staying with relatives outside of St. Louis and have a concert at Immaculate Conception in Arnold, MO, on Sunday evening at 7pm. Last night I was a guest at a Revival at a local Pentecostal church! What a great experience. The pastor had one of my CD's in his hand when I arrived! He invited me to sing before the main speaker came on. They didn't have a guitar and I didn't bring one since I did not expect to be asked to sing, so I did a meditational version of "Let the Fire Fall", acapella. It was a great experience. I let them know upfront that I am a devout Roman Catholic and they didn't even dunk me in the baptismal pool!! And they asked me to share my testimony. What a great feeling to be praising God with my Pentecostal brothers and sisters, and I did not feel compelled to remain in the "Catholic closet"!!

The concert tour will end on Saturday, July 12 [2008], at St. Justin Martyr in Houston. Please keep me and this ministry in your prayers.

Peace in Jesus,

Dan

Dan Dúet
www.danduet.com (ministry and contact info)
www.myspace.com/danduet (free music samples)
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