Souled Out Will Die, Mark My Words

..but before I talk about that, I want to get one more thing out of my head that's been plaguing me for the past two weeks. And of course, it involves everybody's favorite jerk, Jason!!!

You see two weeks ago, we had our Praise & Prayer Night. This is a monthly event that focuses mainly on worship through music and prayer. I play electric guitar with the band. Other than Brian being the Youth Director, this is the only other reason why I still hang out with Souled Out.

The Saturday before P&P Night, I messaged Jason on Facebook to get me the lineup for that night. Jason responds and says that some guy named Edward is playing electric guitar so I had a break.

Why the futch do I need a break? We only do these events once a month. And why did I have to figure this out by myself? I didn't even ask if I was playing because I knew I was playing at the time. I was asking for the lineup and it's like I get taken out without me knowing. And on the day before the event too!

Imagine if I didn't message Jason. I would have come up to P&P Night with all my equipment and some other guy is in my spot. Judging by Jason's leadership, I could've imagined this situation happening if I didn't ask him prior. He has a history of sucking at notifying people.

AND THEN...

Jason has the gall to ask Thomas if he's gonna play bass for P&P Night. Thankfully, Thomas had homework to do so he couldn't attend or play bass. That's a spot I could've taken over.

Now I do hate playing the bass, but it's only if it's on a regular basis. Back when I was playing for the Souled Out band I was plaing bass for them and I hated it because I am an electric guitarist. That's what I'm proficient at and being consistently asked to do it pissed me off. But I needed to stay there because if I didn't play bass, I wouldn't have a spot in the band. Plus the sound sucks without a bass. This time around if Jason asked me to play bass, I would be fine with it because I haven't been asked to do it in a while and I would probably do it on my own accord. But I said to myself, "Forget it." I'm not gonna offer myself to this band.

Jason, seriously, the way you settle things is terrible. And I can't tolerate it any longer. I don't respect you and as long as you are a worship leader at FACC and never get the formal training you should have recieved a long time ago, I never will

Now on to the real story...

I've been looking at the state of Souled Out since Frankie left, and it's been extremely poor. During the summer we used to run a YG of up to 30-40 people. Now we're back to where we were pre-me leaving and pre-Frankie. A YG of less than 20 a week. An enourmous amount of drama has since been brewing within the group and it's just not healthy.

It's made me come to a conclusion that Frankie was the glue that held the group together. Without him, there was pretty much nothing. Brian is doing his best, but it seems that he's a black man in 1960s America. It seems as if his opinion doesn't matter to them. If you think, he's still flanked by members of the old regimes; Jason, Errol, and Alula. And if you were with Souled out during those times you would know how bad it was with them.

Jason led the group from Sep. 2008-April 2009. He also led spots here and there between regimes, like in between the Rachel & John Regime and the second Nick Regime. He has been the go to guy in times of leadership. The only problem is, he doesn't know how to. Sure he's got the Bible sense, but he has no way of connecting with others because of his introverted mentality. The other thing is that he's got way too much on his plate. During his last regime, he was juggling Young Adult Ministry, Souled Out, and Worship Ministry, all of which he was a leader of, and he was still in college. You can't be the best at everything.

Errol has never taken the reigns of Souled Out, which in my opinion makes him the least qualified member. Like his brother Jason, he has a lot of Bible sense, but it seems that he portrays himself as some androgynous guy who sticks around the girls and acts gay around the guys. Errol is the ultimate CB'er, but that's not the main reason why I can't stand him. It's because I can't envision him as a leader. Judging by what he does now, he doesn't seem like he could be a leader. For one thing he's younger than I am, another thing is that he acts very unprofessionally, and third, whenever he does do the little sermons during Souled Out, it's as if he forces people to do things.

Alula is the one I respect the most out of those three. She led Souled Out for 2005 and much of 2006. During her regime, I got baptized along with 4 others during my Landmark Summer of 2006. She has less Bible sense than Jason and Errol in my opinion, but she is more transparent than the others. A great example of this was last Sunday. In our small groups, she admitted to us that she had been doing stuff in the past that she of course regretted. While she may not have gone into great detail about the things she did the fact that she mentioned them shows that she is more open to talking about her issues than the other two. I prefer an imperfect leader than a perfect leader because with an imperfect leader there are no guesses you know what's up with them and you feel more comfortable. With a perfect leader, you spend forever trying to figure out an issue with them because you already know nobody's perfect.

And thinking about these things you consider what would happen if Brian left. What if the last reason why I go to Souled Out just up and left? Well this is exactly what would happen.

If Brian left, I would leave as well. Alula is getting married next month so she couldn't lead Souled Out. Jason is planning on taking the reigns of the Worship Ministry full time as a paid staff member, so he's out of the picture. That leaves Errol, whom I'm pretty already knows that he is not qualified to lead Souled Out in any capacity.

So you're left with the current crop of membes of Souled Out: Patrick, Jorge, Sha Sha, Eddie, Janina, Marvin, Alyssa, Alyssa, Steph, Kenneth, Megan, RV, Dino, Derrick, and Raymond. All of which are not in anyway qualified to lead Souled Out in any capacity. So what's gonna happen? Souled Out Will Die, Mark My Words.