In my experience hanging mics properly so they don't drift is quite an undertaking especially in a church-type space where there wouldn't be an abundance of rigging in place (like in a concert hall). The mics need to have tension from 3 points to fix them well. (usually left, right, and rear or front).
If the director you mention is the music director of the church maybe he can swing the authorization for this type of install but if he is an outsider he should accept that any recordings anyone would make for him from the back of the space will be complete crap. He should let you do your job or the recording is useless to him as well as embarassing to you. If he is running a professional organisation that fundraises it should be pointed out that nearly all of the grant applications ask for recordings to be submitted and clearly make their funding decisions on these recordings. Therefor its obviously advantageous to have ones that sound as good as possible...
Sorry for the rant - pet peeve.
Neumann makes some little auditorium hangers that help to angle the mics and create slack in the cable:
http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=c...sories&dbid=42
All this being said whenever someone asks me to hang my mics I reply 'Sure, I can. Make sure you rent the hall for 4 more hours so I can string line. " They usually come to the ingenious conclusion that its better to have me bring stands.
Best,
Silas