5 Pointers On Nervous Situations Out Of Your Control - Part 3
"...all will be well if your demeanor shows others you are at rest and not taking yourself too seriously. And in doing that, you will be less nervous, fearful, and anxious."
As we come to the last two points on Nervous Situations Out Of Our Control, we'll be looking at how unsettling conversations or situations can affect this.
To recap, we've already looked at three causes for nervous situations:
So the next point then is...
Being criticized, or having an unsettling conversation right before we play
No one likes this, but unfortunately it does happen. You might have been in the perfect state of mind, all prepared to play the piano and lead the congregation in worship, then 2 minutes before you sit down, someone suddenly comes out with a criticism, or you have a conversation you weren’t planning on having, and it totally throws you.
What do you do?
Well, while it couldn’t have been avoided (or hopefully you would have), the best thing to do is just to take a moment and ask the Lord to help take that burden, and re-direct your heart and mind.
If you can, glance at some of the lines of the songs before you, and read them and pray too. It’s all about getting back in focus.
Here’s a great verse to encourage you to do this; Isaiah 26:3 says…
3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
So keep your mind on the Lord, and trust Him, and He will help you get back to where you need to be mentally, and in your heart also.
And finally, the last point...
Unexpected situations during the worship (bad sound, wrong notes, mistake in leading)
Here, we are focusing on when something unexpected causes you to feel nervous, either because of what’s suddenly happened or what you’re worried might happen. That’s never a nice situation to be in!
Maybe it’s the sound system suddenly going weird or you played some wrong notes which makes you more worried about doing it again, or you led into the wrong song or made some other mistake.
Whatever it is, the key thing here is to remember that your reaction really helps to decrease or increase any “tension” there might be in the worship time because of what’s just happened.
For example, if there’s something wrong with the sound, and you’re worried and nervous it might happen again, there’s not really anything you can do about it. So, do your best to ignore it and carry on; there’s probably someone working on a solution.
On the other hand, if you look all stressed out and concerned, it will cause other people to be tense, wondering what’s going on. So just try to carry on as best you can.
If you’ve made a clonker of a bad note or two, the same thing applies - carry on. Don’t look perturbed, because it’s a fact that most people wouldn’t have noticed, and when they look at you and see you are fine, they will probably think they misheard a mistake anyway.
And on this issue of playing unintended one-off wrong notes in a song, please remember, this is not the end of the world. In fact, it can actually be a blessing for other piano players when they realize you are human too!
I hope you are in a church where people extend grace in these situations. So, don’t overthink or focus on your “performance”, but instead, accept it was just a wrong note, and move on.
Then if there’s any other mistake you make in leading the songs, simply smile, laugh, move on, make the atmosphere “light”, and everyone will be at ease.
After all, we’re there to worship God, not make a flawless professional performance. So, all will be well if your demeanor shows others you are at rest and not taking yourself too seriously. And in doing that, you will be less nervous, fearful, and anxious.
So just to recap, here are the 5 causes we've looked at...
Being criticized, or having an unsettling conversation right before we play
Unexpected situations during the worship (bad sound, wrong notes, mistake in leading)
So there you have some hopefully helpful pointers on how to deal with 5 situations that are out of our control. And next week, we'll be looking at the first point of dealing with stressful situations within our control.
[Return to The Church Piano Player Website]
This blog post was written by pastor and pianist Kris Baines, from The Church Piano Player. Kris lives in the UK with his family, having recently moved back from New Zealand where he worked as a pastor for the past 26 years (also leading worship/worship teams). Kris has also spent over 35 years writing, recording, and performing music and is now bringing all that combined experience together to help equip church piano/keyboard players.
Check out the church piano player website for more information on online courses by Kris Baines.
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