5 Pointers On Nervous Situations Within Your Control - Part 1

May 22, 2025•4 min read

"Our role as church piano players is not to give a flawless performance, but to help point people towards true heartfelt worship of God."

Ever felt nervous when you're playing for your church?

Well, over the past few weeks, we've been looking at how to deal with situations or triggers that can cause us to become nervous, fearful or anxious as church piano players. We've talked about situations that are mostly out of our control - situations that we need to embrace, and perhaps deal with more internally than externally.

And so now, we’re going to be focusing on 5 situations that are within our control. In other words, they are situations that we can actually do something about.

So here goes then, under the category of “Within Our Control”, I’m going to be talking about the following…

Fear of playing wrong notes / making mistakes
Expectations that others have of us in our role
Having to play a difficult song
Lack of preparation / practice on our part
Getting the songs too late in the week

So let’s look at the first one here then, and that is…

Fear of playing wrong notes / making mistakes

I touched on this in an earlier post, but that was more in the context of making a mistake or playing some wrong note, and then worrying that you’re going to do it again because it throws you a little.

But here, we’re just talking about a fear that is really making you nervous about playing because you just don’t want to make any mistakes.

Now we need to deal with this on a few levels.

Firstly, we need to make sure we’re not pre-occupied with ourselves, thinking too much about our “performance” and what others think of us - as I mentioned in a previous post.

And secondly, we need to put mistakes and wrong notes in the right perspective, and that is to not see them as the unforgivable sin, but rather, a very forgivable “mistake” (not sin), and it’s really just a passing moment in time.

Another good way to deal with it is to be very diligent about realigning your mind to think about this in such a way that even if you do make a mistake, and even if everyone notices, it’s really only going to hurt your pride. Yes, you may look a little silly, but again most people will have compassion and not think that way at all, and after a split second will be back worshipping again.

What makes it worse is when we choose to linger on it, beat ourselves up and feel bad, because in actual fact, that’s just pride again. So, be prepared ahead of time that when, not if, you make a mistake, just let it go, stop thinking about it, and move on.

If this is something that makes you nervous, then you'll find it really helpful to think ahead of time, "what’s the worst that can happen?" Remember, it’s just a mistake. Move on.

Our role as church piano players is not to give a flawless performance, but to help point people towards true heartfelt worship of God.

Now, while we are on this point, it is important to say that what we can do about this to minimize it is to make sure we are well-prepared, know our songs, and that we’ve practiced as much as we need to.

This is the aspect that is very much in our control, and will reduce the amount we feel nervous because we will be well prepared.

The more you have gone over your songs, the less nervous you will be.

So next time you make a mistake when playing for your church, don't let your mind get consumed by self-focused or prideful thoughts, but instead, carry on, fix your eyes on Christ, and worship Him!

Next week, we'll be looking at a couple more of the points under this category of dealing with stressful situations.

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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.