Coping With Unexpected Moments - Part 2

October 31, 2025•5 min read

"...I was leading worship, and my music wasn’t in a folder. There were ceiling fans in the building, and just as I was about to play the music on the right-hand side of my music stand, it blew off onto the floor. I didn’t know the song that well, and so I just had to stop playing mid-song until we got to the end."

Last week, we began looking at some unexpected moments that church piano players can often experience.

The first two examples were when you have to make a last-minute change to a song key or when you receive microphone feedback. Both of these situations can definitely be very stressful! However, as I mentioned last week, there are steps you can take to avoid or minimise these issues.

Let's look at some more examples...

When the power goes out

Now, this might be the power to the whole church or just the sound system.

Unless a leader steps in to address the issue, the best thing you can do is smile and try to carry on. The way to do that is to just keep going with the song, but sing it in accapella. Or, if you have an acoustic piano and acoustic instruments, you can keep going anyway. However, if you are playing an electric keyboard or piano, you'll have to just sing accapella until someone is able to sort the issue.

Everyone is going to be understanding, and the congregation will appreciate your calm resolve to continue in worship.

If you experience a situation where the lights go out at an evening service, causing a mini–blackout, this will probably prevent people from reading the words or the music.

So, in this situation, or any other where the congregation lose the ability to see the words or you can’t read your music, then the solution here is to always have 2 or 3 songs that are well known, and then you can just lead those in acapella, in place of the songs you were going to do. Amazing Grace, the Doxology, or Great is Thy Faithfulness would be great choices as they're very well known.

Again, people will understand the disruption, but they will appreciate your quick solution, and that’s another tool you can have handy.

Even if you are not a singer, at least try to get the first note and everyone should be able to take it from there. Essentially you’re just making things smoother and less stressful as others in the church try to resolve whatever the issue is that caused the power to go out.

One other thing here to mention is that if you do lead accapella, don’t start in a key that’s too high. I did that in a homegroup setting once, and as I started I realised there was no way anyone was going to hit the high notes. I was right because when we got to them, we all just screeched and then laughed our heads off. It really was quite a moment!

Also, back when I lived in New Zealand, during the earthquakes, we had several church services where we carried on in worship while we had aftershocks. They were so common that people got used to them. If they got worse we would of course evacuate the building, but it was certainly an interesting experience!

So there's some pointers on what to do if the power goes out.

Here’s a few more unexpected moments I have experienced, and I hope in sharing these, it prevents you from having to go through the same things!

The first one I’ll mention is when I took communion one time while I was leading worship, and the bread was in the form of a cracker. Unfortunately, some of it got stuck in my throat and so when I came to sing, my voice just didn’t work. There was nothing I could do except look over to my wife who thankfully was singing also, and motion to her to finish the song.

So the lesson here is to be careful eating communion in between songs if you are singing and playing. I’m not saying not to do it but you may consider waiting until after. Or if that’s not appropriate, just have some water handy so you can make sure everything goes down; especially if your church uses crackers!

Another time, I was leading worship, and my music wasn’t in a folder. There were ceiling fans in the building, and just as I was about to play the music on the right-hand side of my music stand, it blew off onto the floor. I didn’t know the song that well, and so I just had to stop playing mid-song until we got to the end.

The simple way to prevent this, which I have made sure I’ve done ever since, was to always have my music in a folder so this can’t happen. That’s one situation you can avoid now because I’ve already made the mistake for you!

We'll finish looking at unexpected moments next week, as I share some more interesting and stressful situations to try and avoid, or minimise.

[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.