How To Minimize Or Prevent 5 Common Stress Points For The Church Piano Player - Part 1

October 09, 2025•4 min read

"It really is so important that we try, to the best of our ability, to minimize stress in our role, otherwise that becomes a distraction and hindrance to worship."

How does stress relate to us as church piano players?

Over the next several posts, we're going to be looking at different situations where we might experience stress. This might not relate to you, but I think it is fair to say that all church piano players have their stressful moments from time to time. It might be the stress of getting songs too late, and/or not having enough time to learn a particular song. Or it might be dealing with unexpected moments—and they certainly do happen to church piano players!

Then there’s also the potential stresses of being overwhelmed with how much time you are putting in or different relational conflicts that are taking their toll. And these can all contribute to making your task more miserable instead of a joyful service unto the Lord.

The aim of these posts is really just to come alongside you, and give some practical pointers on both dealing with stressful situations, and also preventing them where we can.

So first of all, let's look at a few tips on how you can minimize or prevent 5 stress points that you may well experience as a church piano player. This is more focusing on situations where you need a musical or practical solution as opposed to having a certain mindset or spiritual solution that’s required.

The first point is...

Getting your songs too late

I know this is a very common stress point for piano players who have the songs chosen for them. So what can you do to minimize the stress in this situation then?

Firstly, you can make sure you have had a good conversation with your pastor, leader, or whoever the person is who chooses the songs, and start by asking if it’s possible to get them early. If they're chosen gradually throughout the week, you could still ask to get them one at a time.

This might not always be the case though, as many pastors are finishing off their message towards the end of the week, and it’s often at that point they start to think about the songs. However, the best case scenario is being able to negotiate an earlier delivery of the songs if you can.

Failing that, you can suggest a song pool, which I talked about in last week's post. You can ask the leaders or person responsible for choosing the songs if they'd would be willing to pick 20, 30 or even 40 songs, with a variation of tempos & themes, and then you just use those songs for a period of 2-3 months.

There are many benefits to doing this - it helps the congregation become very familiar with a lot of songs, it makes the selection process easier, and it certainly helps with you getting the songs late. Although it’s a lot of work initially, as long as you put the time into practicing and familiarizing yourself with all the songs, you won’t be so caught out by one you haven’t played for a while, or a song that is totally new to you, because you will know in advance what all the songs are.

If you keep getting the songs late, another tip is to simplify any difficult songs or hymns by playing less chords.

It really is so important that we try, to the best of our ability, to minimize stress in our role, otherwise that becomes a distraction and hindrance to worship.

Next week, we'll be looking at the next couple of stress points.

[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.