The Unique Challenges And Blessings Of Playing With Other Musicians - Part 2

September 11, 2025•4 min read

"When a worship team or a group of musicians works well together, each loving the others with a Christ-like love, this can provide a wonderful depth of fellowship that reaps many benefits."

Last week, we examined 3 unique challenges that arise from playing with other musicians within the context of the church.

Now, we'll be looking at 3 unique blessings that we'll also experience, and these are certainly reasons that should encourage you to play collaboratively if you can.

The enhancement of the musical sound we provide for worship

As piano players, we all love the piano, don't we? However, adding other instruments to play alongside can also work really well, and be very complementary. For example, piano and acoustic guitar sound great together and likewise, piano and cello makes a beautiful sound for many songs. Piano with some strong vocals, and harmonies, can also really help to support the congregation as they worship.

Likewise, a team of musicians with different instruments that complement one another can be a really good addition to the overall worship sound, and help to provide a strong accompaniment that is also very pleasing on the ears.

It’s worth considering whether you can add a singer, or singers, and/or other musicians. Just make sure, though, that it’s appropriate for the size of your church, and the dynamics of your service. For example, if you have 20 people in your church, you probably don’t want 10 of those playing in the worship team as that’s a little off-balanced!

The opportunities for others to use their gifts

God has designed the body, His church, to work together, with each person using their different gifts, to create a unity in diversity, and to glorify God with their collaborative and complementary service.

One of the ways that happens is when church musicians collaborate. The blessing of that is we see the different gifts coming together, as people work towards a unified goal of supporting the congregation in worship. You should definitely consider the blessing it might be to the church and to those who desire to serve God with their musical gifts.

The final blessing then is...

The fellowship, mutual encouragement, and constructive feedback we receive

In a previous post, we talked about our responsibilities to communicate lovingly and truthfully in our interpersonal relationships within the church.

When a worship team or a group of musicians works well together, each loving the others with a Christ-like love, this can provide a wonderful depth of fellowship that reaps many benefits. We grow together as we give and receive constructive feedback, we develop community together as friendships form and deepen, and we can encourage one another if someone is struggling or needs prayer or support.

So, don't underestimate the blessing this can be when brothers and sisters in Christ work together in the area of church music.

In these last two posts, we've covered 3 unique challenges and 3 unique blessings of collaborating with other musicians. I hope it will encourage you to consider how you might implement this if you have suitable people in your church to work with.

Just to recap, here are the pointers again...

3 Unique Challenges:

3 Unique Blessings:

The enhancement of the musical sound we provide for worship
The opportunities for others to use their gifts
The fellowship, mutual encouragement, and constructive feedback we receive

One other thing to consider is that just being a Christian and a musician shouldn’t be the only qualifying factor for playing as part of a worship team.

It’s certainly going too far the other way to require only professionals or highly skilled musicians to play on a worship team, but in our efforts to avoid that, we mustn’t neglect our responsibility to make sure any musician or singer can play to a level which means they won’t distract the congregation with out of tune singing or constant wrong notes. Competence is important, but that can still be at a basic level.

May the Lord be glorified through our music, and may we all be able to experience the blessings that come with serving God, and our church family, as a team of musicians.

[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.