By Darin Browne
Playing the piano can be a dominant asset when it comes to worship leading. I'm not going to get into the technicalities of the piano, but when you are starting out you require to understand that it's not about you, it is at all times about the Lord! If you are leading worship, maybe you are doing so from the piano yourself, or perhaps you are functioning in with a piano player. Either way, it is useful to recognize a little about how the piano can powerfully pull your worship leading together and lift it to high worship.
Remember, nothing you do, when it involves worship, is about you. As a worship piano player your function is to assist the church body worship God. In fact, if you are considering leading worship by playing worship piano, you must worship God with your piano and your voice, and without a doubt your entire life. As you lead, you want to find a place where you simply hand it over to the Lord and allow your heart go, trusting on His Spirit to pull it all together, and relaxing in Him and merely enjoying the worship.
When worship leading it is a mammoth asset to be able to weave the songs together so that your worship leading becomes a continuous flow. I do this playing a guitar, but it is equally as valid to do this with the piano, for that reason whether you are playing or someone else, I see it as a main concern to be able to blend the songs together. This allows you to lead worship with a minimum amount of chatting between songs, and permits the audience to flow and enjoy a continuous, entire experience of worship.
Another ability that a piano can bring to your worship leading is the ability to influence the mood, getting quiet in places, growing to noisy and celebratory praise and going up keys to lift up the level of worship. A piano can be both noisy and quiet, gentle and blaring, therefore if you are not playing the instrument yourself, you need to have a close relationship with your pianist, and the capacity to communicate satisfactorily your wishes and intentions as you are worship leading.
Piano players, however, face many difficulties when it comes to worship leading. Firstly, they have a wonderful tendency to cram up every gap, every possibility with notes. The piano is an instrument which can play a lot of notes, and is seems that a lot of piano players want to fill every single gap with a surge of notes. If you are worship leading from the piano, try to play a smaller amount. If you are worship leading without the piano, request your pianist to play less, with longer chords, and try to communicate to them that "less is more."
A second problem is that many piano players are tied into the written score, and find it very complicated to improvise outside of what is written. This is more widespread among piano players rather than guitarists, for the reason that most guitarists read chords, not written music, and to a lot of piano players this can be a mammoth barrier to really relaxing and letting go in worship.
Here is a contentious proposal: try taking away the pianist's music, and force them to play by ear. OK, they will complain and hate you for it at the outset, but in no time at all they will rise to the occasion and start to play a more open, more anointed style. I have done this on numerous occasions with magnificent results, but you may need to give them some chords just to remind them along the way.
But keep in mind, when you are leading worship, either from the piano yourself or with a piano player, the aim of the exercise to to lead others into a deep and tremendous worship experience with the Lord. This is far more critical than playing the right notes, singing the best words or doing the latest songs just like you hear on the worship CD. Worship is about Him, and your worship leading involves to lead people to Him in a new and marvelous way.
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