Leading from the piano

Most readers here know that I grew up playing piano in church. While I took lessons formally and became a fairly proficient classical pianist, I am really a church accompanist at heart. I was so fortunate to grow up in a church with some fantastic pianists, all of who modelled the importance of leading (and not performing) worship from the piano. That difference between leading and performing might seem subtle, but I think it is certainly there. As I look at the general approach to music worship in the "contemporary" Christian church, it seems that less church musicians are aware of the gift and responsibility of leading worship through music and more caught up in the performance. I hope I'm wrong about this assessment as it makes me so very sad.

Until I moved to Nanaimo, I have always gone to churches where there was a musical offertory, often played by the pianist. That quiet few moments of music to pray or think about the text of the song being played has always been a piece of worship that I really love, both as a listener and as a pianist myself. I miss that, very much. Pianist Greg Howlett's music brings that experience of worship back for me. Based in Georgia, Greg composes and plays piano arrangements of traditional hymns, often with orchestration. They are well done and a great example of what it means to lead from the piano.

While there are many great new hymns being written, I do think that many churches are really missing out by not including older, more traditional hymns in regular Sunday worship. And while I love a mix of styles, I think that often, simpler is better. This arrangement of God Leads Us Along, sung by May Leporacci and accompanied by Greg Howlett carries such a powerful message that I think would be completely lost with drums, guitars and the usual trimmings of a praise band. In church music, I think we sometimes need to be quiet enough to actually let the text speak to us.