One of the most intimidating things for church pianists can be playing for the offering. It’s the only time that you are acting as a soloist and the attention is focused on you (with an exception for the two old ladies who insist on loudly conversing during the offering every week.) 🙂
As with anything else, the key to playing confidently and with expression so the message of the song comes through is PRACTICE. Well, practice and experience. Depth of emotion and expression often comes with life experience. When I play “Be Still My Soul” now, it means much more to me than it did as a teenager. The trials of life have made the text of that hymn richer to me.
What kind of songs to play for the offering
Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s far less important to play showy, busy pieces than it is to choose music that delivers a message. Yes, you may be capable of playing every note on the keyboard and making the whole piano shake as you pound away, but that may not be the best way to encourage the people to worship God with their tithes and offerings.
Now, don’t get me wrong-I am not saying every piece you choose should be slow and softly emotive. “Praise Him, Praise Him!” is an excellent choice for a solo piece, and any decent arrangement of that is going to be lively and exciting. The whole point is to paint the lyrics with the music. But if it’s eleven pages long, takes five minutes to play and sounds like something you’d perform on stage, you may just want to save that for a competition or private enjoyment.
Meaningful worship requires understanding
One way to encourage worship during the offering and help you to share the message of the song is to have the lyrics available to the congregation during the offering. If you church uses screens or a projector, have the words to the song displayed while you play. Obviously, this is something you’d need to ask your pastor and music director about, but the benefits far outweigh the extra work it requires.
Our church also includes the words of the offertory every week in the bulletin. I have found it to be a great way to help me focus on the words as I play and it allows me to play songs that are less familiar to the congregation!
Where to find good arrangements for offertories
Finding good, quality arrangements can be difficult and expensive. I started collecting music early. Back in the Stone Age (pre-internet) the choices were very limited. I asked for new books every year for my birthday and Christmas. Now there are far more arrangements available to us as people self-publish online.
Below are some of my favorite resources for solo pieces. Some of them are free, some are paid. There’s a good assortment of intermediate to moderately advanced pieces represented here. And remember: sometimes, less is more. There may be a lot of white space on the page, but if the chords are rich and well written, it can be a lovely selection.
Lorenz has a fantastic online catalog that you can subscribe to and purchase credits each month for a very reasonable rate. You can then exchange those credits for individual arrangements or books that can be downloaded and used immediately. You can filter by difficulty level, price, topic, and much more. I highly recommend this resource to all church pianists! Sign up for Lorenz Online here.
Olive Huisman Arrangements These are fairly simple arrangements and are also offered for free download.
David Nevue Arrangements This sheet music is available for purchase (most are $3.95) and are easy to intermediate level.
There are also multiple Facebook groups full of people sharing their arrangements for free or for very reasonable prices. The advent of sites like MuseScore, MusicNotes and SheetMusic has made it much easier to build your personal library!
Below are my Amazon affiliate links for several books that I’ve purchased over the years. They are some of my favorite arrangers and I’ve built my music library with their books.
- Victor Labenske writes in a unique, modern style with rich, lush chords and fresh arrangements. Most of his arrangements are more advanced, but he does have some intermediate books available now.
- Cindy Berry was one of the first arrangers I played and her collections are perfect for new church players.
- Mark Hayes is fun for showy, bombastic and challenging pieces. I like to pull his stuff out for special occasions and holidays.
- Marilyn Ham has been around for years and is well known in the Christian music world. I developed my personal style around a lot of her pieces. She loves big, full chords and her pieces are ones that I go back to over and over again.
- Jerry Ray was one of the first arrangers I ever played. I was amazed by how rich the simple melodies and harmonies were. I would definitely recommend these for early intermediate players (and above!)
