How to Return to Worship Keyboard After a Break

What I Learned About Worship Keyboard After Walking Away for a Week

I didn’t touch a keyboard for seven days.

Not because I was busy.

Not because I was lazy.

Because my father passed away.

And in that silence, I realized something.

We practice so hard to get the notes right.

But worship was never about perfect notes.

It’s about presence.

Yours.

His.

Ours together.

For years, I’ve taught students:

Smooth chord transitions

• Clean left-hand foundations

• Emotional movement (sus2, add9, dynamics)

• Modern worship rhythm patterns

All of that matters.

But grief strips everything down to what’s real.

When the noise stops, the presence remains.

When I finally sat at the keyboard again, my fingers felt rusty.

The transitions weren’t smooth.

My timing wasn’t sharp.

The flow felt fragile.

But my heart wasn’t rusty.

There was depth in the silence.

And I understood something deeper than technique:

Worship is not technical excellence.

It is surrendered presence.

Maybe You’ve Been Away Too

Life gets heavy.

Work. Family. Ministry pressure.

Sundays keep coming.

And the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels wide.

Let me remind you:

Slow is still forward.

Quiet is still faithful.

Showing up — even for 10 minutes — is enough.

You are not behind.

You are human.

And God does not measure worship in BPM or chord extensions.

He meets you in honesty.