Worship Technology—Beyond PowerPoint

One of the most noticeable uses of technology in the church today is the system used to show song lyrics, sermon illustrations, and other worship service media. While hymnals continue to serve as great surfaces for our kids to doodle on, presentation software plays a key role in facilitating worship. To learn about some of the options available, I interviewed Adam Spriggs who is the volunteer church tech for Blue Springs. Mo., Church of the Nazarene. He recently guided his church through the process of evaluating and implementing new presentation software, and I wanted to share his experience with you.

Mark: How long have you been involved in church technology, and how did you get started?

Adam: I have been working with various technologies in my church for over 12 years. I began working with worship technologies once our church installed a projector in the sanctuary about nine years ago.

M: What process do you go through to prepare for worship each week?

A: The worship leader lets me know which songs to include by Wednesday. Most of the songs we use have a Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) number, which is what she gives me along with the title. If we have used this song in worship before, then I paste in this content from the past. If it's a new song for us, then I can get the lyrics from CCLI and save typing it.

The church office manager gives me a copy of the bulletin by Wednesday, as well. I use this information to put together some slides to loop in the sanctuary and foyer prior to the worship service.

By Saturday evening the slides are set. Then, on Sunday morning at 8:30, we have a technical rehearsal to make sure the verses and chorus repeats are aligned and the necessary microphones are in place. Worship begins at 9:30 a.m.

M: You had worked with PowerPoint for many years. Why did you decide to pursue other options?

A: We started using more and more video clips in worship, mainly for sermon illustrations. Each time I worked on this it took significant time to capture and set it up. Also, playback of video embedded within PowerPoint is tricky. It seemed there should be an easier way.

M: How did you do your evaluation, and what were the results?

A: Once we decided to change, I did quite a bit of reading on the websites of leading worship software publishers and church tech sites such as http://churchmedia.net. For our church, the top two options were clearly MediaShout and EasyWorship. With each of these options I downloaded a free trial version of the software and went through my weekly preparation process to experience them first hand. I was also fortunate to attend the National Worship Leaders conference which was in Kansas City last year. While there I talked with people from both companies and dialogued with some of my peers about what they were using in their churches.

I found both software systems were great and had most features in common. One of the advantages these tools have over PowerPoint is that they are integrated with the CCLI website. This makes it easy to download song lyrics and include proper copyright notices.

In the end, we chose EasyWorship, which had licensing and hardware requirements that best met our needs.

M: Have you been pleased with your choice?

A: Definitely. I was able to quickly train the other volunteers who run the software in the worship service. They appreciate being able to see upcoming slides as well as the current one. It has taken some time to convert content previously created in PowerPoint, but now that this is mostly done, prep work for a service without video has been reduced from over an hour to under a half hour. If the service has video elements, the benefit is even greater. Also, the church-wide license makes it easy to run the software and input content from any church PC.

M: In closing, what tips or tricks have you learned in your years as church tech for Blue Springs?

A: When purchasing new software licenses, always check to see if the publisher has a charity license. This may require you to get a copy of your church's 501(c)3 non-profit form from the district office, but you can save significant money this way.

Embrace new media as a means for enhancing the presentation of the gospel, but always ask yourself, "Is this facilitating worship or distracting from it?" If something we're doing distracts from worship, then we need to change it.

Also, it's vital that you develop a great relationship with your worship leader. The more you plan together and reduce last minute changes (which still need to be rehearsed) the more likely the worship service will run smoothly.

Editor's note: You'll find a helpful guide to evaluating church presentation software here.

Mark Evilsizor is manager of the Information Systems department for Nazarene Publishing House, where he has served for almost 20 years.

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