Worship Software Selection Guide
Deciding on what worship software package your church
should use can be a daunting task. At last count there
were over 45 packages to pick from. The biggest problem
for those new to worship software is just knowing what
there is to consider. This guide was written to help
give some guidance to those new to worship software.
A lot of people don't even know what questions to ask or what is available in
features on different programs. My first suggestion is simply to download one of
the trial versions of a popular worship software package and play with it. This
will go a long way with helping you understand what is available.
Many churches simply choose to use PowerPoint. A lot use PowerPoint because
they became familiar with it at work or school. A lot already have the
PowerPoint because their church received it with their Microsoft Office software
package. One advantage of PowerPoint is that there are so many people familiar
with it. It is also relatively easy to use. PowerPoint can, however, be very
limiting. It really wasn't designed for church worship. If you do a lot of
planning for your services and hold to a strict order of service then you may be
able to make PowerPoint work. There are a lot of things that PowerPoint won't do
however. If you want to be able to easily make changes on the fly or use a
feature such as text over moving video then PowerPoint probably won't work for
you.
Probably one big reason NOT to use PowerPoint is the fact that to many
people, PowerPoint is what the see at work or in school. It carries a distinct
"flavor" with it. It may be that the last thing you want to do is to have
members of your congregation get this feeling that they are at work or school
when they are at church. They may not even know why they don't like the
projected songs, but subliminally you may be reminding them of work.
A great number of worship software packages were simply developed because
users became frustrated with the limitations of PowerPoint, they knew that with
a little "C" programming, they could overcome the limitations that they saw.
Some of the worship software products are designed to completely replace
PowerPoint. Most are designed to handle congregational singing but will allow
you to run PowerPoint from them. A few are designed for you to use PowerPoint as
your main projection software but give you various features to augment it.
Whatever you do, if you decide to use PowerPoint I recommend that you avoid
using the same backgrounds and themes that come with PowerPoint so that you can
avoid the "business" or "school" look and feel to your audience.
WORSHIP SOFTWARE OVERVIEW:
Worship software has been around for several years now. Some packages have
been continually updated and are in their 7th or higher release. Some products
were hatched in the last year. A lot of the packages started with some
programmer who was the church "techie" who got frustrated with the limitations
of PowerPoint and decided to write their own software for projecting song
lyrics. As time went on, they added scripture showing code, code for
announcements, static and animated backgrounds and even text over live video
feeds.
Many of these software products have maintained "mom and pop" status and are
run by an individual in their spare time as a hobby turned home business. A few
products have gone mainstream with full time programmers and support staff.
Several have a hybrid status with a supporting equipment or mainstream software
company providing administrative support to some talented programmers. In the
last couple of years even "open source" collaborative worship software packages
have been released by users who believe that software should be free and open to
all.
PowerPoint remains the #1 product for sermons and announcement slides. Most
products allow the importing of PowerPoint slides. There are a few specialty
products that don't actually replace PowerPoint but act as "add-on" or
"back-end" products to help deal with the inadequacies of PowerPoint. In
addition, some specialty products are especially designed with a musical
performer in mind or for those whose main need is for a specialized database of
organizing worship and staff rather than presenting lyrics.
Next: How to Use the Worship Software
Selection Guide
Your comments on this guide are appreciated. Please send comments or suggestions
to:
Contact eBibleTeacher.com.
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