Comments on: Thoughts From A Guy Who Runs Pro Presenter

By: Roxanne

Roxanne — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:15:15 +0000

Hey! Our worship arts leader forwarded your article to the members of our tech team and asked us to read over it. He also had to train each one of us, individually, to pop the next screen up before they need to sing it! We all wanted to keep time to the beat. Glad to see it’s a widespread phenomenon!

All great advice! I’d like to add that, before each time I am serving on the team I pray not to be a distraction from worship, but that my work will enhance the worship experience of everyone gathered there. I want it to be so smooth that they don’t even remember anyone is running the program. I must admit that I started this charming tradition before we went with ProPresentor. We started out with another software program AND a laptop that was clearly inhabited by beings from outer space when they were not busy drawing crop circles. You NEVER knew when that thing might shut down, freeze up or go off on a tangent of its own! Now we use a big ol’ branch new Mac and ProPresentor, but I still think it’s the prayer that keeps me on track!
Love the term the last commenter used : Invisible Worship Leader… I need to use that on our team! Thanks

By: Brenton

Brenton — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:26:15 +0000

Great article! I have been a long time ProPresenter user and know that a Pro operator is a key element to the success of worship. The tools are there and continue to grow. We, as those serving behind the scenes, need to see ourselves as an INVISIBLE WORSHIP LEADER. What we do truly helps lead people into worship or distracts them from engaging. Unless we all prepare like we were on stage with an instrument, the worship may never connect with the congregation. If we do approach it with the right heart and with preparation, God will do amazing things with our efforts.

By: MIke Mahoney

MIke Mahoney — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:49:54 +0000

Good job, Ricky. It’s such a frustration as a musician when I look at the screen and the wrong words are up there, or one is misspelled. Arrgh!

And I agree completely that whoever is doing media is as important to the worship experience as the guitar player or drummer or lead singer. And maybe more than the bass player! (kidding!)

Keep it up!

By: Matthew Starner

Matthew Starner — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:17:53 +0000

Great suggestions! We’ve been using ProPresenter for about a year and a half so far and it’s the best program that I’ve worked with so far (Including Media Shout, PowerPoint and SongShow Plus).

Another tip I would add – Be consistent. It doesn’t matter what software you use, keep the lyrics a consistent style. Yes, there are times to play with fonts for effect, but it’s easier for people when you keep things the same. And it makes those special times really stand out. Try to follow rules for capitalization and punctuation as well. For us, we only capitalize the proper names of God (Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, and variations) but we don’t capitalize the pronouns referencing him (or any other words for that matter, with the exception of “I” – it just looks weird when it’s not).

Also as a general rule, we have no more than 4 lines per slide. Any more and it get too hard to track which line we’re on and it get’s cluttered.

By: Annalise

Annalise — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:40:03 +0000

I’ve never commented here before…but I’ve been following on Twitter and finally decided to.
My church (Central Christian in Henderson, Nevada) recently switched over from Inscriber Studio/INCA to ProPresenter, and we’re LOVING it.
I think it’s great that you recognize that CG is an important part of a church service… far too often, it gets belittled by the lights and audio part of tech. It’s just as important as those other aspects, it helps set the mood and ambiance, as well as the helps the audience concentrate.
I especially agree with your point about timing. One of the main things I focus on when training new people on CG is timing, and to advance the slide just slightly before the downbeat of the next measure or line.

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:02:55 +0000

Fantastic job, Ricky. You hit the nail on the head when you said that most people cannot worship without the work that you and others who run presentation software do. You are an enabler, equally as important as anyone on stage.