The scene repeats itself over and over again every weekend–perhaps even in your church. It’s worship time, and the band is rockin’. The congregation is completely caught up in the worship experience. Eschewing hymnals as old-fashioned, the words are projected on two large screens above the stage. As the worship leader looks out over the worshiping throng, he (or she) internally reflects on the goodness of God and decides to repeat the verse. Suddenly the congregation appears confused and stops singing. About halfway through they start up again, but the mood of the moment is obviously broken. What went wrong? That darn presentation computer operator messed up again!
Or did they?
Worship Leader, You’re Killing Us
Now before we go any further, I should acknowledge that I’m a techie. I’ve been a volunteer tech and a staff technical arts director for a combined two decades. Still, I’m all about being a team player. I really try not to differentiate between the band and the tech team when referring to the worship team. In my mind, we are all the worship team. Together, we are allowed to lead God’s people into worship. Unfortunately, we don’t often spend enough time learning about each other’s roles. It is in that spirit that I write today’s post.
I would argue that the presentation operator’s job is one of the most stressful in a worship service. They have all the responsibility of ensuring the right words are on the screen at the right time, yet no control to determine that time. Should the worship leader deviate, they have less than a second or two to find the right part of the song and get it to the screen. It’s a huge challenge and responsibility.
RELATED: The Next Worship Leaders
It’s not a Word.doc
I think one of the most common misconceptions of worship leaders is that the software used to put the words up on the screen is a lot like Word and that changes should happen almost instantaneously. Thankfully, some of the newer versions of the software have gotten easier. Still, it takes both effort and attention to detail to alter the wording or order of a song and make sure it retains the proper formatting, slide order, and contains no spelling errors (would you believe that some presentation software still doesn’t spell-check?).
Understand, too–this is not about a resistance to changing the way a song is entered in the computer. It’s not that big of a deal to change it–we just don’t want to hear about the change in passing as you leave the stage 5 minutes before the doors open. It’s far better (for you and us) to work it out early in the day and communicate clearly.
