Ha! This Tuesday we had a great time at the Men’s meeting at church. However, due to a real good worship time, we had to come up with a few songs on the fly. This was a bit difficult, due to the fact that the two we were given ahead of time were put into the overheads software ProPresenter.
ProPresenter is REALLY cool, not because it’s Mac only (I don’t like Mac that well), but because it can do EVERYTHING without using another program. You can import video files, audio files, images and text files. The idea of this program is to pipe this stuff to a full-screen window on a second monitor which would be piped into an overhead projector feed. Thus you can get lyrics for songs up. Of course, you probably wonder, why the video and audio and images if the program is for putting lyrics up on an overhead projector? Well, modern media technology is trending toward an animated background beneath your words, which really enhances the experience.
Of course, this is not degrading the music itself, or the purpose of the music, which is to worship God. Instead, think of it this way: a moving background can enhance the music a great deal. I mean, if music is a tool for worship, then video can be too. And I’ve found that I get a huge connection to God if I put up a really sweet animated background that totally fits the current song. I don’t know if anyone else can relate to it, but there was one case last year…I’ll explain that later maybe.
So ProPresenter can put up an animation below the words on the overhead projector feed. But of course, ProPresenter is not just for lyrics in worship services. You can also run slideshows, video presentations and even music. The idea is that the entire synthetic part of the church media presentation (excluding the live video and audio mix) can be consolidated right down into this ONE program.
On Tuesday night’s during the Men’s meeting, we have a short 10 to 15 minute worship time in which a sound man (that’s usually Steve Engel) a video person (that’s me) will run either a DVD or an audio file. If it IS a DVD, we usually put it in a seperate DVD player which we can key the words from ProPresenter over, or if possible, just turn on the DVD subtitles. However, if we run audio only, I usually try and do a 100% ProPresenter consolidation. This means that I can import the MP3 file into the program, load an animated background, load the lyrics which are seperated by verse and play the audio from the program, plus switch verses live as the song progresses.
Oh, and if I WANTED to and had enough time, I could actually automate the verse-switching using some scripting built into ProPresenter, but that’s fairly complicated and takes time, which I don’t usually have any of before the meeting.
But anyway…back to this last Tuesday. We had a huge worship time, and so the two songs that we were given by the leadership just weren’t long enough for what we needed to do. So on the fly, we came up with a few more, those being run from a DVD. We didn’t put the video up, but we did run the audio through to the soundboard and put a plain words/background up for video. However, the lyrics for these songs hadn’t been imported into ProPresenter, so I had to go online and search for them myself. These lyrics were from Bethel Live’s CD “Here is Love.” Well, I couldn’t find anything at all online and the song was playing as I was looking, but nobody knew the words, so nobody was singing along. And the leadership was getting pretty miffed by it. So we had to resort back to the older Jesus Culture album “We Cry Out,” which was really cool. But still, we weren’t able to put words up for that last song and I was really disappointed that I couldn’t find them online.
Getting to the point: HERE ARE THE WORDS! I have the audio files at home, so I was able to listen and type them out as I listened. And these are accurate to a point, except that Brian Johnson can’t sing clearly, so it’s really hard to understand him. Point being: next Tuesday, I can load up this blog post at church and copy them into the program! HA! Anyhow, enjoy. And right now, these only entail approximately four songs.
Lyrics From: Bethel Live - "Here is Love" 'LET HEAVEN SHOUT' I surrender all to You my God I will give You all I have Oh You took my filthiness and made me clean I love You, Lord Your praises I will sing Let Heaven shout For I have been redeemed I lay down my life my plans my rights For I'm captured by Your love And though I lose this world I will know You Nothing compares Nothing compares Nothing compares Nothing compares 'WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE' What does it sound like When you sing Heaven's song What does it feel like When Heaven comes down What does it look like When God is all around Let it come This is what it sounds like When you sing Heaven's song This is what it feels like When Heaven comes down This is what it looks like When God is all around Let it come 'WORTHY IS THE LAMB' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain Worthy is the Lamb that was slain Worthy is the Lamb that was slain For me (For me) For me (For me) He gave it all For me Hallelujah King forever Hallelujah Give praise to our God Hallelujah King and Savior We will sing 'HERE IS LOVE' (Dashed-words/lines are unclear and inaccurate) Here is Love Vast as the ocean Loving-kindness as a flood When the Prince of life I ransom Shed for us His precious blood Who is Love Will not remember Who can cease to see His praise He will never be forgotten Throughout Heaven's eternal -reign- Oh the mount of Crucifiction Fountains opened deep and wide Through the floodgates of God's mercies For a vast and gracious -prize- Grace and Love like mighty rivers Pouring -sense and- from above Heaven's peace and perfect justice ---blah---blah---blah--------------- No Love is higher No Love is wider No Love is deeper No Love is truer -So let me - That love accepting Love forever all my days Let me see Thy kingdom -wholy- And my life be to Thy praise That my all shall be Thy glory Nothing in this world I seek Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me now Thy son has set me free ---and---maybe---some---more--- --------below--------
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