Blog | Media Production: Getting Sermon Notes and Lyrics on Time
Media Production: Getting Sermon Notes and Lyrics on Time
Everyone has a different responsibility at church, and the general philosophy is that “as long as I get my work done when I need it done, Sunday will go fine.” And most the time, that’s kind of a true statement. In a sense, the thought is that it doesn’t matter if you practice the songs 2 weeks before rehearsal or 2 hours before rehearsal – as long as you know them by the rehearsal or Sunday morning, you’re fine. Same with sermon notes – as a pastor, if you have them finished by the time you start to speak, there’s no worries.
All of that is true for peoples’ own responsibilities, but any media production leads or tech directors reading that paragraph would be pulling their hair out.
If you’re the tech director or media production lead at your church, things work a little different. Everything that goes on a screen on a Sunday morning is your responsibility, and your success unfortunately lays in the hands of everyone else’s timing. If you don’t have the pastor’s sermon notes or the worship team’s lyrics far enough in advance, Sunday slides are going to be all over the place.
Getting Sermon Notes and Lyrics on Time as a Tech Director
Getting everything into your presentation software takes time. And a lot of church pastors and worship leaders don’t recognize that that’s time in addition to their own preparation making the notes or preparing the lyrics. If you’re not in the loop before rehearsal or Sunday morning, you can bet there’s going to be a lot of last-minute-throw-togethers of lyric slides and sermon notes that may not look as polished as they could.
Here are a few tips on how to get sermon notes from your pastor, or lyrics from your worship pastor on time for rehearsal and Sunday morning:
1) Establish a Schedule
You’re not just doing this because you want to be “in the loop” for no reason. You have a legitimate concern over getting all production notes, lyrics, and sermon materials in order to have a smooth rolling Sunday. That being said, bring it to your pastor and worship leader’s attention that you want to have a call or meeting with them on a scheduled basis in order to get all media materials in advance to Sunday morning or rehearsal.
Nothing is more distracting than flipping through 700 lyric slides to find the section your band is singing. Establish a communication schedule if you want to make sure your church is always on top of lyric slides and sermon notes.
2) Presentation Software: Dual Licenses
If you are a volunteer tech director, or are part-time at your church, you don’t want to always need to be there 1-2 hours before and after rehearsal to set up lyric slides and add corrections afterwards.
This will greatly depend on the presentation software your church is using, but if it allows for the software to be installed and operated on two computers, see if you can get it installed on your laptop or computer at home. That will allow you to talk with your pastor/worship leader over the phone, establish song structures and sermon slides, put them in the software at home, and just show up to rehearsal at the same time as everyone else with everything already prepped!
3) Email Chain
This kind of falls hand-in-hand with establishing a communication schedule, but a great way to communicate for song lyrics and sermon notes is via email. If you have an email chain/group going on with the worship leader and pastor, you don’t need to worry about forgetting or missing notes during a phone call or meeting. Everything is in front of you to reference whenever you need.
If it’s not too much to ask, see if your worship pastor and senior pastor would be willing to commit to sending a word doc or email with all information you need that pertains to presentation needs every week on a certain morning or afternoon.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as Kari Jobe, TAYA, Aodhan King, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the CCM scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.