Two weeks ago, Camron Ware shared his thoughts on why a church should consider moving from PowerPoint to presentation software. Today, we dive into worshipVJ‘s journey from MS DOS to worship in full motion.
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Years ago when I first got into media presentation for worship, I was a huge PowerPoint fan! I can hardly call what I did back then VJ-ing, nor did I even know what the term meant.
Few people can say that they UPGRADED to PowerPoint. You see, what my campus ministry used back in the 20th Century ran on the MS-DOS platform. That’s right… C:/
So when I was asked to take over, I made big plans and upgraded to PowerPoint. We could finally enjoy drop shadows, font selections and still backgrounds behind the lyrics! I would even animate some of the slides and transitions to add a little visual jazz to the experience! Yes… it’s true. #confession
In my senior year (2002), I was exposed to SundayPlus, ProPresenter & MediaShout…. and was introduced to the idea of playing VIDEO behind the lyrics! I was in heaven.
But I didn’t jump on board initially. Each program had its challenges and I was too lazy to overcome them, so I sunk back into the familiar and stuck with making my “slides” the old fashioned way. But after working at a worship conference and seeing “visual worship” led in a way I had never imagined, I buckled up, picked a software and disciplined myself to master it.
I became addicted to the drug of motion backgrounds, and the song library feature saved me hours of work! (PowerPoint isn’t exactly a song ‘library’). I left PowerPoint in the dust, and I never looked back.
Did PowerPoint serve me well in those early years? Absolutely. Those were my foundational years for understanding “visual worship.” And it’s probably good that I started simple and with stills rather than a powerful program loaded with motion.
But when I was ready and had a more developed vision for visual worship, it was time to move on.
When switching softwares, technical features are definitely important. But what’s more important is the person behind it all and having visions/dreams for the future. Pay attention to who that is (it might be you!) and invest in that person as much (if not more) than in any computer or software program.
