Of all the products/resources/etc that I purchase/subscribe to as the head of Worship Ministries at Xenia Naz, the following are, in my opinion, the best money I spend on anything. If you’re in worship leadership and you don’t use these products, you should. I receive nothing whatsoever by endorsing them to you – they’re just things I find immensely valuable and cannot imagine functioning without.
1. Planning Center – our subscription costs about $30 a month ($360 / yr.) because, for now, we can make do with 2 service types and 75 users – I pay a little extra because I go over the allotted 1GB storage (note: we’re about to bump up to the next subscription, which is $50/mo for 250 users and 5 services, because our children’s pastor is going to start using it for her team, including nursery scheduling, etc). As my pal Andrew Adams recently tweeted, “I think I geek out over Planning Center Online about every other week. How did we schedule worship services before this program? Wow!” Indeed. I have become totally reliant on this for service planning, personnel scheduling, song library maintenance and communication. It also enables my musicians to rehearse/prepare on their own, which has become as vital to some of my choir members as it has to my band and praise team. A total game-changer – I promise.
2. Motion Worship – whatever presentation software your church uses (we use Media Shout ver. 4.5 on a PC – not that I recommend THIS per se), for motion backgrounds under lyric cues (or whatever), Josiah Smith makes everything on his site available for unlimited download for a mere $50 annual subscription (I’ve been tempted to email him and tell him that I’d pay $200 / yr. for his stuff, but I don’t want to price out smaller ministries for whom $50 is just right). Almost all his designs are really, really good – most are subtle and elegant, which is usually the vibe we’re going for. If you’re not using motion loops already, it’s time to retire those old stock worship graphics of the people with raised arms, the sky-scapes and “holy blobs of color” (see #7) that you downloaded 3 years ago, and start using some slick motion backs. If you’re already using motions, expand your collection.
3. CCLI SongSelect – we subscribe to the “Premium” account for $182 / yr., which resources us with charts, lead sheets and “hymn sheets” (3 or 4 part harmonizations) for thousands of songs in any key I want. I can print up to 200 different songs per year (which we never come close to depleting); not 200 charts, mind you – 200 SONGS – so I can print the charts or lead sheets in any number of different keys, and it only “costs” me “1.” I would be severely crippled without this. I still have to OCCASIONALLY make my own chart or write my own harmonization, but about 90% of the charts my band and singers ever see comes from SongSelect.
4. NoteFlight – a free, online (cloud-based) notation program. When I DO have to write out my own orchestrations or harmonizations, this is what I use. I don’t own a copy of Finale and haven’t used it since 1998 in the Trevecca music technology lab (and I suspect much has changed since then), but since I found Noteflight, I’ve never been tempted to spend money on notation software. Granted, I don’t do a TON of composing/orchestrating/arranging, and what I do is pretty straightforward…but it suits me fine.
5. Worship Leader Magazine / Song DISCovery – $79 / yr and each month I get an excellent magazine and a 12-14 song CD sampler of a lot of great music. There are usually 2-3 songs (at least) from each Song DISCovery CD that I WANT to use – having the time/cause to use all of them is another story. Re: the magazine, I was a bit skeptical when I first subscribed, thinking the content would be too “pop”/trendy for my tastes, but editor Chuck Fromm (Ph.D.!) knows his stuff, and is sensitive to the historical/liturgical as well as the contemporary. I can’t stand most of the album reviews or Darlene Zschech’s column (with due respect), but most of the other columns and the feature articles are great. Since Collide and Paste have both evolved into something other than a print rag, WorshipLeader, Relevant and Neue are my only current print magazine subscriptions.
6. Lifeway Worship Project – the first place I look when I can’t find what I need on SongSelect, or when I need a soundtrack or an orchestration for congregational worship, especially for songs/hymns that have been part of the church music repertoire for awhile (i.e. that aren’t brand-spankin’-trendy-new). I haven’t used it much, but every time I’ve needed something slightly outside my normal routine, I’ve found it. I’ve also pointed several other people to the LWP and they’ve consistently found what they were looking for and were thankful to learn of this resource.
These are just a few of the tools that help me perform with excellence in my job as Worship Pastor – each one saves me a ton of time and effort. In my opinion, each one is worth exponentially more than what it cost me. I wanted to mention one more that isn’t really a product/resource/productivity tool, but about which I can’t speak highly enough, and which, like all these other things, is an incredible value.
7. Midnight Oil Productions “Creative Worship / Design Matters” seminar – I attended Len Wilson and Jason Moore’s seminar in April of 2009 at a nearby UM church, and it got me thinking about worship design, planning, and creative collaboration in some totally different ways. Since then, it has been a continual process of trying to implement what I learned over the course of those two days. If their seminar comes to your area, do NOT pass it up. It’s worth it’s weight in gold. (Ideally, get your senior pastor to go with you.)
What are some of your favorite ministry resources/products? (And I haven’t even mentioned favorite but less Worship-centric tools, like Dropbox, Screenr, Google Apps, Open Office, Audacity, WordPress, Sorceforge PDFCreator, IrfanView, Vimeo…)
