Comments on: Call for Worship Presentation Software Reviews

By: Aaron Keller

Aaron Keller — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:47:11 +0000

I was a pastor of worship for a couple years at a mid-sized church. I currently serve as a senior pastor at a small church. I am a big fan of Songshow Plus myself. One Sunday morning at my old church, my multimedia operator slept in, and I didn’t realize he wasn’t there until about 5 minutes before the service. I pulled a girl off the praise team who had never run the program before, and in 3 minutes of training, she was running it for the entire service. Now that’s just the basics, but it is that simple. In the church I currently serve, we have limited resources and people, and the versatility of the program has proven it is worthy. Honestly, I’ve tried all the others, and I would recommend SSP hands down.

About your dual monitor capability, using a laptop you can plug your projector directly into the 15 pin output. If you would desire to use a 2nd monitor (which i would recommend), you can purchase a VGA splitter/amplifier for around $30, depending on how many outputs you want. They are available at tigerdirect.com Hope this helps.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:30:12 +0000

@Chuck - I decided to stay away from every single piece of commercial software … and their bloated price tags! Open source is where it’s at!

See this recent post/conclusion to my search: http://www.lofitribe.com/2008/06/27/open-source-worship-presentation-software/

By: Chuck Haskins

Chuck Haskins — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:24:02 +0000

Shawn, what did you decide on? I am looking for a new solution. I found MediaShout to have a terrible interface but it is powerful. Sunday Plus has a better interface and I will try Easy Worship.

Thanks,
Chuck

By: Open Source Worship Presentation Software

Open Source Worship Presentation Software — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:48:03 +0000

[...] began researching worship presentation software a few months ago. I tried Easy Worship, MediaShout, SongShow Plus, and a few others (you can test them for free for [...]

By: Shawn Anthony

Shawn Anthony — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:26:01 +0000

@Wes - Thanks for the suggestion. I liked EasyWorship, but I also gave MediaShout a second go. This time I adjusted my screen resolution correctly and the software/interface looks beautiful. The awful appearance i cited in a comment above was a result of my own bad settings.

I really, really like MediaShout now that I’m getting the hang of it. I like it a lot.

By: Wes

Wes — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:03:04 +0000

I am a mac user but I have to say EasyWorship kills anything else. The ease of use and power are by far more than enough for 95% of the Church’s out there. We have been using it for 4 years now and we can do anything from streaming live video through it to playing dvd and such.

I just wish they would make it for the mac!

Wes

By: Shawn Anthony

Shawn Anthony — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:06:27 +0000

@Mark - Hey, man! Thanks for the comment!

The name can seem a bit silly, but I think the degree of silly is proportionate to level of reader response theory we each bring to the interpretation of it. LOL! In other words, I think they really meant “we can help make your presentations easier to put together,” rather than “we make worship easy.”

There’s give and take. For example, one of the main reasons we want to move to a computer based presentation is because projection uses way less paper. In fact, we will use zero paper! Like it or not, people need to see words to worship. We were using recycled Spanish class worksheets to print out our songs for Sunday morning (our worship pastor and his wife are awesome that way). Still, we wanted to move away from paper because it’s a waste. it was actually a stewardship issue which was solved with projection. So …

By: Mark Dixon

Mark Dixon — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:52:02 +0000

There is software now called Easy Worship? *cackle* I’m sorry, that just seems so… I mean, just the idea that worship requires a computer now, and to name the thing Easy Worship. Is this really the direction we want to be going?

By: Shawn Anthony

Shawn Anthony — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:22:55 +0000

@BigDaddy - Thank you! Yeah, I’m pretty convinced that Open Source isn;t going to work this time around. I have yet to find anything Open Source that will put together worship presentations like these apps were all talking about.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t open source somewhere that I haven’t found … If that’s the case feel free - anyone - to point towards it!

By: BigDaddy

BigDaddy — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:04:13 +0000

I mention this product because I have messed on it a few times and its soo easy. Also using stock programs like PowerPoint and ProPresenter can lead to legal issues with copywrites.(assuming most folks forget to add them on the slide) Wasn’t sure if my first post said that clearly. Good luck!