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Free Song: “Lamb of God” by Justin Tweito

We’re excited to offer you another free song for the next 7 days. “Lamb of God” is written by a Taylor Agan, Justin Tweito & Ben Wolverton.

The song was released on January 25th and has already been featured on the following editorial playlists on Spotify, amassing over 55k streams in just its first week: Top Christian, WorshipNow, New Music Christian Friday, Sing a New Song, and New & Bold.

Use the link below to download the MP3 and chord chart for FREE! Oops! This free offer has expired. But subscribe to our blog to learn about future free resource offerings!

Free Song: “Even Louder” by The Church Will Sing

We’re excited to offer you a free song by for the next 7 days.

“Even Louder” is the first song from Word Worship Music’s new initiative, The Church Will Sing. It incorporates churches from all around the United States as the featured vocal and is a collaboration between Bethel Music’s Tony Brown, Housefires Jonathan Jay, and Word Music’s Matt Armstrong and Benji Cowart. The song was performed as part of last year’s “The Bible Tour” by hip-hop artist Steven Malcolm.

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 and the chord charts for FREE!  Oops, the offer has expired. But be sure to subscribe to our blog for future info on free music downloads!

There are 9 more songs in the works and churches can still record themselves singing to be the congregational voice for what’s yet to come. For more information visit:

www.TheChurchWillSing.com // http://smarturl.it/EvenLouder

Integration with LifeWay Worship

 

LifeWay Worship and WorshipPlanning

We are excited to partner with the great folks at LifeWay Worship, in a manner that greatly benefits you. For those not familiar, LifeWayWorship.com is a fantastic musical resource with a full array of assets from instrumental parts to accompaniment tracks and media. By creating a free account in LifeWayWorship.com, you can search, purchase, and download song assets to help you and your team prepare for worship.

The developers at LifeWayWorship.com and WorshipPlanning.com worked hard to connect our two powerful online resources.  Prior to this integration, it was a multi-step process to get music assets from your LifeWay Worship account into your WorshipPlanning.com account, and then out to your team members.  But now, it’s as easy as clicking “Send to WorshipPlanning.com” in your LifeWay Worship account.

Send Music to WorshipPlanning.com

For the “Send to WorshipPlanning.com” options to be available, you must first authorize LifeWay Worship to connect to your WorshipPlanning account.  But once that is initially done, the authorization will be remembered.

When music files are sent to your WorshipPlanning account, they are either adding to an existing song as a new “arrangement”(if the song exists), or a new song is created in your library where the files will be attached.  Once the files are there, the process of sharing that information is the same as any other song in your Songs library.  Just include the song in your worship flow plans, and your team members will have easy access to the LifeWay Worship files.

ProTip: You can designate each file to be associated with one or more specific “roles”, which will make it even easier for your musicians and vocalist to find the right files for them.  Check out our support article on how to do this.

 

 

 

Rockin With The Cross Integration

Rockin With The Cross

Happy 2018!!!  We are excited ring in the new year with an announcement of another integration…one that could be a huge benefit to all worship musicians.  Rockin With The Cross (RWTC) is an enormous collection (over 300,000) of Christian music chord charts, guitar tablature and arrangements by worship songwriters.

Once you authorize worshipplanning.com to connect with your RWTC subscription, searching and importing songs is a snap.  Right on the worship flow page, you can search the RWTC library by keyword, then drag and drop the song right into your worship flow.

Most songs have lyrics and chord data, set to the key that is indicated when the song is added.  Those chords can be easily changed by using the “transpose key” feature in worshipplanning.com.

Additionally, most songs have the various song part indicators, which means you can “song map” how the song is to be performed.

We hope this new integration helps with easily getting the information you need so that your musicians can be ready to lead worship!  To learn more about Rockin With The Cross, head on over to their site: https://www.1christian.net/rwtc/

worshipplanning.com + Proclaim, from START-to-FINISH, and BEYOND!

From Start to Finish and Beyond

It is now even easier to create presentations slides for your worship flow details.  After having become acquainted with Proclaim Church Presentation Software some months ago, worshipplanning.com reviewed and shared with our community the significance of this valuable resource. And now we are excited to announce and present worshipplanning.com’s integration with Proclaim!

From Faithlife, the makers of Logos Bible Software, Proclaim launched its presentation software in 2012 with the concept of making worship presentations a team effort that is centralized in the cloud. Proclaim’s user base extends beyond the sanctuary computer, and its collaboration capabilities allow continuous workflow possibilities.

Those of you not familiar with Proclaim will be enthused to hear about this compelling product, and the numerous features it offers making service presentation preparation vastly easier.

With the new opportunity of worshipplanning.com and Proclaim working together, your service will effortlessly flow from START (organizing and planning) to FINISH (production and presentation), and BEYOND with seamless publishing of your service, digital message and sharable media! worshipplanning.com and Proclaim platforms will interact seamlessly by way of a one-time authorization of your worshipplanning.com credentials into Proclaim. worshipplanning.com users will be able to easily import the set list, lyrics, and even song-mapping, allowing Proclaim to turn out the appropriate lyrics to various slides, all while maintaining the theme of your presentation.

For example, let’s say you’ve created a worship flow that looks like this:  

Worship Flow in WorshipPlanning.com

With just a couple of clicks in Proclaim, your songs would be imported directly from worshipplanning.com, in the right order, with the right song mapping, and matching the presentation theme you had already defined in Proclaim for this service.  Notice how the songs lyrics are automatically split onto different slides.

Proclaim Interface

 

Win a Year of WorshipPlanning.com and Proclaim

To help promote the program, worshipplanning.com users will be invited to follow us on a virtual Faithlife group called, “WorshipPlanning”. If you’re not familiar with Faithlife, it’s like a Facebook for churches and much more! On the WorshipPlanning Faithlife group you will be able to read and share tips, questions, product information, and announcements from Proclaim and worshipplanning.com.

By joining our WorshipPlanning Faithlife group (which is free) you will be asked a few questions and entered into our Premier Giveaway Package* to win a free year of worshipplanning.com and a free year of Proclaim! Earn a additional chances to win by simply inviting a friend (or two, or ten!) to join the group.

worshipplanning.com users who sign up for a free trial of Proclaim can also enter to win our Ultimate Giveaway Package**, including a free year of worshipplanning.com, a free year of Proclaim, and access to Proclaim’s Pro Media library!

How do I win?

  1. For a chance to win the Premier Giveaway Package
    join the WorshipPlanning group on Faithlife! Invite friends and increase your chances!
  2. For a chance to win the Ultimate Giveaway Package
    sign up for a free trial of Proclaim!

Learn more about worshipplanning.com / Proclaim integration.

Learn more about Proclaim or Faithlife.

*Premier Giveaway Package includes: (1) free year of our worshipplanning.com Bronze level plan, and (1) free year of Proclaim’s Basic plan. Prize package value exceeds $380, depending on congregation size.

**Ultimate Giveaway Package includes: (1) free year of our worshipplanning.com Silver level plan, (1) free year of Proclaim’s Pro plan, and access to Proclaim’s Pro Media library. Prize package value exceeds $660, depending on congregation size.

Enter now through February for your chance to win. One winner will be chosen at random for each package giveaway. Winners will be chosen in early March. .

 

Free Song: “Night Has Passed (Morning Has Broken)” by The Brilliance

The Brilliance All Is Not Lost 1500x1500

We’re excited to offer you another free song for the next 7 days, in partnership with WeAreWorship.com!

The song is “Night Has Passed (Morning Has Broken)” from The Brilliance’s latest album All Is Not Lost.

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 and the chord charts for FREE! – Oops, the offer has expired. But be sure to subscribe to our blog for future info on free music downloads!

 

Proclaim Church Presentation Software Review

Proclaim Church Presentation Software Logo

Proclaim is a church presentation software by Faithlife, the people that also bring you Logos Bible Software.  Proclaim entered the church service presentation scene about four years ago with the idea of leveraging the cloud to store and sync presentations.  Just like building a worship flow, the slides of a service often need to be collaboratively constructed by people that don’t work next to each other, or even in the same physical building.  Of course, these days it is far more than just “slides” being built for a worship service.  And over the years, Proclaim has proven that it can scale to meet the growing functionality needs of small and large churches.

This latest release of Proclaim is version 2, though the version number itself is deceiving because this is a very mature product that feels like it has been around since churches started using projectors. Before I get started, I should mention that while I have many years of experience serving on a pretty technical production team at my church, my primary role has not been on the CG or “lyrics” position.  However, perhaps this can provide perspective appreciated by those not familiar with Proclaim.

Proclaim Main Interface

Ease of Use

Like all maturing products, especially software, the expanding functionality is usually in tension with simplicity of use.  Proclaim seems to have walked this tightrope well.  Anyone having experience with PowerPoint or just about any other presentation software will be able to jump right in and set to work building slides.

Getting started is a breeze.  During the install, you’ll be prompted to create an online account that will serve as the “saving” destination of your presentations (a key detail of the collaboration feature).  You’ll have options to access self-help videos to assist with your first presentation.  But as I mentioned before, I skipped these and didn’t have any problems with building a good looking presentation.

The three main modes of “Edit”, “Preview”, and “On Air” are all intuitive and easy to use with the most typically needed setting visible in place that make sense.  One significant ease-of-use feature is management of external displays.  If you have multiple displays set up with your computer, Proclaim will automatically configure them for projector and confidence monitor, with easy ability to switch as needed.  This can save huge headaches, especially for those that have to set up on a weekly basis.

If for some reason you have trouble getting started and the self-help videos are not enough, users can schedule one-on-one time with a trainer from Faithlife to assist.

Core Features

One of the goals of Proclaim is to make it difficult or impossible to make a bad looking presentation.  Traditionally, bad looking presentation haven’t necessarily been limitations of the presentation software.  Technically speaking, you could make a good looking presentation in Microsoft Paint.  No, bad looking presentations are typically the result of presentation authors either not knowing how to make them look good, or not have time to make it look good.  Proclaim has gone to great lengths to eliminate these hurdles and make good looking presentations the default.

corefeatures

One example of this is how song slides are created from a block of lyrics.  By simply pasting the entire block of lyrics into the lyrics section of a single song slide, Proclaim splits the lyrics into different slides based on blank lines in the lyrics.  Additionally, when you change the style of the slide (font, background, image, etc.), it affects every slide.  So in a matter of seconds, you can have all slides for a song created, consistent, and looking great.  By the way, new with version 2 of Proclaim is the ability to make modifications to individual slides within a song.

When it comes to running your presentation, Proclaim handles with ease the normal flow of well-planned slides, with a few options on how to display and navigate through the slides.  But we all know that worship services rarely go exactly as planned, leaving the presentation operator to do some quick behind the scenes improv, rather than showing the wrong slides or just “going to black”.  The use of Proclaim’s “quick screens” let’s the operator click to configurable screens on the fly (the “configurable” part being new with version 2). Whether it is a spontaneous Bible verse, or an empty slide with a background image, or an animated “AMEN!”.  Operators also have the ability to overlay “Pager” numbers to notify parents of children that need their attention, as well as “Crawl Text” to show other longer, spontaneous messages for everyone to see.

Of course, online collaboration is one of the core features of Proclaim.  As I mentioned above, the presentations you build are automatically synced to the cloud.  So, while the Proclaim program must be downloaded and installed, access to the presentations are seamlessly synced to and from the cloud, with no need to copy files to thumb drives or emailing them around.  Simply configure your team of folks that need to access the presentations, and fire up the application from the desired computers.  And thanks to their simplified licensing, you can install the program on as many computers as you need without having to pay for each copy.

Amazing Extras

There are numerous features that I’d consider to be “extras” in that they go so far beyond what you’d consider standard for presentation software.  In the interest of time, I can only touch on a few of them.  But it’s well worth taking a look at their “Features” page to see all the amazing extra things you can do.

Without even having to leave the Proclaim program, you can access a slew of content for your presentation, from song lyrics, to still background, to motion backs, to video countdowns, and more.  And depending on your subscription level and the content source, some media is included at no additional charge.

Proclaim has a great feature called Signals.  Signals provides pathways for sending to, or interacting with, people (including congregational members) during the service.  For example, if the speaking pastor wanted information pushed to people’s smart phones at a certain point during the message, this can be set up and triggered in Proclaim when a specific slide goes up on the screen.

Or, if the pastor wanted to take a live survey during the message, this could also be pushed to members of the congregation during the service, and the real-time results could be displayed on the screen as people respond.  Honestly, my mind was blown when I saw the demonstration on this.  Signals (built into Proclaim) is the vehicle for this, and a free smartphone app called Faithlife is how information is collected from or pushed to people.

Once the service is finished, Proclaim gives you the option to publish various media from the service, including parts of the presentation, and even an audio recording of the message.  Saving and sharing audio recordings might be something larger churches are already doing.  But the way it is done in Proclaim is so simple, churches of any size could use this feature.  When building the presentation, you just add “start recording” and “stop recording” triggers to appropriate slides.  After the service, there’s a tool for performing minor audio edits (like trimming it up a bit).  Then with just a click or two, the audio can be posted to the web.  It doesn’t get much easier that that.

Conclusion

Whether your are a big or small church, Proclaim Church Presentation Software is an intuitive and yet feature-rich presentation software that goes well beyond just making and displaying slides.  Collaboration is baked into its core with real-time syncing among team members working together from diverse locations.  Integration into media outlets keep presentation designers from having to scour the web for the perfect stills, motion backs, or videos.  And the seamless advanced features will allow your church to interact with your congregation in ways typically only possible by churches with big, tech-savvy production teams.

Proclaim offers a free 30-day free trial for your entire team. This free trial also comes with Pro Media, a collection of more than 10,000 motion backgrounds and still images.

Free Song: “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (We Turn)” by Paul Baloche

Turn Your Eyes

We’re excited to offer you another free song for the next 7 days, in partnership with WeAreWorship.com!

The song is “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (We Turn)” from Paul Baloche’s latest album “Your Mercy”.

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 and the chord charts for FREE! – Oops, the offer has expired. But be sure to sign up for our blog to learn about more free music downloads!

Free Song: “Gloria (Our Savior Found Us)”

majesty-in-a-manger_cvr_1500x1500

We’re excited to offer you another free song for the next 7 days, in partnership with WeAreWorship.com!

The song is “Gloria (Our Savior Found Us)” is a track off Majesty In A Manger by Various Integrity music artist, which was released today. This album has Great Christmas themed worship tunes, so be sure to check it out

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 and the chord charts for FREE! – Oops, the offer has expired. But be sure to sign up for our blog to learn about more free music downloads!