Ha! This Tuesday we had a great time at the Men’s meeting at church. However, due to a real good worship time, we had to come up with a few songs on the fly. This was a bit difficult, due to the fact that the two we were given ahead of time were put into the overheads software ProPresenter.

ProPresenter is REALLY cool, not because it’s Mac only (I don’t like Mac that well), but because it can do EVERYTHING without using another program. You can import video files, audio files, images and text files. The idea of this program is to pipe this stuff to a full-screen window on a second monitor which would be piped into an overhead projector feed. Thus you can get lyrics for songs up. Of course, you probably wonder, why the video and audio and images if the program is for putting lyrics up on an overhead projector? Well, modern media technology is trending toward an animated background beneath your words, which really enhances the experience.

Of course, this is not degrading the music itself, or the purpose of the music, which is to worship God. Instead, think of it this way: a moving background can enhance the music a great deal. I mean, if music is a tool for worship, then video can be too. And I’ve found that I get a huge connection to God if I put up a really sweet animated background that totally fits the current song. I don’t know if anyone else can relate to it, but there was one case last year…I’ll explain that later maybe.

So ProPresenter can put up an animation below the words on the overhead projector feed. But of course, ProPresenter is not just for lyrics in worship services. You can also run slideshows, video presentations and even music. The idea is that the entire synthetic part of the church media presentation (excluding the live video and audio mix) can be consolidated right down into this ONE program.

On Tuesday night’s during the Men’s meeting, we have a short 10 to 15 minute worship time in which a sound man (that’s usually Steve Engel) a video person (that’s me) will run either a DVD or an audio file. If it IS a DVD, we usually put it in a seperate DVD player which we can key the words from ProPresenter over, or if possible, just turn on the DVD subtitles. However, if we run audio only, I usually try and do a 100% ProPresenter consolidation. This means that I can import the MP3 file into the program, load an animated background, load the lyrics which are seperated by verse and play the audio from the program, plus switch verses live as the song progresses.

Oh, and if I WANTED to and had enough time, I could actually automate the verse-switching using some scripting built into ProPresenter, but that’s fairly complicated and takes time, which I don’t usually have any of before the meeting.

But anyway…back to this last Tuesday. We had a huge worship time, and so the two songs that we were given by the leadership just weren’t long enough for what we needed to do. So on the fly, we came up with a few more, those being run from a DVD. We didn’t put the video up, but we did run the audio through to the soundboard and put a plain words/background up for video. However, the lyrics for these songs hadn’t been imported into ProPresenter, so I had to go online and search for them myself. These lyrics were from Bethel Live’s CD “Here is Love.” Well, I couldn’t find anything at all online and the song was playing as I was looking, but nobody knew the words, so nobody was singing along. And the leadership was getting pretty miffed by it. So we had to resort back to the older Jesus Culture album “We Cry Out,” which was really cool. But still, we weren’t able to put words up for that last song and I was really disappointed that I couldn’t find them online.

Getting to the point: HERE ARE THE WORDS! I have the audio files at home, so I was able to listen and type them out as I listened. And these are accurate to a point, except that Brian Johnson can’t sing clearly, so it’s really hard to understand him. Point being: next Tuesday, I can load up this blog post at church and copy them into the program! HA! Anyhow, enjoy. And right now, these only entail approximately four songs.

Lyrics From: Bethel Live - "Here is Love"
'LET HEAVEN SHOUT'

I surrender all to You my God
I will give You all I have
Oh You took my filthiness and made me clean

I love You, Lord
Your praises I will sing
Let Heaven shout
For I have been redeemed

I lay down my life my plans my rights
For I'm captured by Your love
And though I lose this world I will know You

Nothing compares
Nothing compares
Nothing compares
Nothing compares

'WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE'
What does it sound like
When you sing Heaven's song
What does it feel like
When Heaven comes down
What does it look like
When God is all around
Let it come

This is what it sounds like
When you sing Heaven's song
This is what it feels like
When Heaven comes down
This is what it looks like
When God is all around
Let it come

'WORTHY IS THE LAMB'

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

For me (For me)
For me (For me)
He gave it all
For me

Hallelujah
King forever
Hallelujah
Give praise to our God

Hallelujah
King and Savior
We will sing

'HERE IS LOVE' (Dashed-words/lines are unclear and inaccurate)

Here is Love
Vast as the ocean
Loving-kindness as a flood
When the Prince of life I ransom
Shed for us His precious blood

Who is Love
Will not remember
Who can cease to see His praise
He will never be forgotten
Throughout Heaven's eternal -reign-

Oh the mount of Crucifiction
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God's mercies
For a vast and gracious -prize-
Grace and Love like mighty rivers
Pouring -sense and- from above
Heaven's peace and perfect justice
---blah---blah---blah---------------

No Love is higher
No Love is wider
No Love is deeper
No Love is truer

-So let me -
That love accepting
Love forever all my days
Let me see Thy kingdom -wholy-
And my life be to Thy praise

That my all shall be Thy glory
Nothing in this world I seek
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me
now Thy son has set me free
---and---maybe---some---more---
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