HELP! New Music Minister want to install SongShowPlus!

[snedecor]

We are a mostly happy EasyWorship shop. We run 2009, and successfully display songs, powerpoint, video, dvd, utube, motion loops, etc.

We just hired a new Music Minister, and he is a dyed in the wool SongShowPlus user! He wants us to immediately switch over to SSP.

Can any of you who've used both give me some ammunition to delay the switch until he gets to know EW better?

Thanks!

[petereit]

What does your senior pastor say?

[snedecor]

Sr. Pastor is deferring to Music Minister, it's his realm. He rarely uses the projector during his sermon, other than perhaps one PowerPoint slide or a Utube video.

I'm sure that we can get used to ANY projection software, but I will regret all the hard work I put into getting all the songs into EW, and setting up the system, including the stage monitor.

The only thing I've come up with so far is that SSP does not have Sr. Pastor's version of the Blble (ESV) natively available, but will have to go through an online bible, or libronix. That and the additional cost...

[prochlea]

In my mind it should be looked at it this way - unless there's some feature that he needs/wants - either way there's going to be some training. if you switch - then anyone who runs the system currently will have to be trained... whereas if you don't switch - only one person needs to be trained. Seems like it would be easier for one person to learn it, rather than everyone who runs it on sundays.

[tdangelo]

Maybe I am missing something here, but why would a Music Minister care what software was putting lyrics on screens as long as the right lyrics get onto the right screens at the right time?

Might there be some other issue at play here?

[rjwalker]

>>Sr. Pastor is deferring to Music Minister, it's his realm.

Is the worship leader is putting the slide and show together? And then running the projection during the service?

It seems to me there are 3 primary concerns here. One is the range of media covered by the software and the ease of integrating it.

The second is the ease of putting the projection show together.

The third is the ease of actually doing the projection.

A key question for me the last time I choose software (too long ago to be able to deal in specifics) was the volunteer projectionists "desk top" and tools and especially the ease of getting back on track when a slide change is missed or when the worship leader heads off in an unanticipated direction.

The volunteers I worked with only worked every several weeks - they did not have the level of repeated experience so that doing a service was routine - they usually had a degree of anxiety as to what to do if things went wrong.

In my opinion, that was the most important consideration. The easiness of putting a show together was important, but it was secondary.

I say the choice of the software is the realm of the person co-ordinating the volunteers.

And if the worship leader isn't putting the actual projection show together it isn't really his realm, either.

One man's opinion...

[snedecor]

The worship minister will be putting the service together, something he did at his previous church and loved doing. Volunteers will be running the show during the services.

He thinks that SSP has it all over EW when it comes to both features and ease of use (and who knows, he may be right. I've only used EW)

Thanks for the thoughts, so far!

[daver2]

You need to look at the situation with an open mind and put together a balanced and costed "pros and cons" sheet for both solutions. That way you will at least highlight the total cost of staying with EW or changing to SSP. We don't use either of these so I can't comment myself. Can you download a demo version of SSP to try? At least then your Music Minister can't argue that you haven't given it your best shot. Invariably, there will be a cost in changing to SSP - so as long as you identify what that cost is, someone will have to find the money to fund the change. As you are giving SSP a fair shot - he should reciprocate by giving EW a fair shot in return.

A personal note from my experience to warn you about:

Our sound recording PC was failing early last year so wanted some work doing to it. Our resident PC tech. could pretty much perform the work using bits from his works 'junk' box - so the upgrade costs would have been fairly minimal. Instead, our Worship Pastor decided we wanted a MAC instead of a PC - so they went out and bought a very expensive MAC laptop. Because it was a laptop - I had to acquire a Kensington lock from work to prevent it from being stolen! Once we had got used to the MAC and the software - we found that we couldn't record using the internal hard disk at the same time as fire-wire into our multichannel audio feeds! This necessitated the purchase of a (very expensive) external A/V fire-wire drive (of which there were none in the UK at the time!). We now use the MAC with the external drive (and it is great) - but it cost an awful lot more than a straightforward PC upgrade!!!

You appear to have already identified the version of the Bible that is different. What about the songs? When we switched over to projection rather than books my wife "volunteered" to enter all of the hymns and choruses that the Church used. This took a while... We then went through a period of "tweaking" the words so that they lined up with the specific versions that we actually used (e.g. extra verses, slight word changes to make them more 'modern' etc.) If we upgraded to another software package - I could see some not insignificant work here.

Dave

[bpalermini]

This new music minister was hired for a reason, hopefully a good reason. Do you really want his first experience from his support crew to be you fighting him on a (fairly simple) change he wants? Seems to me like you should be open to work with him. All I hear you stressing about is personal preference and comfort, his vs. yours. Just my thoughts.

[jswaney]

I would download the software programs as recommended. Regarding features basically it is SSP May 2012 or Pro-Presenter 5, Media Shout and then Easy Worship 2009 in regards to features. All of the programs can accompolish your tasks and mission but at different feature levels. God Bless.

[rjwalker]

Originally Posted by bpalermini

This new music minister was hired for a reason, hopefully a good reason. Do you really want his first experience from his support crew to be you fighting him on a (fairly simple) change he wants? Seems to me like you should be open to work with him. All I hear you stressing about is personal preference and comfort, his vs. yours. Just my thoughts.

It seems to me that could be easily flipped 180 degrees: "Seems to me like he should be open to work with you."

Since we've learned that the new guy is putting the shows together, there is additional reason to accede to his wishes, but the needs of the volunteers are, IMO, equally important - their service was accepted for a reason to

= = = =
"HIS" support crew? It seems to me that we are all there to support the lead pastor and to support worship of God.

If a "worship leader" told me I was there only to support him, I'd probably walk.

[bpalermini]

Be a servant.