Blog | Part-Time Church Tech Directors: Organization Tips
Part-Time Church Tech Directors: Organization Tips
Church tech directors carry a ton of responsibility. Any time someone has tech related issues or questions, the ability to get it fixed and keep moving all hinges on the expertise and involvement of the church director and/or tech team.
But having that much responsibility comes with an unfortunate caveat – you have to keep it all organized. Whether it be lights, worship backgrounds, worship lyrics slides, sound, sermon slides – you name it. It’s a ton to keep organized. So, if you’re looking for a few quick tips on how to stay organized as a part-time (or full-time) church tech director, here you have it:
1) Hot Folders
If your church is using ProPresenter, you will really want to look into using Hot Folders. These folders allow you to link any folder that’s on your desktop (or anywhere) to ProPresenter. This way, any items that are put into that folder will automatically appear in the Hot Folder within ProPresenter. There are a few different ways to go about organizing these folders, but a smart way is to build a new Hot Folder for each Sunday service. This way, no matter who is running tech for that Sunday, everything is organized in a folder for that day and linked to ProPresenter!
2) Linking to Planning Center
A lot of churches use Planning Center for their worship teams, which works great with ProPresenter. You can easily grab an event from Planning Center and bring it into ProPresenter. It will bring all items in separately, allowing you to always have the service flow in front of you.
This is especially helpful if you’re working with ProPresenter during a rehearsal where service flow may undergo some changes. You have a clear view of how the service was organized and how it’s changing so there’s no confusion come Sunday morning.
3) Organizing Your Motion Backgrounds
Having your motion backgrounds organized is SUPER important (at least if you ask us nerds…)
But in all honesty, everyone spends a decent amount of time searching for motion backgrounds to fit specific songs based on a variety of factors – the collection it’s a part of, colors, speed, motion, style, etc. If you are subscribed to a service like Motion Worship and download the new monthly collections every time they’re released, you’ll be sifting through hundreds of backgrounds in no time. Not a fun task when you’re trying to put lyric slides together quickly for a rehearsal or Sunday morning. Here’s some tips on how to organize your Motion Backgrounds:
a) Organizing by Collection
This is totally a preference thing, but if you’re the type of person that likes to keep a services design consistent based on the collection it’s from, it’s probably a smart move to organize your backgrounds in folders by collection. But you can take it a step further by creating folders based on either speed or color within your collections folders. Whether than means one or the other, or simply duplicating files of the same color so you can have both color and speed folders, either is a great way to stay organized.
b) Organizing by Favorites
If you’re not the type to use a single collection on a Sunday, you more than likely just want quick access to your favorite backgrounds as soon as possible. In that case, it’s smart to create a “Favorites” folder (or multiple with filtering variations based on factors such as color or speed) and draw from there.
c) Organizing by Mood
At the end of the day, the motion background you choose for a song is all about the mood and feel it gives. You don’t want crazy abstract backgrounds behind hymn lyrics, or slow undulating backgrounds on upbeat songs. So another smart idea is to create several different “mood” folders and filter different backgrounds from each collection into the folder you feel best represents the mood of each motion.
4) Solidifying Song Arrangements
While picking song arrangements may not be your job, irritating your Worship Pastor to do so absolutely is! We joke about it, but there seems to be a universal disconnect between tech directors and worship pastors. If your worship leader uses Planning Center Online for their worship team, make sure you have access to it to see the songs.
If your church doesn’t use Planning Center Online, or your worship pastor just doesn’t release song orders before rehearsal, it may be smart to talk with them about setting up a weekly call before rehearsal. Spending a 5-minute call discussing song orders can greatly reduce the time it takes you to build and organize lyrics slides on Sunday morning.
Wrapping Things Up
Staying organized as a tech director is super important. The more organized you are, the smoother rehearsals and Sunday mornings run, and the less you have to focus on last-minute setup. Luckily, staying organized as a church media director isn’t all that difficult. Make sure you use Hot Folders in ProPresenter to quickly link and access important media folders on your desktop. Spend the extra time organizing your motion backgrounds – whether by your favorites, mood, or the collection they’re a part of. Finally, linking ProPresenter to Planning Center is a great way to keep everything running smoothly. You can see the song orders and service flow directly, giving you the ability to make necessary changes to sermon slides and song lyrics with efficiency and simplicity.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as TAYA, Big Daddy Weave, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the worship music scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.