Blog – Motion Worship – Video Loops, Countdowns, & Moving Backgrounds for the Christian Church

Tips for Elevating Your Youth Ministry’s Set Design

Stage design is a powerful tool for creating atmosphere and setting the tone for your youth to connect with God and each other. When done well, set and stage design has the ability to elevate the impact of what you are sharing from the stage. When done poorly or without much consideration, it has the potential to distract and take away from your overall message. Most youth ministries have littl...

Interface Overview | ProPresenter in 5 Minutes

This “ProPresenter in 5-minutes” series is hosted by Chris Fleming, Motion Worship Creative Director, professional drummer and music director from Minneapolis, MN. In this collection of concise tutorials you will learn about the ProPresenter interface, how to customize slides, build a library of songs, compile a full church service, and tons more! In this specific video tutorial, Chris ...

5 Very Common Church Presentation Mistakes

Working as a media or tech director at a church is a stressful job. You’re usually there before anyone else, and stay longer than everyone else. You are never in the spotlight and rarely get the acknowledgement you deserve for how much you hold the service together. To be honest, the entire thing couldn’t happen without you. The band, the lights, the speaker system, the microphone, mixing, the...

Custom Title Slides | ProPresenter in 5 Minutes

This “ProPresenter in 5 minutes” series is hosted by Chris Fleming, Motion Worship Creative Director, professional drummer and music director from Minneapolis, MN. In this collection of concise tutorials you will learn about the ProPresenter interface, how to customize slides, build a library of songs, compile a full church service, and tons more! In this specific video tutorial, Chris...

How to Keep Church Media Up to Date and Relevant

Churches change incredibly fast. The type and style of music, the lighting setups of all the major “big” churches who set the pace for mainstream church culture, and the type of media we use on our screens. Any of us who’ve worked behind the scenes in some capacity have all seen the phases of development from a creative standpoint. Old CCM and choral music to modern day worship, nature-ba...

Church Decisions: Trading the Projector for an LED Screen

LED screens vs. Projectors: How do they compare? Technology can make or break a weekend experience. If your church is like most, you depend on quality images and visuals that are consistent and engaging. LED screens are pricey, but deliver dividends upon dividends over projectors when it comes to image quality and lifespan. If your church is considering making the leap from projectors to an LED...

Casting a Vision for Church Video Production to Your Pastor

Video is one of the most effective ways of telling a story. Visuals draw people in and create connections regardless of where they are. And often, video is the medium through which new people connect with a church. Before they visit in-person, their first connection point is often through a video - livestreams or videos on your church’s social media pages. That’s why it’s so important to ...

Top 4 Mistakes of Church Tech Directors

“Church Tech Director” is a pretty high-intensity position. Not many congregation members see you since you’re not on stage like the worship pastor and lead pastor, but the truth is that none of it could happen without you. Depending on your church staff and organizational structure, you may be helping with a number of things – lyrics, designing slides, running the computer, running lig...

5 Tips for Making the Most of Your Church Tech Budget

I’m convinced that nobody - absolutely nobody - would be capable of spending a six or seven-figure budget as fast as a church tech director. While I joke, the truth is that everything in that world is expensive, and there is always a better version of whatever it is you’re buying. Cameras, computers, light boards, lights, sound boards, stage designs, audio systems, music gear, software… U...

Best Places to Find Youth Ministry Countdown Videos

Finding church media can be really difficult – especially when you’re looking for quality stuff on a low budget. It seems like there’s a million different companies offering countdowns, motion backgrounds, and mini-movies, and it’s hard to know which one is right to go with. Some services are hundreds of dollars per year, while you can find free media in other places – but it all varies ...

3 Ways to Make Sermon Slides Look Better

Accompanying a sermon with visuals helps to clarify and drive home the message exponentially. That’s what sermon slides are for. It’s meant to reinforce the message and give an easy-to-digest summary of the main points of the sermon. But sermon slides aren’t always helpful. In fact, in many instances they can detract from the message. Bad design, poor font choice, improperly sized text, t...

Church Livestreaming: Keeping Your Congregation Engaged

It kind of feels like every church in America is moving to or integrating livestreaming. When congregation members can’t be there in-person, or your church is closed for a Sunday, livestreaming is a great way to stay connected with everyone virtually and make your message available to your church. One of the biggest fears of livestreaming is that your congregation won’t stay engaged. Will m...

COVID-19 & Streaming Motion Worship Media

Dear Churches & Members, In recent years, livestreaming, social media, and online services have become key platforms for churches around the world. We recognize this new paradigm and want to support all of you as you share the love of Christ. We encourage you to utilize our media in your online services. No extra charge. Regardless of how you broadcast your services, we don't want to put up ...

Using Powerpoint with Video Backgrounds

Microsoft Powerpoint is not a good solution for using motion backgrounds across multiple slides. Text over video only works in PPT 2010, but when you change slides, the video will restart from the beginning, or in some cases will appear on top of the text. I recommend checking out one of the excellent worship presentation software options listed on the homepage of this website.

How to Shorten a Countdown Video

This is a quick tip on how to make a worship countdown video shorter, e.g. taking a 5 or 10 minute countdown and bringing the length down to 3 minutes or 1 minute. It involves starting the video later, or setting the "in" point of the video to a later time This can be done using just about any worship presentation software, but for demonstration purposes I used Media Shout (MediaShout) and...

Placing Text on Motion Backgrounds

This is a brief tutorial on placing text over video in worship presentation software. These techniques can be used in most any software (except Powerpoint), but for demonstration purposes I used MediaShout (Media Shout). I cover ways to make text show up clearly on most backgrounds, and how to position text so that it compliments art and imagery instead of fighting for attention. I also sho...