Lyric Backgrounds

Sitting in worship yesterday I noticed that every song had a different image or video background. You know, just because you can, doesn't mean you should! There's a point where the background becomes a distraction to the lyric.

To add insult to injury, the pastor's message again incorporated at least 6 different background images to drive the point home. I felt like I was in an Amway presentation!

The more I see technology over-used in worship services, I lean back toward white text on a black background. Remember when planning your presentations, whether lyrics or message points, that less is more.

How do you plan your background images for worship? Do you use flash motion files, looping video, still images, or nothing?

Comments

[Brian Alexander]

You present such a great point. I think about this a lot.

[Mikael Heck]

I have come to the same conclusion. It seems that the background of a presentation can and most often does become a distraction in the worship service. I know that it takes my mind away from the words I am singing and from being there in the present.

I used to be a part of a fellowship that would use real time video of the band with the lyrics over that. That was seriously distracting. I vowed to myself not to go that route.

I have, at times gone with image backgrounds, maybe some candles, or something simple. But if I do, I will use the same image for the whole set. It seems to keep the distraction element down, and to encourage a certain mood or thought process to sustain through the whole service.

[Brent]

Please, please no more moving images behind song lyrics!

[Cheryl]

We have a dark blue background with a very faint image of a butterfly (used as a symbol for our church) in the middle. The words are in a bright yellow (supposed to be a color most easily seen). When the screen is blank, the butterfly is visible, but not when the words are up. It's not distracting when the preacher preaches, and he rarely used presentations then. Before we moved to this building, we had a beautiful dove in the middle.

[Bridget Willard]

At the moment we still print our song sheets as inserts to our bulletins.

I'm torn. The artist in me appreciates it, but the worship leader knows it's a total distraction.

bridget

[Matthew]

What we do is find a image that fits the song title or chorus and display it fully at the title/credits slide. Today people are visual and we try to connect the word with a image. And the rest of the slides are almost transparent with the same image. It's not distracting and the focus is on the words of the prayer being sung.

[Robin D. Canning]

Several months ago, a Pastor was playing a very poignant and moving song selection on his violin which was absolutely beautiful and thoroughly thought provoking. Unfortunately, behind him on the platform was an unskilled, dancer whose dance movements were the antithesis of that which was being communicated by the soul and spirit of the Pastor through his violin.

How important it is to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit with regard to worship...and He never leads that which will defuse, diminish, or compete with the message that is being communicated and that which He desires to accomplish in our hearts, mind, spirit, and will!

[Jennifer Williams]

Okay, so I am reading this post from my husband, Jimi, and I couldn't help but laugh aloud. In fact, I jumped up and called him to share my thoughts on a slide that I had seen recently during one our services. I am certainly not a worship leader, but I absolutely get distracted by too many images in a worship service. Not too long ago, I had the wonderful privilege of having a colonoscopy. The doctor was so kind to give me images to take home of my procedure. And, too my surprise, the very next Sunday on the screen behind the lyrics, was an image that closely resembled the inside of my intestinal tract! In fact, the same image has been used several times since then. Now, imagine my thoughts as I view this image of reddish, pink circular like body parts. I am sorry to say that isn't worship! :-)

[SSU]

I create the powerpoints for our church. I normally used water or sky pictures for the background. Because our projector isn't the greatest, I have to use something fairly plain. If the projector was better, I might use scenery shots - but nothing too dramatic. A little color isn't bad - but I agree that it needs to be calm and not overwhelming.

[Grant]

I completely agree. In fact for the worship, I've insisted that the projector team use white text on a black background. The worship team's job is really to facilitate a platform for people to worship God... that means the WHOLE church. When I consider the older generation, it's clear that the "flashiness" of our backgrounds is just distracting to them. They want to read the knows and agree with what they're singing, and sometimes the impressive backgrounds gets in the way of that. So, we've left our flashy backgrounds for the rolling announcements before and after a service.

[Rob Lake]

Thank you for this post Jimi. I have had a similar response to too many different backgrounds and also having live or other video running in the background.
We have a simple mostly single colour red background with the image of two hands raised in worship as our main background for all our songs, and occassionally use the related moving image of the same hands when we have a non singing time, but otherwise as plain as possible for when the words are the important part of the overhead.
Having also been at a service where they used live video of the worship team as the background, I also have steered well clear of these, even if we did have the facility to produce this.
Thanks everyone else for their constructive comments. Rob.