Now that the basics are out of the way lets begin on the template. I want to start with the Simple format because the Visual is an extension of that. My examples will refer to PowerPoint 2003, since that’s what I have loaded on this computer. NOTE: Save early and often while you are building this slide. If you’re not very efficient with PowerPoint yet, it could take you some time to build this template. I’d hate for you to get several steps into the process & lose your work. I’m saving this as “Simple Worship.ppt” Pick a folder you’ll remember, I’m using the desktop.
Open PowerPoint and from the menu pick File>>New, and choose “Blank Presentation”.
Pick the Slide Layout that has “Title and Text”. This moves the Title of the song higher on the screen (and gives you space on the slide for the remainder), and gives you room for the words on the opening slide.
Right Click on the slide in the sorter and choose “Background”. Choose the color black & check the box that removes graphics from the background. Then click on the “Apply to All” button.
I like to have a blank black slide at the beginning, end and between each song. The blank black slide at the end gives me a black screen at the end of the worship set without the “End of Slide Show, click to Exit” text on the screen. Just looks a little more professional. The blank, black slide at the beginning gives you a black screen for announcements or introductions, or lets you have the presentation ready to go without tipping off the congregation to the first song. To create these slides, right click on the slide, copy & paste twice. You should now have three blank black slides. To make sure the first & last slides are really blank, I cut the title & text box from slide 1 & 3.
For my template, I’d like to have PowerPoint fade from the first, (blank & black) slide into the first song slide. I’d also like to fade into the last (black & blank) slide. Hold down the control key and left click on slides 1 & 3. Just these two slides should be highlighted. Right click on one of the slides (both are still highlighted) and choose “Slide Transition”. On the right hand side of the screen you’ll see your options for transitions. Choose “Fade Smoothly”.
I should note at this point, you can also set up slide numbers that display on the screen, but my preference is to leave these off. If you are doing 5 or 6 songs, and you have a slide for each time through the chorus and other repeats, a slide count of 60 or more might tend to distract from the worship setting. I know it makes me feel tired. Just my 2¢. If you find it helps you if you have to bounce back, go for it.
At this point we want to make sure that we always use the same font for every song, and we want it to look really simple. Select the second slide. Click in the Title text box, then choose the font from the menu, picking Arial 40, Bold, and Shadow. Shadow is optional for the Simple style, but will be critical for the Visual style. Center the text with the Center paragraph menu icon. I also will make the Title text Yellow, just to set it apart from the words of the song. Repeat for the Words text box, choosing Arial 32, Bold, and Shadow. Center the text. Pick white for the font color.
We’re ready now to build the second & following word slides. Copy slide 2 & paste it following slide 2. I prefer to the title of the song only on the first slide, so I cut the title text box from what is now slide 3.
I like to put the copyright on the last slide of the song, some choose to put it on the first slide, some will even put it right under the title. Personal preference. Since I’m choosing the last slide, I will copy the current slide 3 (words only) and paste it as the new slide 4. In slide 4, choose “Insert>>Text Box” from the menu and click at the bottom of the slide. Type a letter in the box so you can find it. Arrange the size position of the text box to your liking. I then select all the text in this box, choose Arial 9, Bold, Shadow & center the text. You’ll need the copyright symbol[1]. Hold the key and type the numbers 0169 on the numeric keypad. When you let up on the key, the symbol appears at the cursor in your presentation. Here it is for your convenience. ©
Per CCLI[2a], there are some things you’ll need to include. The video that covers this is here[2b]. Typically, this will look like:
“Hallelujah” words and music by John Doe
©2000 Good Music Co.
CCLI License # 0000
Often you’ll find the exact text for the first two lines in the file with the lyrics for the song. You’ll replace the 0000 with your own church license number. I’ve seen any number of actual license numbers floating around on the web. Please be sure to use your own.
Finally, save the file one last time to your working directory. Now save it again, choosing “Design Template”. It’s now ready to use for building your worship set. To use your brand spanking new template, open PowerPoint, choose “file>>new”, click “On my computer…” and choose your “SimpleWorship.pot” template.
The Simple Worship Template[3] I created is available for you.
You are ready for the next step. Which is coincidentally the next article in the series…
Links in this article:
[1] http://www.copyrightauthority.com/copyright-symbol/
[2a] http://www.ccli.com
[2b] http://support.ccli.com/knowledgebase/afmmain.aspx?faqid=57
[3] http://weblog.melick.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/simpleworship.ppt
Tags: PowerPoint, Worship
