2/15/2006 7:40:55 AM

i'm evaluating ssp 5.5 and would like to know if there is a compatible 1975 baptist hymnal database out there somewhere.  it's pretty important to our decision making to have access to this hymnal or at least the 1991 version.

thanks for any help

Norris Barger
Enon Baptist Church

2/15/2006 8:32:41 AM

Songshow Plus comes with quite a few hymns already installed in it.  We are members of CCLI as are most churches and we have a membership in Songselect so we can import songs from CCLI with one click.  They can also be imported from current powerpoint files.  Are you using powerpoint now? 

Perhaps others know more than I do, but I have never heard of any worship software being able to access the 1975 baptist hymnal.  Incidentally, I am Baptist also and have been Baptist for a long time.  Have you looked at everything SSP can do for you besides just access a hymnal database?  I don't even know if that hymnal has been transposed into a format that is accessible.  We do sing hymns also, but have found that importing them works quite as well as accessing them from a database. 

People on here are very helpful so feel free to ask any other questions you may have. 

2/15/2006 9:21:21 AM

thanks for the info - this will help in evaluation a lot.

i did a quick review of the song database and it looks like about 75-80% of the baptist hymnal songs are in there. i also found i could add "1975 baptist hymnal" as a collection and change the appropriate stock hymns to that collection and add the song number. this will help tremendously with song searches. the other features of the program are great. after only a couple of hours of playing i created an entire worship service from scratch with announcements, hymns, praise songs, motion backgrounds, videos, and sermon notes in about 30 minutes. i'm not using powerpoint at present (our church doesn't even have a multimedia system yet) but it doesn't look like i'd need it much with ssp.

i can face tomorrow

norris

2/15/2006 9:52:06 AM

As in Piney Green Rd, Jacksonville, NC? If so, I thought you guys already had SSP. We (Swansboro FBC) have been using SSP for a while, and we use the 1991 SB Hymnal. I would be glad to export our song database for you if you want to send me an email. You can also use SongSelect to import the songs that aren't already in SSP. It surprise me how many of the "more modern" hymns in that hymnal weren't a part of the 400 SSP hymns.

gap

BTW: Let me now if you want to see our setup (assuming your are in Jacksonville, NC), and I will let you see what we are doing.

Edit: I forgot to mention that you will need to edit several of those Stock hymns, as they are a bit different than the 1991 versions.

2/15/2006 9:56:17 AM

Wow, Gap, that is soooo nice of you!  Awesome! 

2/15/2006 11:38:49 AM

thanks very much for your generous offer. we're actually in brevard, nc, in the western part of the state. i guess there are quite a few enons around. my email is

nbarger@transylvania.k12.nc.us

please send when you can. even though i'm just evaluating right now i am leaning heavily towards ssp, and my memory is so bad i'll probably forget to ask you again when we actually do purchase

does your church run or do you know of anyone who runs a rear projection rather than front projection system?

thanks again

2/15/2006 12:29:59 PM

Looks like a good reason to take the family to the coast for a vacation. The church is just west (about 10 minutes) from Emerald Ilse, NC.

We have a front projection system. My parents' church in the midwest uses a rear projection system, and it works well for them, but they have a LOT of space to set it up. They converted their Gym into the Sanctuary.

gap

2/15/2006 5:36:48 PM

In regards to rear projection, you might want to try signing up to www.churchmedia.net, because instead of being limited to basically only people using SSP, it has all people in church media in general. Don't get me wrong, SSPlash has it's place (in regards to specifically SSP subjects), but for your subject (more related to church media in general than specifically SSP), you will likely find more/better/faster information from a community based on church media. If you get my drift.

2/16/2006 12:07:10 AM

However....

The cream-of-the-crop media users at churchmedia.net are SSP users, who also post here. Why wade through a bunch of rabble when you have the top minds right here!

Just my biased point-of-view.

2/16/2006 12:47:31 AM

Actually, they have a really long conversation going on over there about one poor gal who got a rear projection set up, but the projector had a horrid hot spot on the screen and still wasn't bright enough for darker slides.

Check this thread

http://www.churchmedia.net/CMN/showthread.php?t=13707

Lots of good info.

Now, if we could just talk Fowler into shutting down thier forums, so people wouldn't have posts languish over there, when all the action is over here!

2/16/2006 5:45:57 AM

Elmbrook Community Church (near Waukesha, WI - Stuart Briscoe's church) has two auditoriums and I've toured one that has two small 15' rooms on either side of the stage, each having a projector on the floor that faces a small trapezoidal mirror, which points to a medium sized mirror and then to a large trapezoidal mirror, which projects onto the screen. Bouncing the image off of the mirrors is what gives them the distance from the screen that is necessary to produce a large image. These are "portrait" dimensions.

2/16/2006 7:28:12 AM

by the way emerald isle sounds like a good spot for a vacation

1/18/2007 11:52:55 AM

Does anyone have a database of the Songs of Faith And Praise Songbook by Howard Publishing?

That is what We are using

12/29/2010 1:51:17 PM

I'm new to Song Show, but ditto to the question about a database of Songs of Faith and Praise Songbook. I'd be willing to beg, borrow, or deal for such a databse.

Lance Havens
Taylor St. Church of Christ
Hobbs, NM

1/3/2011 11:28:26 AM

When we started with SSP, I wanted the same thing too. But a couple of things have happened since we started using it -- several years ago now -- which have made this a non-issue for us.

1. I have gotten very comfortable with the feature that allows you to import lyrics from CCLI (the Song Select Website) directly into SSP. One hint, when you go into Song Select, use the advanced search screen and search by both title and author when you have both.   Typically, it take no longer than about 2 minutes to find and import a song from CCLI.

2. Within about a year of using SSP, certainly before 2 years, we have migrated completely from our hymnals. Never, anymore, do I hear a reference to "hymn number X from the blue hymnal" which was so common when we first started.

1/3/2011 12:17:31 PM

i've had times during hymn sings that from when the song was selected, I was able to pull the lyrics down from SongSelect Lyric Service and get the lyrics up on the screen during the first line of singing.

1/3/2011 2:45:06 PM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 03 Jan 2011 12:17 PM
i've had times during hymn sings that from when the song was selected, I was able to pull the lyrics down from SongSelect Lyric Service and get the lyrics up on the screen during the first line of singing.

We need to get a video capture of that for an In Action post!

1/3/2011 7:48:18 PM

Now if Joel can begin downloading the song before it is selected, I want to get in on it!!   

1/4/2011 7:27:33 AM

Well, I can tell you that there is no fancy, schmancy formatting. And if the verses or any lines are long, the text is tiny, because there are no page breaks and only the default line breaks.

I have to admit, hymn sings were MUCH easier when I had the SongSelect 3.0 database in SSP, because the hymns were all just there.

Fortunately or not, spontaneous hymn sings seem to be a thing of the past. And the worship leaders really don't go to a random song that I don't already have in the data base.

1/4/2011 7:34:19 AM

Posted By Doug Reece on 03 Jan 2011 02:45 PM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 03 Jan 2011 12:17 PM
i've had times during hymn sings that from when the song was selected, I was able to pull the lyrics down from SongSelect Lyric Service and get the lyrics up on the screen during the first line of singing.

We need to get a video capture of that for an In Action post!

Welcome to every single event that I do projection for. You get used to it. I've pulled so many hat tricks... when a song is broken into in impromptu, getting the lyrics up on screen just by the first few bars. My kingdom for a intelligent octopus!

1/6/2011 7:38:43 PM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 04 Jan 2011 07:27 AM
Well, I can tell you that there is no fancy, schmancy formatting. And if the verses or any lines are long, the text is tiny, because there are no page breaks and only the default line breaks.

I have to admit, hymn sings were MUCH easier when I had the SongSelect 3.0 database in SSP, because the hymns were all just there.

Fortunately or not, spontaneous hymn sings seem to be a thing of the past. And the worship leaders really don't go to a random song that I don't already have in the data base.

So far all of our song services have been songs that are in our system. I guess if we did it on a regular basis, and I was to get a song we don't already have formated, I would add in a program specific format of two lines and background improv with a default image or video. I would drop in quickly downloaded songs after that Display Properties Item, and songs already in our system before that Display Properties Item.

5/12/2011 8:39:57 AM

Posted By Lucas Daly on 04 Jan 2011 07:34 AM

Posted By Doug Reece on 03 Jan 2011 02:45 PM

Posted By Joel Osborn on 03 Jan 2011 12:17 PM
i've had times during hymn sings that from when the song was selected, I was able to pull the lyrics down from SongSelect Lyric Service and get the lyrics up on the screen during the first line of singing.

We need to get a video capture of that for an In Action post!

Welcome to every single event that I do projection for. You get used to it. I've pulled so many hat tricks... when a song is broken into in impromptu, getting the lyrics up on screen just by the first few bars. My kingdom for a intelligent octopus!

Lucas, if you pull off too many hat tricks, people start to believe, and expect, that you are a magician - every week, all the time. You've got to make it look hard occasionally. Watch some old Star Trek movies and watch how Scottie handles it: "Captin' I canna have that for ye for at least two hours..." 

Our worship leader gives me a list of songs for the service about 1 hour before service begins so I can put together the program. Most of the time he sticks with the plan. But on those days when he wanders off the range and grabs an impromptu praise song, I'm struggling to keep up, especially if I don't recognize the song introduction he's playing.
Does anybody have any tips for how the worship leader can send a clue, (a secret message, a paper airplane, anything!) across the sanctuary to give me a hint as to which song he's playing?

5/12/2011 9:36:21 AM

Posted By Sue on 12 May 2011 08:39 AM

Does anybody have any tips for how the worship leader can send a clue, (a secret message, a paper airplane, anything!) across the sanctuary to give me a hint as to which song he's playing?

That's the tricky bit. And for me, my brain usually locks up and I can't identify the song until the chorus, although I could normally identify it from the intro.

I think the only good way is for the worship leader to orally introduce the song. Work it into a sentence to the congregation like "We're all here today to worship him because He Is Risen"

5/12/2011 11:45:02 AM

Posted By Sue on 12 May 2011 08:39 AM
Does anybody have any tips for how the worship leader can send a clue, (a secret message, a paper airplane, anything!) across the sanctuary to give me a hint as to which song he's playing?

I guess one of the good things about having a worship band (as opposed to a worship leader and an organist/piano player) is that the band needs to rehearse. My advise would be to attend rehearsals and get your presentation worked out then... doing that has made a world of difference for us. But, if he is changing things on the fly during the service.. my suggestion would be simple: talk to the worship leader. Communicate clearly that if you don't have a list of songs in advance, you cannot guarantee that the words will be on the screen in time or at all and that that will distract from the worship. And if you get the standard "being led by the Spirit" answer.. You should suggest that he pray that the Spirit leads earlier in the week!    He is able!

5/12/2011 2:31:17 PM

You should suggest that he pray that the Spirit leads earlier in the week!

That's great, I love it.

5/12/2011 3:57:39 PM

I've said it before, but here goes again. I'm diligent in attending the worship practice and carefully program what the WL says they're going to sing and how. After that it's up to her to follow what she planned or suffer the consequences of the congregation not being on the same page with her. I simply tell her that what's on the monitor is what the church is singing regardless of what the worship team is doing. They have gotten the idea and seldom sing anything different from the "script" without some warning like, "Let's sing the 1st verse again," etc. To say they're just doing as the "Spirit leads" is a cop-out in my estimation. What if the projector operator proceeded as the "Spirit leads" rather than according to the pre-established plan (which I assume the Spirit did lead in producing). The biggest factor leading to some of these changes w/o notification is that the congregation never thinks that the WL is wrong, but that the projectionist messed up!

PS The WL leader and I get along extremely well now that we both know what we're suppose to do.