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If you’ve ran slides at church, you know that it can be one of the most stressful tasks that it takes to pull off a worship service. There is a lot of pressure when you’re responsible for displaying the correct song lyrics, Bible verses, and sermon points for an entire crowd of people. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are six simple ways that you can cut the stress and make your serving experience more enjoyable.

1. Come Prepared

Having a plan for your service is a great start to relieving some stress. Meet or have a quick call with your worship leader and pastor during the week to plan out your order of service. This allows your tech team to prepare in advance for the weekend rather than waiting until the last minute. If you’re unable to confirm all of these service details, you can at least assemble your presentation elements ahead of time, such as worship backgrounds, countdowns, and videos.

2. Rehearse Your Service

Before your congregation arrives for service on Sundays, it’s a great idea to run through the entire order of service. This allows your worship, tech, and speaking teams to practice all of the transitions, cues, announcements, key points, and scriptures together. If everyone at your church will not commit to this, your tech ministry can still go through their service elements ahead of time. Without rehearsal, things may not go smoothly in service and your audience will see that you’re unprepared.

3. Avoid Last Minute Changes

Whether we like it or not, last-minute changes and additions to our service orders, sermons, and worship sets are sometimes unavoidable. But, do everything that you can in preparation to avoid them. It’s a good practice to check in with your worship leader and speaking pastor as service approaches to make sure that you’re on the same page. This allows you to make changes while things are still somewhat calm. If not, you’ll end up having to make stressful changes in the moment.

4. Take Breaks During The Day

It’s important to take care of yourself–even in busy moments. Budget time to take breaks before and after services. This allows you to take a moment to breathe, relax and get ready. Pack some drinks, breakfast, or snacks to keep you energized. If you don’t properly care for yourself, you will not be at your best to get your job done or interact with others.

5. Remain Focused In The Moment

During service, it is important that you remain focused on what’s happening on stage and your presentation software. Don’t allow others to distract you while running slides. You are there for a purpose and people are counting on you! It is also important that you don’t distract yourself with your cell phone or other devices. If you cannot remain focused, you will not be able to give God your best when you serve.

6. Plan For Spontaneous Worship

Some worship teams are more spontaneous than others. This isn’t a bad thing, but can sometimes be tricky when running slides if you don’t know where the worship team is going. To help with this, familiarize yourself with the songs as much as possible. This will make it easier to follow along with the song if they go off-script. When in doubt, keep the screen blank or ask someone who might be more familiar with the song to take over. Without these precautions, you’ll just end up frustrated that they didn’t go exactly by the plan.

What Do You Think?

Do you follow any of these recommendations? What else would you add to the list? Let us know by leaving a comment down below.

Kendall Conner

What do you get when you combine production, design, and communications together with a passion for the Church? It turns out, this is the precise formula to make up Kendall Conner. For over 20 years, this Christ-led creative has been bridging the gap between media and ministry. In addition to serving as the creative pastor in his local church, he is the Chief of Operations for Church Motion Graphics, a ministry-focused design studio that serves thousands of houses of worship around the globe. Kendall specializes in equipping church media leaders and volunteers to utilize creativity in their services to share the hope of Jesus.

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