Hey Volunteer: Shouldn't You Be Focusing on Sound, not Slides?
March 24, 2026 ·
If you're a volunteer on your church's tech team, first, thank you!
Second, you may find yourself wearing many hats.
Depending upon your setup, you may be running your sound board, switching cameras for your livestream, controlling lights, and flipping lyric slides.
That's a lot!
Wouldn't it be great if you could focus more on mixing, or on switching cameras, instead of clicking slides?
In this article, we want to share with you how Uplift can make that a reality.
Uplift can automate your lyric presentations so that you can focus more on what really matters.
The Issues with Slides
First, let's explore some of the issues all too familiar with traditional slide-based presentations.
Actually Running Them
In most cases, the blatant fact of the matter is that you have to manually run the presentation.
You have to click through the slides in order to present them. This takes you away from doing more pressing or important things.
For instance, instead of fully focusing on mixing, you're juggling slides during a song.
Or if you even have to run through slides during rehearsals, you're taken away from tasks like setting up the livestream or sound check.
Maybe, you're even checking over the lyrics to make sure they're entered right and matches what the team is doing.
And that leads us into the next problem...
Last-Minute Lyric Changes
Don't you dread the moment your worship leader calls out, "Hey, can you repeat that chorus?" or, "Let's change that lyric 'cause I don't like what it says."
These last-minute lyric changes are just as distracting and honestly, annoying.
When there's a mismatch between what they're doing and what the slides say, you're usually the one to fix it.
Again, like the previous problem, this distracts you from doing what you should be doing.
Reprogramming Timing
It may be the case your presentation does automatically advance. That's great to hear!
However, there's at least two methods you could be using to accomplish that. And there's even issues with those!
The first method is simply using built-in timers and spelling out how many seconds (or milliseconds) until the next slide.
This may work well, but timing has to be pretty precise.
Let's say your worship leader throws a curveball and wants to change lyrics, arrangement, or even tempo. This means you'll have to reprogram your slide timing.
Although it saves you from clicking slides during service, it creates more work upfront, and especially when things change.
The second method is using MIDI signals to advance the slides.
This works better than the first because it's tempo-synced, so tempo changes will be reflected.
However, if arrangement is changed, your slides and what they have in terms of cues better be aligned, otherwise you'll have some really weird slide changes.
MIDI acts as just a signal, it doesn't know where you're actually supposed to be. So it's still up to you to make sure the presentation is in the right place.
How Uplift Is Better
We just explored three problems with traditional, slide-based lyric presentations. Now we'll show you how Uplift solves each one.
Lyrics Automatically Advance
First and foremost, Uplift automatically advances the presentation if the timing information is entered.
You don't have to touch a thing. No clicking. No navigating.
Just pull it up and the worship leader can control the rest.
This is a huge win because it spares you from having to check over slides, click through them during rehearsal and service, and making sure you're in the right place.
With Uplift, you're actually allowed to focus on other things like mixing, setting up the livestream, tweaking lights, and a myriad of other tasks, because it's fully automatic.
Lyrics Stay In-Sync
Remember those annoying last-minute lyric changes?
With Uplift, you'll never have to fix slides ever again!
If your leader wants to repeat a section, or change a lyric, they can do so and edit their music. When they edit their music, not only does the entire team's music update, but the lyric presentation too.
Since their music and your presentation all come from the same place, it's never out-of-sync. What they're using to perform with matches what's being displayed to the congregation.
So, you never have to check over slides or worry about last-minute changes throwing off your whole morning prep.
Rearranging or Tempo Changes Stay In-Sync
Finally, where other automation techniques fall short, Uplift executes better.
Since timing information is entered in terms of beats and measures (similar to the MIDI technique), tempo changes aren't going to throw lyric timing off.
And since any changes or rearrangements are reflected lyrically, they're reflected musically too. The timing stays in-sync.
You don't have to worry about reprogramming a presentation's whole timing because of a little change. Again, what the worship team has in terms of music is what the presentation has.
And as a bonus, if they ever get extremely off click, you can always jump in and manually control the presentation. But that's a rare occurrence!
Ready to Mix, not Click?
If the problems of manually running the presentation, having to make lyric changes, and having to reprogram slide timing sound all to familiar, why not try Uplift?
With Uplift, you'll never (*most of the time) have to click that right arrow key ever again, check over lyrics and update them when changes are made, and reprogram your whole presentation timing.
We want (and very much appreciate) you to help your worship team worship unhindered, and you play such an integral role in that.
Wouldn't it be great if you could focus more on what's really important instead of flipping slides? That reality can be yours with Uplift.
You can try it for free just to get a taste of what the presentation looks like.
And when you're convinced, you can upgrade to the paid version and reap the benefits of having your lyrics advance automatically.
So let us help you help your team by taking one thing off your plate, one less hat to wear, which will let you focus more on what truly matters: worship.