Switching a Worship Team from Paper to Digital

February 24, 2026 ·

Uplift sounds like a great idea! No more mismatched slides and chord sheets. No more chopping down trees every week. No more worrying about where you are in your music, just play hands-free. Planning, performing, and presenting all in one unified platform.

Yet you may be asking, how do I actually transition my team to Uplift?

Good question. Well...keep reading, because we'll share our story of how Uplift was born and how we transitioned our worship team.

If we can do it, that means you can too!

Where We Started (Years and Years Ago)

Spoiler alert! We're using Uplift every single week. But that's where we ended up.

To make sense of this transition, we must start at the very beginning.

We started out perhaps like many churches out there using floor wedges and paper music. We also used presentation software for presenting the lyrics.

Bear in mind, this was years and years ago. So we experienced all the frustrations that come with the territory.

Mismatched chord sheets and slides were common. Printing chord sheets every week was a chore. Trying to stay together and in-time was a challenge because we didn't have a metronome.

That's not to say things didn't work...they did. However, we felt there was a better way.

Trying out a Click Track

Changes started rolling out as we had a transition in leadership. The first area that was explored was using a metronome.

Initially, our drummer used ear buds and had a click in his ears. This improved our timing a bit, we just had to follow the drummer. However, we considered the idea of what if the whole team had a metronome as well.

Another motivating factor in the next transition was the fact that we'd have cleaner audio if we eliminated our floor wedges and opted for in-ear monitors (IEMs).

From Wedges to In-Ears

After much consideration and deliberation, we took the plunge to upgrade our audio system by replacing our sound board and installing an in-ear monitor system.

Initially, we thought about easing into it, where we'd have both wedges and in-ears operating in parallel, but we decided to hard cut to the IEMs. Overall, it took some getting used to, but it wasn't too difficult.

At that time, we also started exploring using a click track (metronome) with the team to improve our timing.

Before with the wedges, a click track would have been impossible because everyone else would've heard it. But with the IEMs, it afforded us with that possibility because we'd be the only ones who would hear the click.

So we transitioned shortly after we got the new system up and running to using a click track as well.

After a while, we weren't impressed with some of the apps out there producing the click. Managing songs and set lists were hard, or the sounds weren't all that great. Or the apps would be updated and we'd lose features. So we decided to build our own.

The Birth of Uplift

Besides being passionate about music and worship, I'm a web developer. In fact, I taught myself web development starting in seventh grade, as well as obtaining a formal degree in it. All that to say, I decided to build a metronome web app for my team.

This was the birth of what would slowly emerge as Uplift. It's beginnings were humble, but after sorting out a few bugs it worked.

The core idea was that songs and tempos could be entered. A set could be created from the songs, and the set list allowed a good click sound to be played.

But we still experienced the issues with paper and unsynchronized presentations. But we decided to (slowly) change that.

From Sheets to Binders

The first step on our journey to digital music was actually improving our paper chord sheets.

While we were on our way to developing a digital music system, we first created the song editing process to start entering songs. And with songs entered, we could print them.

What this did for us was standardize our chord sheets. No longer were they coming from different sources or differing in appearance. Our music became clearer.

The other big step was transitioning to using binders. Instead of printing out the chord sheets every single week and wasting paper, we saved our chord sheets and would retrieve them from file when stuffing the binders.

The binders were nice. They worked. We put the chord sheets into sheet protectors and arranged it such that we wouldn't have to flip a page mid-song. Usually, music would be one to two pages.

Although our chord sheets became clearer, still digital music afforded us a better experience.

From Binders to Tablets

So finally after much development, we tried for the very first time digital chord sheets which automatically scrolled in real time.

This transition was not as fast as the previous ones. We ran into bugs and issues that needed solved. So it took some time before the prototype got stable enough to be relied upon.

But after it was stabilized, most of our team used it. There were still a few who didn't because the transition was hard. It took getting used to seeing the music scroll instead of following it with one's eyes. They would get lost when they'd look up and then glance back at the music. When it scrolled, they would lose their context.

The one feature that improved and encouraged adoption was highlighting. The lyrical lines and instrumental measures were highlighted in real time, so when we looked back at our music, we could find our place instantly. After that was implemented, everyone adopted it (mostly).

The final issue was the lyric slides were still another place to enter songs.

During rehearsals, we were still printing/using music for our vocalists because our tech crew had more important things to do than flipping through slides to provide lyrics on the back screen.

It was almost like we were doing more work than before implementing and transitioning to this system. But that's often the case with any form of transition.

So we decided to change that too and create an automatic presentation so our music and presented lyrics would stay in sync.

Incorporating Presentations

After some more development, a lightweight presentation feature was created. It was more so a confidence monitor than anything else. All it did was automatically display the current lyrics and scroll in real time.

That's it. No fancy graphics. No multimedia. Just lyrics.

However, that worked (of course after sorting out a few bugs) and removed the need to use paper music for our vocalists during rehearsal. Yet we were still using the other presentation software for our actual service. But that changed on one Christmas Eve.

We decided to use our "confidence monitor" as the lyric presentation for the Christmas Eve service. It was an opportunity to prove it could work for service. We weren't presenting too much multimedia, and figured the minimalistic appearance would be appropriate for the setting.

Although a rogue kettle almost blew the whole operation! You see, our sound gear and network equipment were on the same breaker as this kettle. When this kettle was turned on, too much power was being drawn and the breaker tripped...just minutes before service!

What this meant was our network connection went down, and so did our tablet connections too! Thankfully, we got it all back up and running just in time and the service went smoothly.

A few weeks after the service, our worship leader begged the question, why not transition to using the confidence monitor as our presentation, permanently?

After some discussion as to how we would still present multimedia and scripture, we decided to use the presentation feature in the prototype in service.

So with that, set list planning, performing with digital music, and presenting lyrics all became unified. The transition was finally (almost) complete.

From Prototype to Product

Uplift Systems Inc. was officially born at the start of 2025. So for that whole year, the official product was developed. We used the prototype version for about a year until we transitioned to the official version in October of 2025.

I took all that I had learned and the feedback I received and incorporated it into what is Uplift today.

This transition took years and years. The frustrations from paper music and wedge monitors eventually led down this path to IEMs, a click track, better chord sheets, digital music, synchronized presentations, and finally Uplift.

We rely on Uplift every single week and it makes the experience of worship easy. Planning, performing, and presenting has never been easier.

Yet this journey is not over. It has just begun.

There is much room for improvements, enhancements, and features for Uplift. We're excited where we're going, and we hope to bring you along too!

Lessons and Advice

So from our transition story, you may still be asking, how do I transition my team to Uplift?

First, we'll say take it slow. Don't introduce too many changes at once.

Although some can handle it, others might be easily overwhelmed. Just gauge your team, and involve them too! Get their input and advice. Discuss it with them.

As much as this was a transition in technology, it was perhaps more a transformation of character too. My team has been very gracious, willing, and receptive to the many changes over the years.

I learned to be gracious, patient, humble, and willing to receive pushback, criticism, and feedback.

It's worth saying, at the end of the day, worship isn't about the technology.

It's about your heart. And no amount of technology will make up for an unprepared heart for worship.

How to Make the Switch?

We make the switch to Uplift as easy as it can be. This is why you can try it for free today with no need to make an account or provide payment info. Just go to the web app and start using it.

If Uplift looks like something that can help your team worship better, we encourage you to try it out for yourself. The free version works great for solo use. You can try how easy it is to enter chord sheets, perform with digital music, and see what the presentation is like.

And if you're ready, you can upgrade to the paid version and use it with your whole team.

It's worth mentioning though, Uplift is not for everyone. It works great if you have in-ear monitors, like using a click track, and want your music and presentation to advance in real time.

It's still beneficial for keeping service plans, chord sheets, and lyric presentations in-sync even if you manually control it. However, it doesn't take full advantage of what Uplift offers.

So trying it out is the best way to see if Uplift is a good fit for you. And as always, please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to discuss it or have further questions!

But above the technology you use, our biggest desire is that you and your team worship unified and unhindered. If we help you accomplish that with Uplift, great! If not, great! Either way, we're here to help you do that and would love to connect with you.