Sing to him a new song—and for Pete's sake, use a new font! One of my pet peeves is the way song lyrics are displayed in worship. Why is it that many churches, otherwise doing great creative visual stuff, get to the music portion of worship and revert to dull, lifeless presentation styles? I wish I could help them see there can be power even in the presentation of song lyrics. "Praise & Worship" (as many refer to it) should not be a time to abandon all of the creative stuff that is put into the other parts of worship. Instead, "praise and worship" (P & W) time can be an opportunity to extend creativity even further. What does this look like?

Let's start with the basics. Here are a few key points to remember as you produce song slides for worship:

Font choice. Helvetica and Arial, although very readable, are not terribly inspiring fonts. Feel free to be creative, but don't go overboard; readability is important. If you have a graphic that has a "techno feel," use a "techno" font; a "warm fuzzy feel" needs a "scripty" font; a "gritty feel" should have a "rough/corroded" font; and so on. Picking a normal, "system" font will leave you with a case of the blahs come P & W time. Look on the Web for freeware fonts, or buy one of those 2000 Wacky Fonts CDs. There are bound to be a few keepers in the mix.

Graphic Backgrounds. Sometimes at church, I see inspiring graphics leading up to and after P & W, but during that time, I'm faced with gradient backgrounds, solid colors, and entirely new images that relate in no way to the imagery created for the service. Other times, churches end up putting words over an image that makes it impossible to read anything. You've heard the phrase "Can't see the forest for the trees." Well, sometimes I can't see the lyrics through the trees! How do you alleviate this problem? I've developed a simple technique to create the main worship graphics I create and make song backgrounds from them:

1. Open the main graphic.
2. Take out any words on the graphic.
3. Apply a Gaussian blur.
4. Adjust brightness and contrast to separate the text from the image. It's also a good idea to use a drop shadow or glow to further help separate your lyrics from the background.

Font size. Stick with a consistent font size. I went to a church a while back that had a different size for every line of a song. I felt like I was staring at a flashing buffet sign in Vegas. It was very distracting to say the least, and after a while I felt like I was starting to see double. A good rule of thumb is to use at least 28- to 30-point type as a minimum size. And of course your screen size does make a difference.

Other various distractions: PowerPoint can be a dangerous tool in the hands of a special effects wannabe. Text flying in circles, shooting in from the left, falling from the top—that kind of sensory overload can make keeping up with the musicians feel like running on a treadmill stuck on high. My advice (and I'm bound to offend someone with this) is to forget that those effects even exist. I love a good special effect as much as the next guy, but in this case, simple is better.

As I produce graphics, the main thing I try to keep in mind is the experience of those who will view the graphics. I feel an enormous responsibility every time I create an image that has a bearing on how others will see God. That goes for sermon slides, announcements, and even song lyrics. You, too, may share that humbling responsibility, so ask yourself if you've done your best for every piece you've produced for this weekend's worship.

Adapted from "Sing a New Song" on MidnightOilProductions.com. Copyright Midnight Oil Productions. Used by permission.