5 Worship Arts Myths

Everybody in church has advice about the worship, and many people share their opinion eagerly. For every good piece of advice you receive, you’re bound to hear a myth or two. Here are some of our favorites—explained and debunked.

1. Louder music is better, but it will offend the older people.

More volume can make your music harder to ignore, but that’s about it. It won’t necessarily make it better or even more impactful. You have to make it good before you turn it up. When you do push the fader up to the red line, make sure you’re doing it for a reason. Music over 110 dB is like wasabi—only use a little, and time it right. If you do, you’ll hear comments about the song’s power rather than its volume. Skillfully mixed sound doesn’t offend anybody.

2. When the music seems too loud, I should turn it down.

Before turning anything down, you should know how loud it is (not how loud it seems). Use a dB meter every week. Answer feelings with facts, and set the volume levels on purpose.

3. Everybody uses online image searches to find art for their worship services. I can do it too.

Copyright laws are confusing and make it hard to know what is and isn’t fair to use. But stealing is wrong, even if it’s done accidentally. Luckily, Proclaim comes loaded with more than $1,000 worth of multimedia resources. And you can grow your library even more with a Pro Media subscription. You shouldn’t ever have to search the Internet for background stills again.

4. I’ll have to type out the lyrics of every song once, but not again after that.

Actually, Proclaim’s compatibility with CCLI SongSelect ensures you won’t even have to type song lyrics the first time. Just search the massive, and ever-growing SongSelect database right from Proclaim.

5. If you want to do worship arts right, you need a Mac.

At the risk of enraging some of my Apple-laden compatriots, that’s not true. Proclaim is cross-platform, meaning it works the same on both Mac and PC. All of the connected third-party applications are web-based, so you can plan and execute a high-quality church presentation on your operating system of choice.

What other worship arts myths have you encountered? Tell us in the comments.