"…the hopless ones…" That’s what appeared on the screen at church during the singing portion of the service. The correct line should have read "the hopeless ones." Instead, the song appears to sing praise to the Lord who cares for those who cannot hop.
My church uses the EasyWorship software program for the church service video work – showing Power Point files, showing song lyrics, playing videos, etc. The software does everything. Everything, that is, that software can do. It doesn’t stop us from making mistakes such as botched song lyrics. "The hopless ones" has become a joke within a worship team and they sing it that way during practice. There have been other "on screen" errors. Just recently, the word "apart" was used instead of "a part." Big difference!
Spelling and grammar errors are avoidable. As the sound operator, you spend time before the service setting levels, EQ’ing channels, and checking input devices and batteries. When it comes to video content being reviewed, there can be a disconnect between what is expected from those who provide the video / slide files (song lyrics) and what is expected from the person who runs the video during the service.
I have found the best way to avoid spelling and grammar errors is by having the person in charge of the video to be present during the pre-service practice time. This way, they can go through the slides as the songs are being sung. They can note the order of the lyrics (verse 1, chorus, chorus, verse 2, etc) AND check for spelling errors in the songs. Once the songs are finished, they can also check for spelling and grammar problems within any other slides such as "upcoming event" or "today’s activities."
How much of that responsibility for spelling and grammar falls on the person who created said content? All of it. But let’s be real, errors get overlooked. "Apart" is a valid word so the spell checker isn’t going to catch it. I also recall a little visual trick. Read these three lines one time…
There are three
lines of text on
on this page.
Many people read it as:
There are three lines of text on this page.
But what was written was:
There are three lines of text on on this page.
A second set of eyes usually pick up the errors that another person has missed.
When it comes to something that will be shown to 50 or 50,000 people, do you really want them to sing the line "Jesus, my reader" instead of "Jesus, my redeemer?" If it’s on the screen, they will sing it that way.
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I'm Chris Huff and I've been working behind a mixer for over twenty years. Since 2008, I've been helping other sound techs learn all about the art of church audio through behindthemixer.com.
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I’m usually the first person to notice those things and that’s not even my primary job :-)
Although if your worship leader pronounces words incorrectly then you have a totally different issue. I still laugh every time we sing “Come Thou Fount”: “streams of mercy, never seizing” :-D
Tiffany, I have seen errors at many churches. Sometimes they are missed letters; “te” instead of “the” but other times, they do become funny.
I recently switched to Pro Presenter and had to reinput all of our songs as I wanted them reformatted from the media shout version. I ended up putting “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sing upon that cross”
The only explanation I could come up with is that if you listen to wrong music it would be appropriate lyrics.. anyway. not good.