| The SongPro Story It was in 1998 when we formed a new church fellowship, met in a school hall and produced a songbook for our own use, selecting songs which we were most likely to use. From time to time we added new songs to the collection and before too long some books were missing updates, and the location of the updates varied from book to book. |
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It was suggested that a better solution was to use PowerPoint on a PC connected to a large screen TV. After giving this some thought I decided a database solution would be better – this would be much more versatile than PowerPoint. As a computer programmer I decided to experiment, putting some ideas together which worked well then continued the development. Our small meetings at the school hall and mid-week meetings were ideal for testing each phase of the project and feedback was positive. No longer did we need to hold a songbook – this was hands-free worship!
Displaying song lyrics this way not only gave us more freedom in worship, but also gave the worship leader (when being led by the Spirit) more confidence, knowing that the operator of the system could display any part of the song and not necessarily conform to a fixed sequence of verses.
Using a database for the storage of the songs enables the use of a comprehensive search facility – songs can easily be found and displayed rapidly. This feature is invaluable for unplanned songs.
Due to the success of this project I was encouraged to market the product, so after making the necessary changes for it to become a commercial product I did a local presentation in a Rugby hotel – giving copies of the program to local churches and requesting feed-back in return.
Many positive comments and suggestions helped me to develop the product further.
From word-of-mouth recommendations and later website advertising the product has become very well known and accepted; now sold throughout the world and is number one preference in the UK.
From its first commercial release in 1999 many features have been added including up to 20 Bible versions – giving near instant access to any Bible reference.
Development continues as technology changes and users demand additional facilities. The development of the product has always been based upon customer feed-back.
Thanks to all at Grapevine Christian Fellowship for their support, prayers and encouragement – without them this would not have happened.
John Barrow
www.creationsoftware.com