CCLI is a resource and tool that your church needs to consider using. This tool is one that will save your church time and help you worship and do ministry while also protecting your church from legal issues. In this post I am going to present 10 tips that you need to know about CCLI that I hope will be helpful and beneficial to you and your church.
1. CCLI stands for CHRISTIAN COPYRIGHT LICENSING INTERNATIONAL
As the church we need to abide by copyright laws that are issued in our country. The Christian music that has been released in the past decades has been released by people who have worked and poured their lives into making music for the church.
We as the church need to abide by copyright licensing so that we can support and protect the work of these musicians. I believe that it is integral that we the church model holding to these laws and not abusing or breaking them. CCLI helps the church stay within the bounds of legality and allows us to do ministry without possibility of abusing the music we use in our church’s.
2. CCLI gives you access to a database of music instantly.
This database is a digital one that can be used in your church to help you minister to your church effectively. This database is composed of over 3,000 publishers. It’s a substantial database to help you find music for any worship service or event.
3. Mix and match what your church needs.
CCLI offers 3 distinct options. You can get a COPYRIGHT LICENSE to ensure your church is covered simply and legally. This license is tailored to your singing activities. Another service option is SONGSELECT which is a source of licensed content that draws from a library of more than 100,000 songs of worship. And the last service is CHURCH VIDEO LICENSE & SCREEN VUE. The Church Video License helps pastors legally convey the core ideas in their sermons and equips church programming and media directors with high-quality film and video content for worship programming and events. Screen Vue helps churches wanting to use video illustrations from movies.The point of all this is that you can get the services that you need for your church environment.
4. SONG SELECT is a TOOL that will help you in your role at your church.
I am going to list our some of the ways SONG SELECT is a tool below. But SONG SELECT will help you plan and prepare your band for worship and also will serve your production team. This tool is a time saver and is a blessing to my job and my church. Through SONG SELECT you can download and get lyric sheets for any song in their database (100,000 songs of worship). That right there is amazing. You can put your whole entire song library in digital form and not have to store books of music. This is a HUGE space saver, time saver (because you know where to go get the music), and a communication tool because you can take this music and put it in your service planning tool (I personally use PLANNING CENTER) and now your whole team has access to the music.
5. TRANSPOSE your music instantly
CCLI’s SONG SELECT allows you transpose the music you have picked into the desired key. It literally will do this for you by just selecting which key you want to download.
6. CHORD NUMBERING SYSTEM
This is for musicians, but SONG SELECT allows you to download chord/lyric sheets in the NUMBER SYSTEM which means you only need one chart for any key. This allows you to adapt and prepare for any last-minute changes.
7. MOBILE FRIENDLY
You can access SONGSELECT on your mobile device which makes it easier than ever to engage and use this service.
8. INTEGRATES INTO OTHER APPS WIDELY USED BY CHURCHES
SONGSELECT integrates with Planning Center Service, Worship Extreme, Onsong, Pro Presenter, and more.
9. Pro Presenter paired with Song Select is a GAME CHANGER
In Pro-Presenter there is a built in song select menu that allows you to search songs in the CCLI database, import & format into pro presenter, and keeps all your CCLI license information in the song so that you can display copyright info at the beginning and/or end of each song you play.
This tool saves your production team hours of time, so they don’t have to type the entire song. Instead they can import the song, edit the lyrics in anything needs to change, and then format for worship. They can spend more time crafting the songs for worship that typing the songs into the database.
10. Serving the Whole Church
CCLI serves not just the worship leaders of a church. Actually, this service serves the entire church. Worship leaders benefit from the many tools and resources, but Pastors have a message to share and CCLI can help you legally support that message through the use of media. And then CCLI helps your admin team ensure the your church is abiding by the rules and guidelines that we as believers desire to follow as we “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” and also support the many musicians who have gifted the church with great worship music to sing and worship our Savior with.
If you aren’t using CCLI I hope you will take a look at their website and present to your church how you could be using this service. I appreciate the work this company does to support the church and how they provide a product that benefits and protects us as believers.
Please reach out to me if you have any questions. I would love to be a resource for you and/or hear any of your feedback about this topic.
