She has loved worship music and being part of church choirs and worship teams for as long as she can remember. She has worked hard to hone her guitar, vocal, keyboard, leadership and team-building skills so she’s equipped to excel in the role she’s always wanted: becoming the primary worship leader at Covenant Community Church.
Along the way, Elena became aware of CCLI and all they offer worship leaders like her. It began when Elena read a mailer from CCLI that talked about the common activities in church music ministries that could potentially be serious violations of U.S. Copyright Law. There was even a church in Chicago back in the mid-1980s that got sued for over $3 million for illegally photocopying church music. But CCLI’s Copyright License covers many of those activities—like storing song lyrics on a computer and projecting them onto a screen, printing song sheets and bulletin inserts, making custom arrangements for the musicians and vocalists, and recording the worship service.
Along the way, Elena became aware of CCLI and all they offer worship leaders like her. It began when Elena read a mailer from CCLI that talked about the common activities in church music ministries that could potentially be serious violations of U.S. Copyright Law.
The optional coverage for Rehearsal copies allows Elena to legally share audio copies of the latest worship releases for the musicians and vocalists to learn—through the worship planning software that connects the whole worship team. And since Covenant Community Church is now streaming their worship services on the church website, CCLI’s added coverage for streaming allows Elena to legally include her worship set as part of the webcast.
That takes care of the licensing and permissions side. But as Elena discovered, there’s so much more to CCLI.
Many times a week, Elena will access SongSelect, the subscription service available to churches that have a CCLI license. SongSelect provides lyric downloads and transposable chord sheets, lead sheets and vocal sheets for thousands of the top worship songs in CCLI’s database. There are many ways to access SongSelect, and Elena uses all of them—directly into the website through her desktop computer in their church office and also seamlessly through the API connection from her worship planning software. When Elena’s out-and-about, she also has access to all of SongSelect’s features through her phone or iPad. She can start planning next week’s worship set from a nearby park bench, on the river or miles into her favorite bike path. Everything’s right there at her fingertips.
From CCLI’s monthly e-newsletters, Elena discovered her new-favorite worship resource on the web: InWorship. She loves the blogs and articles from the top worship publications and blogs, along with CCLI’s own staff writers and guest writers like Paul Baloche, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Jennie Lee Riddle. There are also great new song videos and plenty of instructional videos for her and her teams.
And at a recent worship conference, Elena attended a fascinating workshop hosted by CCLI, examining and discussing the various worship trends based on an historical look at CCLI’s lists of top worship songs through the years.
As she reflects on all the things that CCLI provides, Elena marvels at how many good things can come from just deciding to do things right.
