CCLI In Review

All of us peoples (Yes, I said peoples) involved in Worship on a weekly basis know about CCLI.  If you don’t, you’re missing out on a huge resource.  Before proceeding on reading this post, Chuck Norris says for you to check them out, or he’ll get you.  And your dog.  He’s not joking either.

 

CCLI stand for Christian Copyright Licensing International.  Basically it’s a service that is provided to churches (for a cost) to make them legal on displaying and distributing lyrics.  At our Church we have purchased the package that includes SongSelect, a place to go to find virtually any song in any key imaginable (except the key of ‘Z’…long story:ask my mother-in-law about the key of ‘Z’).  

 

CCLI For the Worship Leader:

CCLI has been a great asset to our church and a great addition to my worship toolbox.  If you are tired of looking for new songs and lead sheets, SongSelect is the package deal for you.  Using SongSelect, I can keep the songs that I want to learn bookmarked as “favorites” and access them when I’m ready.  I can change keys, listen to a short audio track of the song, and even hear a MIDI file play the notes from the lead sheet.  Excellent tool for today’s Worship Leader.  SongSelect also keeps track of your song usage so you can report to them and they can distribute royalties accordingly.

 

CCLI for the Songwriter:

As I sadly learned, it seems that CCLI is not created for the Songwriter as a means of getting your song accessible to other Worship Leaders.  I recently called CCLI about putting some of my original songs on SongSelect and all that is available to me is posting the lyrics.  I was wanting to do the whole she-bang.  Post my lyrics, sheet music, audio samples…everything.  Nope, they won’t do it.  Apparently if you’re just getting started with CCLI you do not get the privilege of sharing your sheet music until your song has been in the top 5000 songs downloaded.  Yes ladies and gentlemen that’s right; your song will only be able to be viewed in lyric form unless you are blessed enough to have your song in the top 5000 songs that are sang in churches across the planet.  I was astonished by this.  Bummer, no, double bummer.

 

 

All in all CCLI provides a great service for a great price for the Church.  If you want to stay legal and not take money from the authors of the songs that you sing, you should definitely check into CCLI as a means to stay compliant.  So do the right thing and sign up for an account today (only if you’re not a songwriter).  Your church will benefit greatly.