Tips for churches

CueProX was built in a church context, and the product reflects that. This page isn't a walkthrough of individual features — it's practical advice for how to structure a typical weekly service so things actually run smoothly on Sunday morning.

Structure your service as one show, not multiple

A temptation when setting up for the first time is to create a separate show for each service element — one for pre-service, one for worship, one for the message. Don't.

One show with all your cues in order is easier to run, easier to hand off, and easier to duplicate for next week. The director advances through the list top to bottom. Splitting the service across multiple shows means the director has to switch between shows mid-service — more clicks, more chances for error.

Use cue titles and ordering to mark transitions:

• "Pre-service — waiting slide"
• "Welcome"
• "Worship 1 — Great Is Thy Faithfulness"
• "Worship 2 — ..."
• "Offering"
• "Sermon — passage title"
• "Response / prayer"
• "Closing"

This gives anyone sitting at the director's seat a clear picture of the entire service at a glance.

Worship cues and the stage output

The stage output (via the Stage Roster & Solos feature) shows musicians and vocalists which solos are active for the current cue. This is most useful for worship sets where the arrangement varies cue to cue — verse might be full band, bridge might be keys and vocals only.

A few setup habits that pay off:

• Add solos when you finalize arrangements, not when you're setting up the cue list. Solo assignments are attached to individual cues, so you can go back and fill them in any time before the show.
• Use instrument types accurately. The stage output shows icons by instrument type. "Keys" and "Piano" read differently on screen — pick the one your musicians recognize.
• If your worship set varies week to week, duplicate the show and update the song titles and solos rather than rebuilding. Most of the structure is the same; you're just swapping out the specifics.

Message segment

For a teaching segment, the cue typically covers a single passage or point. Some directors use multiple cues through the message — one per main point — so the stage output reflects where the presenter is.

If you don't need to split the message into multiple cues, a single "Sermon — [title]" cue is fine. The main value of a dedicated message cue is giving the stage monitor operator a clear signal that the context has shifted from worship to teaching.

Notes on sermon cues are useful for:

• The passage reference
• Any specific moment when the Q&A segment opens
• Anything the stage team or tech team needs to do at a specific point

Q&A in a church context

The most common church use is opening questions during or after the message. A few patterns that work well:

Pattern 1: Q&A opens at a defined point mid-message. The presenter reaches a section where they invite questions. The director opens Q&A from the seat, the moderator begins approving questions, and approved questions appear on the display. The presenter works through them, then the director closes Q&A and advances.

Pattern 2: Dedicated Q&A segment at the end. A separate cue for the Q&A segment gives the director a clean handoff point. Advance to the Q&A cue, open Q&A, run the segment, close Q&A, advance to closing.

Moderator role: The moderator's job is to read, filter, and approve questions before they appear on screen. In a church context this is usually a staff member or experienced volunteer who knows the context well enough to catch off-topic or inappropriate submissions. They don't need to be in the same room — the moderation panel is just a URL.

Multi-room services

If you run the same service in multiple rooms (main auditorium + overflow, campus A + campus B), each room should have its own room setup in CueProX with the correct output teams assigned.

You run one event, one show — but the output screens for each room are separate URLs. The teams assigned to each room determine what those screens show.

Common multi-room patterns:

• Main room gets full output (stage, front-of-house, presenter monitor)
• Overflow room gets a simplified output (just the current cue title and notes, no stage solos)
• Satellite campus gets a read-only output synced to the main show

Common mistakes

Building the cue list the morning of the show. Sunday morning is the worst time to realize a cue is missing or a solo is unassigned. Build and review the show by Saturday. Give yourself a clean morning.

One person running everything. Director + stage monitor operator + moderator is too many roles for one person. Even if you're understaffed, pull someone in for the moderator role during Q&A. The other two roles can overlap if needed, but moderation requires sustained reading focus.

Not testing the Q&A display before the service. The display is a separate URL on a separate device. It's easy to forget to check it. Open it on the presentation screen or TV before anyone sits down and send a test question through to confirm the layout looks right in the actual room.

Leaving the event running after the service. If you forget to stop the event, output screens stay live. Someone checking the stage output after the service will see the last active cue. Stop the event when you're done — it signals clean end-of-session to anyone still connected.

Volunteer-friendly setup

If you're handing off the director's seat to a volunteer (common in smaller teams), keep the setup straightforward:

• Keep cue titles self-explanatory. No codes, no abbreviations that require a key.
• Don't use timers for cues where the length is unpredictable (worship songs, open prayer). Use timers only where the duration is fixed and known in advance.
• Brief them on one thing: advancing a cue is a click. Everything else is read-only from their side.
• Leave notes on any cue where they need to do something specific — "open Q&A here", "wait for presenter signal", "advance at end of song".