It wasn’t long ago that if your church wasn’t blessed with a team of musicians, your choice of music for your congregational singing was fairly limited.

Fixed backing tracks offered a simple solution, but could be hard to follow, with no flexibility. And while more sophisticated solutions existed, they required a level of technical know-how that made them inaccessible to most churches.

Fast forward a few years and the number of churches relying on tracks to either supplement or stand in for a worship band has grown significantly. But for those wanting something more flexible
than lyric videos, is there another way?

According to Matt McCoy, worship leader, songwriter, and founder of Loop Community, there definitely is. In 2020, Loop joined with CCLI in a family of organisations who now work together to equip and empower churches in their worship. We recently caught up with Matt to learn more about Loop Community, and how churches can get started with customisable tracks, often called multi-tracks.

Matt, firstly, tell us who you are, and what Loop Community is.

I’ve been a worship leader and songwriter for most of my life and I’ve always been passionate about music and technology. I started LoopCommunity.com to be a platform where worship leaders could legally upload and share their multi-tracks with each other. Now we have the largest catalogue of tracks for worship music. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, I know that budgets can be tight for the majority of churches. I wanted to create quality and affordable resources that help facilitate worship for all churches and budgets.

What makes Loop’s tracks different?

Quite simply, they’re backing tracks that you control. Where a basic backing track is just all of the instruments on one file, a multi-track separates each instrument. You can change the key and tempo of tracks, customise the arrangement, and more. They can be used in place of musicians, or supplement your sound with instruments you don’t have.

Aren’t tracks just for big churches? Can you use them even if you don’t have much technical know- how?

I would encourage any worship leader, whatever their level, just to give them a try. When I first started using tracks, I remember feeling worried that I would never get the hang of it, or that it would distract me and the congregation if things went wrong. But you quickly get used to it, and it becomes second nature. We are also happy to help you get started and answer any questions. You can run tracks using Loop’s free Prime Multi-track App, the easiest way to run your tracks in worship.

What if your church doesn’t have any musicians?

You don’t need to be musical to run tracks using the Prime App. As long as you have a PA, you can plug your Mac, iPad, or iPhone directly into it. It’s really easy to use the App, but so much more flexible than fixed backing tracks.

Loop Community’s Prime App is free to download from the Apple App store and includes a free track of Amazing Grace so you can try it out! Learn how to use the Prime App here. Plus, CCLI customers
can save 25% off your first multi-track order in the Benefits section of your CCLI Profile.

To contact CCLI call 01323 436100, email uk@ccli.com or ccli.com