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Service planning

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How to plan a service, Bible study or meeting in FrameDecks, from a blank page or from Excel.

Who this is for: worship leaders, small-group leaders and whoever prepares the order of service each week.

On this page

Think in Frames

A Meeting is your service or meeting. It is made of Frames, in order. Each Frame is one moment the congregation or group sees, and it holds the Content for that moment.

During the meeting you move from one Frame to the next with Frame ▶, on the PC or the phone.

Tip: Make one Frame for each change of screen. If the screen should change, it is a new Frame. If only the question changes, it is the next item in the same Frame's Question list.

A typical order of service

Frame Suggested Content Notes
Welcome Text ("Welcome to {meeting}"), Timer counting down to the start, Icebreaker {meeting} shows your Meeting Name
Worship Text with the lyrics, or a PowerPoint of the lyrics See Planning worship lyrics today
Scripture Reading Scripture with the passage Fetch ESV text, or type any translation
Message / Discussion Question list, Scripture list, Discussion topic, Poll, or PowerPoint slides Your talking points go in the Teleprompter script
Prayer Prayer Point
Announcements Text, Image
Closing Text, Branding (your logo and Meeting Name)

Three ways to start

1. Quick Start

  1. Select the ✨ Meeting button next to + Frame.
  2. Choose Quick Start….
  3. Pick a ready-made meeting, for example Sunday Service, Bible Study, Youth Service or Conference.
  4. The Frames appear in their own group. Rename, change or delete any of them.

2. From your own template

If you saved a Frame as a template (see Frames), it appears in the Meeting menu under From your templates.

3. From scratch

  1. Select + Frame for each part of the service. Each new Frame is blank and goes after the selected one.
  2. Name each Frame (double-click its name or press F2, type, then Enter).
  3. Select a Frame, then + Content, and add what it needs. See Content.

Organize your Frames

  • Groups: put a whole service in one group, for example Romans · Week 5. Set it in Content Settings → Frame → Group, or from the Frame's ⋯ menu → Move to group….
  • Order: drag Frames in the list, or use ⋯ → Move up / Move down.
  • Favourites: star the Frames you reuse often, then use the Favorites filter.
  • Search: type in Search Frames, or press Ctrl+K (or Ctrl+Space) to open the command palette and find anything. See Presentations.
  • Several at once: Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click Frames to select several, then drag, copy (Ctrl+C), paste (Ctrl+V), duplicate (Ctrl+D) or delete them. See Frames.
  • Library: the Library filter shows ready-made Frames you can add.

Reuse last week's service

  1. Open the ⋯ menu on a Frame (or select it and press Ctrl+D).
  2. Choose a duplicate option:
    • Duplicate: an exact, fully independent copy;
    • Duplicate & edit question: copies the Frame and opens its question for editing;
    • Duplicate with options…: choose what to copy (Content, layout, branding, animations, transitions, output routing);
    • Duplicate Content structure only: the same Content, with empty lists;
    • Duplicate to group…: copies it straight into another group, such as next week's.
  3. Change the copy. The original is never affected.

Note: A duplicate shares nothing with the original. Editing a question in the copy never changes last week's service.

Notes for the leader

Each Frame has one Teleprompter script: what you plan to say while that Frame is on screen. Only you see it. It is never shown on any output.

Where you write it Where you read it during the meeting
Content Settings → Frame → Teleprompter script, or double-click the text in the Teleprompter Program → Teleprompter (R), the Teleprompter window on a second screen, or the phone remote's Teleprompter

Use # Heading, - bullet, **bold**, *italic*, [PAUSE] and --- to make it easy to read at a glance. See Presentations.

Note: Before 6.7 this was called Leader notes, and questions and scriptures had their own Answer and Notes. Those are no longer shown anywhere, but they are kept in your data. Older workbooks still import: their answers and notes go into the Frame's Teleprompter script.

Plan in Excel with the Meeting Workbook

Excel is optional. The Meeting Workbook is useful when one person plans the service and another runs it, or when you want to type a whole series of questions at once.

Two tabs: Dashboard and Meeting Form

Since 6.9 the workbook has just two tabs.

Meeting Form is where you type. It is one page, read from top to bottom, in numbered sections:

Section What you fill in
1 · Meeting details Meeting name, Date, Time, Location / link, Meeting notes
2 · Speaker Speaker name, Speaker contact
3 · Attendees Expected attendees, Attendee notes
4 · Presentation Presentation owner, Content notes
5 · Frames A table: one row per Frame (name, purpose, background, transition, presenter script)
6 · Content A table: what each Frame shows, in order
7 · Discussion questions A table: the questions of each Question item
8 · Scripture readings A table: the scriptures of each Scripture item
9 · Additional notes Anything else: equipment, follow-ups, prayer requests
  • Type in the cream boxes. Tab moves to the next box.
  • Type the date like 2026-10-25 and the time like 19:00.
  • Many cells have a drop-down list (Content type, Background, Transition, Animation and so on). Pick from it.
  • Each table shows a few empty rows. Need more? Select the + button in the left margin to open the next rows.

Dashboard fills itself in from the Meeting Form. You never type on it, and it is never imported. It shows the meeting at a glance: how many days to go, the counts of Frames, Content, questions and scriptures, a Readiness checklist, Quick actions that jump into the form, a Content mix chart, and a Recent meetings log. Add a row to that log after each meeting, and the meeting tiles count them.

Full details are in reference/meeting-workbook-and-branding.md.

Since 6.11 the same form is on the FrameDecks website: Meeting Form in the companion (framedecks.com). It reaches a linked PC by itself, with no file to import (design). The Excel workbook below still works; it is under Settings → Data / Backup → Meeting from Excel and leaves the program in a later version, once the website form has been tested in a real meeting.

Import a meeting

  1. Settings → Data / Backup → Meeting from Excel → Download the Excel template, then fill in the Meeting Form tab.
  2. Import a meeting from Excel… (same place) and choose the file.
  3. Read the preview. It lists the Frames and Content that will be made, and every problem with where it is, for example Meeting Form · Content · row 26. Fix problems in Excel and import again.
  4. Choose Append (add to what you have) or Replace.
  5. Changed your mind? Undo the last Excel import (same place in Settings).

Workbooks from earlier versions (one sheet per list, from 6.5 to 6.8, or the 6.2 one-sheet template) still import.

Export a meeting

Export this meeting (Excel) (Settings → Data / Backup → Meeting from Excel) saves the same Dashboard and Meeting Form, filled in, to your Downloads folder. You can edit that file and import it again, or give it to a co-leader.

Important: After an import, the app is the source of truth. The Excel file is not linked. Changes you make in the app do not go back into the file; export again to get an up-to-date copy.

Note: Audio and Web Page rows are accepted but skipped with a note, because those Content types are not available yet.

Export to PowerPoint

Meeting → Export this meeting to PowerPoint saves the whole service as a .pptx that anyone can open, print or send. The file is made on this PC and never uploaded.

  • Slides. A title slide, then one slide per Frame in order (templates are left out), in FrameDecks navy and gold.
  • Words. Each Frame's scripture (reference and text), questions, and announcement, prayer or text Content, as editable text.
  • Media. Its pictures from this PC; videos, audio and PDFs by name.
  • Notes. Each Frame's Teleprompter script as the speaker notes.

Planning worship lyrics today

FrameDecks does not have a song library yet. A dedicated song library is on the roadmap. Today, churches show lyrics in one of two ways:

  1. Text Content: one Frame per verse or chorus. Add + Content → Text, give it a title (the song name) and type the words. Duplicate the Frame for the next verse and change the words; step through with Frame ▶.
  2. PowerPoint or PDF: add your existing lyric slides with + Content → PowerPoint… and step through the slides with Page Up / Page Down or the phone.

Important: Make sure your church has the right licence to project the songs you use. FrameDecks does not track or report song usage.

Weekly planning checklist

  • Duplicate last week's service into a new group, or start from Quick Start.
  • Update every Frame name so the volunteer running it knows what comes next.
  • Add this week's questions and scriptures, and write each Frame's Teleprompter script.
  • Preview each Frame on the Studio Canvas (select it; the badge says PREVIEW).
  • Check spelling by double-clicking cards on the canvas.
  • Add any videos, images and PowerPoint files, and check they open.
  • Hand over: tell the service operator the group name, or export the Meeting Workbook for them.