Skip to content
Blink Brief
Language:

Guide · Events and stages

A countdown timer before the church service: ProPresenter, EasyWorship, PowerPoint or a browser

By Blink Brief · Updated  · How pages are made

ProPresenter, EasyWorship and WorshipTools Presenter each have a countdown that runs to the service's start time; set it to the time of day, put it on the audience screen, and start it. In PowerPoint, a countdown video on a looping slide show does the job. With no presentation software, a browser timer full screen on the projector counts down a set number of minutes, with a line such as "Until the service starts" under the time.

Short answer

  • ProPresenter: Timers › Countdown to Time, a theme with a text box, a message with the timer token.
  • EasyWorship: Edit › Options › Service Intervals, then a message alert with the "Countdown to Service Start" token.
  • WorshipTools Presenter: the clock icon in an open service, then Countdown to Time.
  • Nothing installed: a browser timer full screen, set to the minutes left.

ProPresenter: a Countdown to Time on the audience screen

Renewed Vision's guides are still titled "ProPresenter 7", while the download page lists 21.4 as the current release and 22 as a beta dated November 3, 2026. The steps below are from those guides; check the labels in your version.

1. The timer

  1. Open Timers: click the Timers button in show controls, or select it from the View menu.
  2. Add a timer and set it to Countdown to Time, which Renewed Vision says is for a countdown that must "reach zero at a specific time of day". Enter the service's start time.
  3. Leave Overrun off if the countdown should stop at zero. With it on, the countdown runs "past the defined endpoint".

2. The theme and the message

  1. In Themes, make a new theme with a text box for the time. The guide puts "5:00" in it as a placeholder.
  2. Open Messages from show controls and make a new message. Use Add a Token to put the timer in it, then choose the theme.
  3. Click Show to put the message on the audience screen.

3. Starting it

The guide says "You will still need to use one of the covered methods to start the timer": a header in the playlist, an action on a slide (not on a looping slide), or straight from Timers or Messages. A Props action shows the timer but doesn't start it.

EasyWorship: Service Intervals and "Countdown to Service Start"

EasyWorship's only official write-up of this is a blog post from February 2019, before EasyWorship 8 came out in June 2026. Its steps:

  1. Set the service times in Edit › Options › Service Intervals.
  2. Click Alerts, then Message Alerts › Create/Edit alert template….
  3. Insert the token Countdown to Service Start, which "will insert a countdown to the start of service". Pick the format: nn:ss, hh:nn, hh:nn:ss or hh:nn{ss}.
  4. Tick Allow Overrun only if you want the clock to keep "counting with a negative time" after the start.

EasyWorship's current help sits behind a sign-in, so these labels couldn't be checked against EasyWorship 8.

WorshipTools Presenter: the clock icon and Countdown to Time

  1. Open a service. The countdown belongs to a service.
  2. Click the clock icon at the bottom right, then +.
  3. Choose Countdown to Time and set the start time. The other choices are Count down from a set length and Count up.
  4. Save it, click the screen icon, then play to send it to the main audience output.

An older WorshipTools page gives More › Countdown or F6; it is marked as a legacy version, and the current page above has neither.

PowerPoint or Google Slides: a looping countdown slide or video

Neither app has a countdown to a time of day. What works is a countdown video on a slide, and in PowerPoint a slide show that loops the announcements before it.

  1. On the Slide Show tab, select Set Up Slide Show, then Browsed at a kiosk (full screen), which "Loops your slide show until the person watching presses Esc."
  2. On the Transitions tab, pick a transition, select After, enter the seconds each slide stays, and select Apply to All.
  3. When the loop should give way to the countdown, press Esc and start the countdown slide.

A countdown made of PowerPoint animations suits 10 seconds, not 5 minutes; countdown timers in PowerPoint has those steps. In Google Slides, a countdown video from Google Drive set to Play (automatically) works the same way: countdown timer in Google Slides without YouTube.

Countdown videos: free and paid libraries

Library Price on its own site Countdowns
Igniter Starter $25, Standard $55, Pro $85 a month, each for 1 year, paid monthly or yearly; a 30-day free trial From Standard, $55 a month ($660 for the year); not in Starter; 4 downloads in the trial
ProContent Free membership with 1,000+ free resources; Premium $199 a year plus a $99 sign-up fee Its FAQ names "ProPresenter Themes & Countdowns"

Read on each library's own page on 4 November 2026, in US dollars.

A countdown video has a fixed length. To end at the start time, start it exactly that many minutes before: a 5-minute video at 10:25 for a 10:30 service.

No presentation software: a browser timer with a message

Any laptop connected to the projector can run a timer in its browser. The one below is free, needs no sign-up, and sends nothing anywhere. The message box is filled in with "Until the service starts"; change it to your own words.

  1. Work out the minutes: it counts a number of minutes, not to a clock time. At 10:23 for a 10:30 service, type 7 minutes and press Set custom time.
  2. Put it on the projector: move the browser window to the projector's screen, press Full screen, then Start.
  3. Before zero, switch away: at 2:00 left the numbers turn amber, and at 0:00 they turn red and count up, +0:01, +0:02. Switch the projector to the welcome slide before then.

A countdown for the projector before the service

This timer needs JavaScript. Without it:

  1. Play a countdown video of the right length full screen on the projector, started that many minutes before the service.
  2. Or put a slide on the screen with the start time, such as "Service starts at 10:30".

The same timer is at blink-brief.com/stage-timer. It runs on the one screen that shows it, so whoever starts it stands at that laptop. For a timer the booth controls, with stage screens and messages, see stage timer apps compared or ProPresenter alternatives. Captions or translation for the sermon itself are in live translation and captions for church.

Questions

Is there a free countdown timer for church?

Yes. If the church runs WorshipTools Presenter, its countdown is in the free app. Without presentation software, a browser timer works full screen on the projector: the one on this page is free, needs no sign-up, and counts a set number of minutes with a line of text under the time.

How do I make a countdown to the service start in ProPresenter?

Open Timers from the Timers button in show controls or the View menu, and set a timer to Countdown to Time with the service's start time. Make a theme with a text box for the time, then a message with the timer as its token, and show the message on the audience screen. Start the timer from a playlist header, a slide action, or Timers.

Why isn't my ProPresenter countdown showing?

Renewed Vision's guide needs three parts: the timer, a theme with a text box, and a message that holds the timer as a token. If one is missing, nothing shows. A countdown that shows but doesn't move hasn't been started: a Props action shows it but, the guide says, the timer still needs starting another way.

Sources

What this page sends