Are you spending more than five minutes a week setting up PowerPoint for Worship?
PowerPoint is very popular among churches; in a recent survey 91% of churches use PowerPoint, with 56% using PowerPoint for Worship. With this many churches using PowerPoint for Worship it’s surprising how few are using it efficiently.
Setting up PowerPoint for Worship in under 5 Minutes!
I know of churches spending 5 hours a week setting up their Sunday worship service, and have sat in the congregation and painfully watched as they page through slides looking for verses. It seems we’ve traded the distractions of overheads for a frantic hunt for the correct slide. It doesn’t need to be this way; I’ll show you how to spend less than five minutes a week using PowerPoint for Worship, distraction free.
PowerPoint is a linear application that was designed for business presentations where you step forward through your message, much like you would if you were presenting a sermon outline. Using PowerPoint for Worship is a little more challenging as you seldom go in order, are constantly moving or jumping from verse to chorus and back, and the presentation also changes every week.
How do you anticipate what’s coming next in PowerPoint?
For most churches, the projector is installed and the first Sunday comes: they load up PowerPoint and realize they have no idea how to setup a song or move from verse to chorus. The challenge comes when PowerPoint is changed to presentation mode- the congregation and computer operator see the same screen. So how do you anticipate what will appear on the screen next when you are no longer in PowerPoint’s outline view? Some ways that are being used in Christian churches are hyperlinks or hotkeys (hidden buttons on the screen), or creating a printout of the slides. This works as long as the worship leader follows the pattern you have in your presentation (verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, etc.), however when the worship leader strays from the pattern you are lost. Or worse yet, they add a song not in the current schedule.
In order to use PowerPoint distraction free you need to configure the computer properly and come up with a method for using PowerPoint, a way to format, find and display songs for worship. Follow the steps below and you’ll be on your way to setting up PowerPoint for a Sunday morning worship service in less than 5 minutes, distraction free.
4 Steps to Using PowerPoint in Church
1. Dual Screen Setup for PowerPoint
2. Entering Song Files in PowerPoint
3. Creating a PowerPoint Worship Schedule
4. How to use a PowerPoint Worship Schedule
I have tried to download your free background and don’t find them.
Use the tutorial below (from ImageVine’s Resources section) to locate the files.
http://www.imagevine.com/tutorials2/Windows/windows-02-00.aspx
We have already setup up our powerpoint to work properly on our Dell Projector with the dual monitor setup. The only thing we are struggling with is being able to show DVD or movies on the projector. The only thing we can do now is to use a media player and then drag it to the side so it shows up on the projector. Like you would think, it looks tacky. Is there a program that will utilize the dual monitor feature just like Microsoft powerpoint that will play a standard DVD. The only other option I can see is to run an extra link (S-link?) to the projector and connect it to a regular DVD player but I”m not sure that the projector can handle two imputs.
Oh by the way your blog information has helped me a lot. I’m basically a desktop publishing person and had to adapt my knowledge of desktop publishing to work on powerpoint. Your information has given me that little extra kick in my presentations.
Visit our website sometime (www.mbcjax.com).
Doug
how do I develop a powerpoint presentation where while I am preaching to record the sound and the powerpoint ? I tried on live login but all I get is the sound or the picture not together. I would like to after the sermon burn a cd of both the sound and the presentation and distribute that Thanks
cory
Doug,
Programs such as EasyWorship will handle reading from the DVD for you. http://www.imagevine.com/software/easyworship.aspx
If you want to hook a number of items to the projector pick up a Video Switch from a local electronics store. This will allow you to hook the project to the output source. You can then hook the projector, DVD, VCR etc… to the Input source and switch between them. If you are feeding your sound to a sound board it will also switch the sound as well. Radio Shack Sample below.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2286098&cp=2032057&f=Taxonomy%2FRSK%2F2032057&categoryId=2032057&kwCatId=2032057&kw=switch+box&parentPage=search
Jim
We use MediaShout software for our presentations and you can insert Powerpoint, Videos, DVD, Multiple Bible Reading translations and more in the cues of your Worship Script.
James
Please send us PPTs for our worship
Stupid Question!
When I have fill in the blank questions on my slide to match handouts how do I just drop in the of fill in the blank word without redoing the whole slide?
Thanks
Don
Am I able to use your powerpoint presentation backgrouns etc within our worship software programme ‘Zionworx’. Thanks for all your great support
Don- The easiest way would be to duplicate (copy the slide) and just go in and add the missing words. Then, when you are going through it, it is just a matter of advancing to the next slide. If you duplicate the slide you don’t have to redo them- all the text, formatting etc. will be duplicated.
FinallY! I found a site taht can help me with presentations! Thanks pastor Tom in Texas
Thanks for this.
To give me a-tools to serve God.
GOD bless you