Using PowerPoint in Church Services

With many churches now using PowerPoint to enhance their services, I have seen that many churches make mistakes that cause the media to stick out and look bad to those attending.

The goal of a media ministry at any church should be to be truly invisible to those attending. As someone who has run the PowerPoint for church services, sometimes this is an easy thing to do, while other times, it is very difficult.

Here are some basic tips that you should follow when creating PowerPoint slides for use in your church service:

1. Use one background for the entire service.
   Many churches probably don't follow this one, but I think it is important to start off with and say that you should only use one background image for the entire service. If you want to use more than one, use one for everything but the sermon/message, and then a different one for the sermon/message.
   
   Why? To me it provides a solid cohesiveness to the entire service when you use only one background. It looks much more professional with only one background being used. eet with the pastor or music minister and find out what the service is focusing on and then choose an appropriate background pattern or image and then use that for every slide for the service.
   
   
2. Use an easy to read font.
   Quick tip, but one that is overlooked a lot. Basic fonts – like Times, Verdana, Tahoma – are all good to use for PowerPoints. Scripting type fonts are not as good because they are more difficult to read and interpret, especially if being used for lyrics for music.
   
   
3. Use simple backgrounds.
   Ever been to a church and when you start to sing, this hideous background with wild colors is used? What do you focus on from that point on? The background, of course, and definitely not the words of the music (which we should be).
   
   This is why it is so important to use simple, but effective backgrounds that have nice pleasing colors and aren't too ‘wild and crazy.' Remember the key: be invisible while presenting the information.
   
   
4. Make your font size easy to read.
   Test it out. Find a good font size and then stick with it. For the entire service. It looks poor when the font size changes from one music slide to the next. It also takes the focus off of the words when the font is too small OR too large.
   
   I cannot recommend what size typically to use, it will depend on the size of your projection screen and the size of your auditorium/sanctuary. I can recommend that you test it out before hand by sitting in different parts of the auditorium to ensure that the text is easy to read from every part.
   
   
5. Use transitions sparingly.
   PowerPoint installs with some cool slide transitions. The mistake many churches make is using these way too much in a service.
   
   For music, I recommend that you only use a slide transition in-between each song and not for each individual slide. One of the hardest things I have to do when running the PowerPoint for a service is to decide when to move to the next slide during the music portion of the service. Adding a transition for each slide makes that timing just that much longer and could end up causing the words not to be ready when the leader is already there.
   
   For the sermon, using transitions is good as long as they are not over used. I like the ‘fades' because I think they look cool and don't distract from the purpose too much.
   
   
6. Break up long pieces of text/music.
   My church has been guilty of this one a lot. Be careful here, especially on phrases of songs and showing verses.
   
   I like it when each phrase of a song is on its own slide. That makes the slides flow in an easy progression and makes it easy to follow along.
   
   For verses, it will always look better to have a whole verse on one slide as long as it has the right size font as the other text that you have used already and it has some padding along the borders of the slide.
   
   
7. Make sure your images are clear.
   One of my biggest pet peeves for PowerPoint backgrounds is having blurry/fuzzy images.
   
   (Technical explanation: most images are called JPG's and JPG have things called artifacts).
   
   If you take an existing image and enlarge it – you will begin to see the artifacts and if you see these artifacts on a slide that is blown up on a big screen, it will look that much worse.
   
   As your tip, always try to find the largest size of an image and use it and shrink it down (and not the other way around).
   
   
8. Practice, practice, practice.
   You should practice, if possible, with the praise team, music minister, musicians, etc. before the actual church service. It helps you find those small problems that you don't want coming up during the service. It helps you get a feel for the flow that the service will have and ensures that you are familiar with the music that will be sung.
   
   If your music minister is anything like mine (and most of them probably are), you need to be ready to sing the chorus again or be ready to cut out a verse of a song as the service is progressing.
   
   The only way that you can be ready to do this and be ‘invisible' is to have practiced through before hand.
   
   

All of these ideas are just suggestions for your ministry. If you have any other tips that you would like to share, please visit our forums for more discussion on this topic. A thread for this article has been started in the Worship and Creative Arts forum.