Since then, every church I’ve been in has used PowerPoint to project song lyrics and other media onto the screen during church services. PowerPoint has been a very adequate solution. Mostly dependable, and managing the basics well. In recent years, numerous other products have entered the market, promising to help churches project song lyrics and other service elements. I don’t want to use a product just because it’s new (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but I do want to consider how newer products might be used to the glory of God. What do they offer that PowerPoint doesn’t? Would these features be useful, or just extravagant?

I did some research and I discovered a list of church presentation software, but a number of the items in the list are no longer available. Last year, Collide Magazine wrote a review of nine presentation software products. I’ve collated current products from both lists, and put together this list of 40 worship presentation tools. To be honest, the number of items in the list is daunting – I’m not sure how they can most effectively be reviewed. If you’ve used any of these products, we’d love to hear of your experiences!

1. Microsoft PowerPoint
2. Apple Keynote
3. EasyWorship
4. LiveWorship
5. MediaShout
6. ProPresenter
7. SlideRocket
8. SongShowPlus
9. WorshipCentre Pro
10. Paperless Hymnal
11. Worship Him
12. Presentation Manager
13. Easislides
14. Sunday Plus
15. Power Worship
16. Worship Assistant
17. Sing and Read
18. SongPro
19. Praise
20. Worship Presenter
21. Freepath
22. Worship Live!
23. WorshipSession
24. Tempo Productions
25. ChurchView
26. SongBase
27. Songview
28. Words of Worship
29. ShowNak
30. VideoPress
31. Zionworx
32. ServiceBuilder
33. Dreambeam
34. OpenSong
35. Digital Songs and Hymns
36. Marietta
37. Datasoul
38. Church Presenter
39. Spool Worship
40. SongLeader

Update:

• Presenter
• See

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1. Alienation. Someone shared that they had been excluded from social events because they didn’t have a Facebook account. That’s not very nice. If lack of access to technology excludes people from community, this should raise warning bells. At the very least, there should be more than one way for people to access information – limiting communication about an event to one channel (e.g. Facebook) is exclusive as it assumes that people a) have access to technology (e.g. Facebook), and b) want to use it. We should assume neither.
2. Addiction. This example of a South Korean couple starving their child to death while caring for a virtual child is at the extreme end of the spectrum. But the need to be plugged-in, to know what’s happening, to read updates, to share updates is a modern and unhelpful phenomenon that has the Center for Internet Addiction. If only we felt the same eagerness to read God’s word and pursue our relationship with Him. On a more light-hearted note, wondering if you’re addicted to Twitter? Try this fun quiz. Apparently I’m 45% addicted to Twitter. It’s a fine line between engagement and addiction. Other posts I’d recommend include: ‘Addicted to tweets‘, ‘Excessive internet use linked to depression‘, and ‘Enabled or enslaved by technology?‘.
3. Laziness. Some things are best communicated face-to-face, or at least over the phone. Technology allows us to be lazy and laziness is never good. For example, sending your Bible study leader a text message to let them know that you won’t be coming tonight. That’s lazy – if you are not going to be there, it’s courteous to pick up the phone and apologise and explain. It’s easier to send a text, but for the benefit of your leader who has spent hours preparing and who is responsible for caring for you, it’s not a good option.
4. Potential to sin. I’m not sure if our opportunities to sin have increased with technology, or if we’re simply more aware of them. But take for example Facebook – it can prompt jealousy and envy (I wish I had what she has), pride (posting status updates to promote ourselves), lust (looking at unhelpful photos of people), gossip (sharing news on Facebook, or that we heard on Facebook) about others. The list goes on. Sure, Facebook didn’t invent jealousy, envy, pride, lust and gossip – but it sure makes these sins easy to fall into!
5. Wasting time. Nielsen recently revealed the extent of time spent on Facebook, and how this is increasing. On this site I shared how Australians spend 29% of all time online, on Facebook. I know I seem to be picking on Facebook – I’m not, it just provides lots of good examples! Technology can make us more efficient and productive, but it can also just help us to waste time. And we waste a lot. When the Master returns, I want to be busy doing his business, not procrastinating on Facebook.

What would you add to this list?

(Feature image attribution – it’s a light-hearted image for a more serious topic! http://www.flickr.com/photos/paloetic/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

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One point I found particularly interesting was the call to categorise the levels of participation of your audience (page 9). Forrester Research developed the following categories:

1. Creators
2. Critics
3. Collectors
4. Joiners
5. Spectators
6. Inactives

It’s good food for thought – the level of participation of people in your church and ministry in social media should inform the strategy for how your church or ministry uses these media.

You can download the Social Marketing Playbook for free from the 360i website.

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In the meantime, here’s some articles I’ve come across on a related topic – using technology to advance the gospel. Again, I haven’t found much on this topic either, but one article I was particularly encouraged by is number two in this list – “Plugging the planet into the word”. If you have other links on this topic, please share them with us. I’d also like to write some reflections on this topic – social media and the internet are opening up some big doors.

1. Technology and the gospel – leaders share their thoughts on “How do you see technology (blogs, podcasts) as tools to advance the gospel?”. Interesting, but I’m not on the same page on a few of the opinions expressed.
2. Spreading the gospel through technology – links through to a wonderful article in the Washington Post, “Plugging the planet into the word” on how technology is assisting the spread of the gospel around the world.
3. The gospel according to electronic culture: what if the medium is the message? Reading this reminded me, I need to have a read of Shane Hipp’s book, “Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith“. Here’s an interview with Shane.
4. Proclaiming the gospel in a wired world. This article serves more as a warning.
5. The wireless gospel. Described as “A case study in evangelicals’ love affair with communications technology”.
6. Technology transforms gospel for teens. It’s not long nor reveals anything particularly new, but does remind me of the changed world we live in, and especially how this affects youth ministry.
7. Gospel must be shared with technology and personal witness. The Catholic church and its reflections on the place of technology and the gospel. “The old technology of personal witness and personal encounter and sharing faith is essential to the Gospel.”

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1. I don’t have to worry about losing the piece of paper with my notes,
2. I can easily email the note I created to (either to myself – to store in some other location, or to someone else – for their encouragement), and
3. I don’t have to find a sharp pencil to write with!

Here’s my dilemma.

Is my use of the iPhone as a note-taking device a source of potential discouragement for others?

I’m concerned that people (the preacher and other people in the gathering) might look at me tapping away on my phone and think that I’m sending a text message or searching the web. I’m concerned that they might be encouraged to use their phone for ignoble purposes, or (in the case of the preacher) be discouraged that I’m not listening.

I can assure the preacher in advance that I really am listening and taking notes, but I speak with everyone in the church and tell them that when they see me on my phone I’m actually taking notes and not looking up the movie times.

How should I love my brothers and sisters with my use of this technology? Refrain or maintain?

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I needed to transfer some money to a friend’s account. My everyday account is with St George, and I usually transfer money from this account. However, I also have an account with Westpac, and this time was required to transfer the money from this account. I’d never done this before, and perhaps you like me thought that the process of transferring money would be the same from bank to bank. It was actually very different experience with Westpac. Despite what you’ve read so far, this post isn’t actually about banking, but for the curious, here’s what was different:

• I was provided with lots of helpful explanatory notes along the way (this was good),
• I discovered that the space to write a description about the payment was limited me to 18 characters (this was bad),
• I was sent an SMS with a special security code to enter to finalise the payment (this was good).

I thought that there wouldn’t be many differences between banks in this simple process, but I was wrong. My lack of experience and awareness of how others do the same things, had limited my view about what was possible. St George could learn from Westpac, and vice versa.

And there’s a lesson here for us – it’s easy to get familiar in doing things the way we always do it, and forget that there are other ways. We can learn a lot just by taking a look at what others do.

It’s good to go exploring, to see how other people do things, and learn from them – taking the good (for our context), and leaving the rest.

For example (and these example just related to technology and communication):

• are there other ways of producing your PowerPoint slides with the service order, songs etc each week. How could this be done differently to help people following along and participate in the service?
• are there different ways your church could communicate with its members that would be more effective? Perhaps its creating a Facebook account. Perhaps it’s giving people the weekly newsletter on their way out of church, rather than on their way in.
• what can you learn from other church websites about navigation, content and layout, and how could these lessons be applied to improve your church’s website?

Lets not fall into the trap of thinking that the way we do things is the only way. And let’s share what we’ve learnt and what works well with other churches. Of course, we’re limited in the time we can spend visiting other churches and chatting with others about what they do. But that’s one of the reasons why this weekly column exists, and why I created Communicate Jesus.

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1. Technology and the mega church. An article by CNET.com. h/t @markliddell.
2. “Australia would be better off without religion.” A debate (recorded in 2008) for and against religion.
3. Twittering in Church with the Pastor’s OK. An article by TIME magazine.
4. Free breakfast church. Could your church do this? h/t Without a Shepherd.
5. The ‘longer lasting sex’ scam. Seen these signs around Sydney? A good reminder that big billboards don’t equal truth.

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