MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Church Video Ideas: What Presentation Software Do You Use?

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Wed, August 29, 2007
Viewed 326
(8) comments so far

The following might be good news for some of you wanting to switch from PowerPoint, but not ready to lay down $400. MediaShout just released MediaShout V3 Express, which has most of the features of their full version, but is on sale for just $199! Not only that, you can upgrade down the road to their full version, so you could get the full product in a 2 part process. If you’re wanting to move to a software designed for worship, but not wanting to spend $400, this product is for you.

With that being said, I know that there are several options when it comes to worship presentation software. As I said before, there isn’t a perfect option. Each church will like one over another and will make their choice based on what works best in their situation. Just for fun and for my own information, I’d love for you to participate in this poll. Don’t let the signing up frustrate you - it takes like 15 seconds to do. Please click HERE to vote for the product you use in your worship. If you don’t see your product listed, please feel free to add yours.

Greg Atkinson lives in Dallas with his wife and their three small children. Greg served previously as the Director of WorshipHouse Media, after having served as a worship pastor for 11 years. Greg is now the Technical Arts Director at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship and continues to consult, teach and write about worship, media and creative communication. You can connect with him through his daily blog, Church Video Ideas, his podcast, Creative Synergy, or his email: .

Chances are, your church uses some type of video projection in its corporate worship gathering. Whether you are using screens, TVs or plasmas, you probably utilize them for at least announcements, song lyrics and the pastor’s sermon. The question is: What kind of presentation software are you using? There is no correct answer. I’m simply asking and doing a poll on here and my blog. I will tell you that the top 3 companies that I endorse and stand behind are EasyWorship (PC), MediaShout (PC) and ProPresenter (Mac). I know the majority of churches are using programs such as PowerPoint and Keynote. Many want to take the next step and switch to a program designed for worship, but cost is a big factor. Most companies’ product costs around $400.

Comments

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Derek Vreeland on Wed, August 29, 2007

We use Easy Worship.

It is a good program. It is pretty intuitive and EASY to use in WORSHIP. We had a few technical problems over the years, but we found EW tech support to be friendly and helpful.

EW or Media Shout are worth the $400 investment. You can funnel all of your media into one program (e.g. still pictures, power point, song words, Scriptures-on-the-fly, sermon notes, video, etc.)

And the greatest advantage of EW or PPT is moving backgrounds. PPT only supports still backgrounds.

Derek
John G on Wed, August 29, 2007

We use both EasyWorship and MediaShout, and highly recommend them. We have found EasyWorship to be best for less techno-savvy operators. Biggest advantages over PowerPoint:

(a) Your song words are stored in a database and you can recall them at any time, so you don’t have to cut-and-paste a new PowerPoint presentation every week; (b) You can preview many slides at once on the control screen, so you can jump immediately to any of them if the worship leader takes you in an unexpected direction; (c) Bibles are also stored in a database, so you can get any Bible verse on the screen within a few seconds; (d) You can use video backgrounds for songs; (e) You can cue up DVDs to play smoothly from any in-point to any out-point.
Rob Grayson on Wed, August 29, 2007

In our small evangelical church in northern France we can’t contemplate spending $400 on projection software. As an alternative, I found a free open source program called OpenSong. I’m sure it doesn’t compete with pro packages in terms of advanced functionality, but for small churches with limited finances it does the job, and does it well.
Peter Hamm on Thu, August 30, 2007

Media Shout… all the way.

Used SongShow. Couldn’t abide it. Switched to MS, happy as a clam.
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Free software downloads on Tue, April 08, 2008

Excellent article on presentation software, thanks.