4 Church Presentation Mistakes to Avoid
Whether you recognize it or not, your presentation software is one of your church’s most valuable players. The quality of your presentation can do a lot to make the worship and message even more powerful. Never underestimate the power of a good presentation.
In order to create awesome presentations, we need to weed out all of the bad habits that weigh church services down.
When you overcome these 4 common presentation mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to creating more powerful services!
1. Last-minute preparation
We asked MediaShout users to give us their tips and tricks for creating great presentations, and this issue came up often. It’s hard to put together a strong script when all of the elements are being handed to you in the eleventh hour.
It’s easy for pastors and worship leaders to be so focused on their specific contributions to the church service that they don’t give the presentation enough thought. And of course things are going to happen that lead to last minute changes. That all comes with the territory.
Pastors and worship leaders need to do everything possible to get the service elements to whomever is making the presentation as early as possible. Give them the time it takes to put together a creative presentation, and you’ll find that it will keep people more engaged.
2. Distracting transitions
Do you remember in the 90’s when churches were using PowerPoint and some pastors would add all kinds of distracting animations and text transitions? Why were they doing it? Because they could. Well, many churches have put PowerPoint behind them . . . but cheesy transitions still happen.
A good church presentation software is going to enable you to do some cool things, which makes it your job to make the best choices for the congregation. Knowing when and how to dazzle your church with the coolest animated slides and transitions is the difference between distracting or serving them.
Hold back a little. That way when you decide to do something cool in the presentation, it’s going to have the desired effect.
3. Using too much text
If I had to narrow this list down to one issue, this one would be it. The thing is that everyone knows it’s a problem, and they still struggle to use the appropriate amount of text on church slides.
Too much text leads to fonts that are too small, and then you’re slipping into territory where it’s better to not have the slide at all. Not to mention that, as soon as you put a slide up, people are going to start reading it. And they’re not going to be paying attention to anything else.
I know that you want to keep all of the verse(s) you’re addressing on one slide, but it’s probably better to go ahead and break them up—or just focus in on the specific text you’re addressing.
4. Typos and other mistakes
Some people aren’t overly concerned with the details. I get it. It’s my weakness, too. That doesn’t change the fact that you need a plan in place to weed out distracting mistakes in the presentation. If you need to enlist someone else as a sanity checker, then do so.
Here are some things you want to protect yourself against:
Poor spelling
Bad grammar and punctuation
Indentation that isn’t uniform
Irregular font sizes
Changing font styles or boldness
Changes in line spacing
Mistakes in these areas might not stick out to you, but they’re all that some people will see. Do your due diligence in eradicating them.
