10 Tips for Better Church PowerPoint Presentations

Matt Slocum offers help to pastors and worship leaders afraid they’re not doing it right.

Using presentation support media like PowerPoint can be challenging and often intimidating for pastors and worship leaders. Many are worried that they “won’t do it right,” and the PowerPoint could therefore become a distraction. This is a valid concern, but making great PowerPoint presentations is probably not as difficult or time consuming as most pastors think. Here are 10 tips that will help make your PowerPoint (or whatever media presentation software you use) better for your congregation.

1. Make the font easy to read. Choose a sans-serif font (Arial, Helvetica, etc.) for your church PowerPoint. Using serif fonts like Times New Roman, Palatino, etc., can make text hard to read on a screen. Script and decorative fonts should only be used sparingly for artistic reasons. Use 36-44pt size. 32pt would be a minimum. Don’t forget that making it bold can often times greatly increase readability.
2. Use visually attractive backgrounds. An attractive background not only brings a theme to a church PowerPoint presentation, but also makes the presenter look more credible. Using Christian PowerPoint background improves this aspect of your presentation. Sharefaith.com has countless themed and generic backgrounds for any presentation. Check out our PowerPoint library.
3. Pick colors wisely. Make sure there is a contrast between the background and the text in your church PowerPoints. If the background is dark, then the text should be light. Contrasting colors, such as blue with yellow or orange can also look nice if picked properly, but black or white text is best for most cases. Also keep in mind that colors can have meaning… Some colors might not fit some words… Cold and Hot. (If your projector is not powerful enough and you are having trouble with visibility, then choose dark backgrounds with white text.)
4. Add drop shadows and/or outlines. Use the shadow technique with discretion. However, it can really help if you are still strugling making objects and text stand out from the background.
5. Don’t use distracting powerpoint transitions or animations. Nothing ruins a good church PowerPoint presentation like cheesy slide transitions and animations. In fact, bouncing text and clock wipes have been used as torture devices. Please, for the love of sanity, use only cut/appear and fade! There are rare occasions you might want a “zoom” animation.

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