Category Archives: Preaching

Presentation Suggestion #2: Think big!

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03projector600When preparing a presentation for use in an auditorium, think big. In some places the light isn’t good, in others the equipment isn’t what it should be. Even when conditions are ideal, you’re dealing with different people who are looking from varying angles, distances, etc.

The best thing to do is think big. Big fonts. (Legible fonts more than artistic ones) Big graphics. Go for contrast; don’t try blue on black or grey on white. Big, bold, contrasting. Fewer words in a bigger size.

No matter what you have on the screen, if people are having to strain to make it out, it will be a distraction. Big. Clear. Legible. You won’t regret it, and you’re audience won’t either.

Presentation Suggestion #1: Illustration not sermon

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home_slideAs I commented to someone following the last post, I sometimes get requests for my “PowerPoint” after I present somewhere. (Especially true when I did a seminar at a preacher training school last year) I always cheerfully comply, but I warn them that unless they took good notes on my presentation, the slides won’t do them any good. Even I look back at old presentations without being sure what each slide was about.

That’s because I don’t want my whole sermon up on the screen. Presentations are visual aids and are meant to be such. When the inventors of PowerPoint first presented the idea of PowerPoint, they accompanied the presentation with a 53-page handout. 53 pages! They obviously didn’t put all the information on the slides. That’s not the best way to communicate.

Put Bible references up, not the full text. Put main words up, not slide after slide of bullet points. Use pictures that evoke an emotional response. Maps and pictures of Bible lands can aid understanding. Just remember… it’s an illustration, not a sermon. Just as you can’t build a good sermon around nothing but jokes and stories, you can’t build a sermon around a presentation. But you can reinforce the sermon, especially for people that are visual learners. Presentations make great illustrations and lousy sermons.

[Oh, and don’t use slides that look like that one up at the top of the post!]

Should preachers use PowerPoint?

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slideshowOK, I admit it. I’m biased. I cringe when people call a presentation “PowerPoint”? I know, it’s that anti-Microsoft bone in my body. But if it helps you understand, I’ll use the term. I don’t use PowerPoint, but I do use software that creates the same sort of presentation. (Being a Mac user, I use the Keynote program)

With that out of the way, let’s get to the thought question of the day: do projected slides have a place in sermons? In a recent issue of Christian Chronicle, David Fleer says no. (I haven’t been able to find that article on their website; I guess they don’t put all of the articles there) Many others, from education circles to business environments, have decried the use of PowerPoint. Even the creators of PowerPoint don’t like many of the ways it’s being used.

Visual aids are hardly new; preachers of old would take bedsheets and fill them with diagrams that they would carry from place to place. I remember, back in the 1960s (yes, I’m that old), a preacher that would draw images on a chalkboard while he preached. Overhead projectors were used for years. So the concept isn’t that new.

But I dare say the use of visuals was never as prevalent as it is today. And, in some places, churches are beginning to back off from this trend. They like the “novelty” of a man preaching with no visuals behind him.

Personally, I think that most of the criticism of presentations comes from the vast number of really bad presentations that are out there (you can see a good illustration of bad presentations vs. good over at Presentation Zen; a more entertaining post contrasts Darth Vader’s style with Yoda’s). I think that, used well, presentations can help visual learners understand more quickly and more in depth. I use presentations when possible. [Once when the projector was out at the church in Stockdale, I drew a couple of slides on poster board]

But, believe it or not, I can be wrong sometimes. That’s why I’m asking my always wise readers: should preachers use PowerPoint? In what way? How does it help, how does it hurt? I’m interested in hearing your views.

How do you get invited?

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Can I come in?

All right, o wise readers of mine, I’ve got a question for you. How do you get invited to speak at lectureships, workshops, etc.? For obvious reasons, it’s a plus for our ministry for our people to be visible and one of the best ways to be visible is to speak at public gatherings. For that reason, our ministry team is being asked to get more invitations to speak. But just how do you go about that?

To me, calling somewhere and asking to speak is really poor taste. It reminds me of what I used to do in first grade, when I would invite myself over to Stephen Templeton’s house every afternoon. I would ask Stephen: “Is it OK if I go to your house today?” and he was too nice to say no. Then my dad overheard me one day and told me not to do that anymore. Guess what. Stephen never invited me to his house again.

When I was in college, there were guys who practically lived outside the chapel office, begging for their chance to speak. I felt that I should wait for an invitation. It’s been over 25 years. I’m still waiting.

While living in Argentina, we worked with Amway for a while. One basic principle we learned was that you can’t promote yourself. Their teaching was that you build up your sponsor in people’s eyes, then they stand up and build you up. You talk about how great they are, they talk about how great you are, and everybody’s credibility increases. They taught that if you tried to promote yourself, you’d end up losing.

So do you have any suggestions for us? Should we swallow our pride and make the call, asking to be invited to speak? Should we call people we know and ask them to call these places? Or do we keep doing what we’re doing now, trying to make the most of the opportunities we get?

Involving the kids

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On most Sundays, the kids at our church have their own class during the sermon time. Starting last month, on the second Sunday of each month, they stay with their families. I regularly preach for the bilingual group that meets in the chapel. We found out about the change the hard way last month. I sent the kids out, then they had to come back… and never settled down again.
This time I was ready. I was preaching the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5. When I told the kids they weren’t going to class (along with appropriate groans and signs of dismay from them), I told them that I needed their help. Since adults don’t have enough imagination to picture things, I explained, I needed them to draw some pictures for us. At first I explained who Naaman was, how he got sick with leprosy, and how that would have ruined his life. I then asked them to draw a man who was sad because he was sick. I told them that I would want to see their drawings.
I then spoke to the adults a while, but the smaller ones finished their drawings quickly and were anxious to show them. I hadn’t calculated that well, and had to stop more than once to allow them to show their drawings.
When we came to the part of the text where Naaman is cured, I asked them to make a new drawing, one with a man who is happy because he wasn’t sick anymore. When I got close to the end of the sermon, I had them show their drawings. I encouraged the adults to be sure they could see at least one of the drawings. I closed the sermon by telling the adults that if the smiley face on that paper didn’t correspond to how they felt on the inside, they needed to look at getting right with God. [It was more complicated than that, but that was my way of trying to hit a broad range of needs]
What do you think of involving the kids in that way? Obviously, it’s easier in a group of 50 in a chapel than a group of 700 in a large auditorium. Does it sound like too much of a distraction for everyone else? Does it fall outside the bounds of “decently and in order”? Do you have suggestions of other ways to engage the younger ones in the sermon?