Slide Shows
Slide shows are the starting point for using media in a church. They are a simple way to convey information and can be done with a variety of equipment. Most churches already have the tools they need available for creating a slide show.
In its simplest form a slideshow is nothing more than a series of images shown in sequence. Most slideshows will be setup to loop, so at the end it starts over at the beginning.
From a technology standpoint a slideshow can be produced using a camera and slide projector or a computer and some sort of display. When using a computer you can use several different types of software to create the slideshow. Many people start out using Powerpoint. There are free slideshow programs available on the internet (for example www.irfanview.com) and most new operating system have some type of slideshow program built in (iPhoto for Mac and the slideshow tool in Windows XP).
Slideshows can be used to display text such as announcements, photographs, or a mixture of both.
Preservice Announcements
Most churches have a number of announcements that need to be made each week, but simply reading all the announcements as part of the service can be boring and take up a lot of time. Many churches use a slideshow to make the announcements at the beginning of the service.
Powerpoint is generally used for this type of slideshow because it allows easy changes to text. It also lets you display a combination of pictures and text which makes it easy to convey written information while keeping the presentation visually interesting with photographs and illustrations.
Most churches show their announcements on a large screen with digital projectors. The computer running Powerpoint (or other slideshow program) is hooked into the projector and the image is displayed at the front of the church. For churches without a digital projector, a TV or computer monitor setup in the lobby or to the side of the stage can be used.
New users to Powerpoint, invariably try to fit too much information on one slide. You should experiment with different sized fonts and make sure that it is easily readable by the congregation. It is better to have large text and let the information cover several slides than have information that is too small to read.
It is important to make sure that your slide show doesn't run too long. With a 10 minute presentation, there may not even be enough time to go through all the announcements. It is generally best to try to create a presentation that is less than three minutes long before it starts over. However, make sure that each slide is show for a sufficient amount of time so it can be read.
Special event Promotions
Slideshows can be an efficient way to promote special events or celebrate the culmination of some activity. Here are a few ideas:
- Setup a computer monitor showing slides of last year's vacation Bible school pictures at the signup table for this year's VBS.
- The Sunday after a church picnic or other outing, show pictures taken at the event. It could be shown in the lobby, or before and after the service in the sanctuary.
- Take digital pictures of the children in the nursery and show them on a computer monitor at a table where people can signup to work in the nursery.
Missions
Slideshows and other forms of media can be a powerful tool in attracting people to an event. If used correctly they can help create relationships and cultivate friendship.
In the spring of 2003, I was part of a mission trip to a remote Indian village in Canada. There were three teams on the trip, one group was teaching a marriage seminar to the adults, one team was working with the kids in the evenings, and my time was there to get footage and photos to take back home.
We brought along a video projector and set it up to show Power Point slides for the marriage seminar. each evening we would put together several hundred photographs from that day and create a slideshow to show before the marriage seminar in the morning. There were several people that came to the seminar because that had heard there would be pictures of their village.
Not only did the slideshow help draw people to the meeting, it also made it easier to get pictures of the community. Since they were enjoying the photographs, the pictures made us part of their community. Otherwise we would have just been some strangers intruding with cameras.
equipment
In a simple setup, the equipment for a slideshow will consist of a computer hooked directly into some type of display device. The display device can be a monitor, TV, or a digital projector. You don't need a particularly fast computer for just displaying pictures but transitions (like fading between each image) can require faster processors. Also some transitions may require higher end video cards. If the slideshow runs just fine, but the transitions appear jerky instead of smooth, this may indicate that you need a better video card. Of course a less expensive solution is to only use the transitions that look ok on the equipment that you have available.
It is also possible to create a slideshow using video editing software. This is a good option when you have existing VCRs or DVD players in the area where you want to display. Also if you need to setup multiple shows simultaneously, VCRs and DVDs may be easier to get than a number of computers.
