Training pastor to make "good" powerpoints

[buggyboy]

My pastor has recently begun to make use of powerpoint in sermons occasionally. And though I love the man...he isn't very good at it.

I've given him textbooks on the subject and a few links that I could find, but I'm coming to the conclusion that I'll have to create a tutorial video defining a "good" powerpoint for "bad" ones.

His current habit is to create slides with a blank blue background, slow animated transitions, multiple unnecessary slides (which I end up removing before the service), and perhaps worst of all... reading word for word the slide text.

My post here is to find out if anyone else has encountered this situation and found a good resource for teaching users (pastors) what makes powerpoint presentations "good" and "interesting" and teaching how to avoid "bad" "boring" presentations.

Video would be preferred I believe, as it would make learning easier.

Something that shows examples of bad presentations, then good presentations. hitting on both the slides themselves, and the speech that goes with them.

Any ideas?
Thanks

[katanna]

Please tell me he isn't using sound effects! And if you have to, delete Comic Sans from his computer. He will miss it, but no one else will!

OK, enough with the jokes. My advice: don't have him do it at all, just ask him to send you an outline of what he wants and you type or copy/paste it into what you use regularly. This does many things:

1) Gets it into the format that you are already using for the rest of the service,
2) Gets control to you, meaning you have the power to say "I have to cut part of this out because it is too wordy", and
3) It saves the pastor time and effort so that he can spend more time doing what he should be doing. IE: Let him delegate the media creation to the media guy!

It may be a bit of work on your part, but I can almost guarantee you that the time you spend doing it will be less time than HE spends toodling around in PowerPoint.

I don't know your pastor, but lots of people use "I am putting my data into PowerPoint" as an excuse to play with something that is shiny to them when really what they are doing is procrastinating/wasting time. At the same time you will want to spend as little time on this as possible because you don't want to waste your time on it. It is a win/win!

Just my $.02.

Note that the "you" in the above post doesn't have to be you personally, it can be delegated to someone else on staff, just get him away from it!

Also, I apologize for not actually answering your question. I don't like it when I ask a question and people talk around it without answering it, but in this case I wanted to share my thoughts on the issue. If you don't take my advice I hope that someone else can pop on and actually answer your question!

Matthew

[rkresge]

Send him to this YouTube video:

http://youtu.be/KbSPPFYxx3o

If he gets the point, you win. And so does your congregation.

Roger

[rcourtney]

There is also one matter that I think the operator of the presentation tends
to be "distant" from the worship when they did not create the slides.

They are intently listening for cue words that they miss the message.

Preparing the slides with the pastor allows the operator to absorb the message.

[riafekim]

What my pastor does is he just creates the powerpoint with the slides without any formatting. Then I take it and purty it up.

[rkresge]

Originally Posted by riafekim

What my pastor does is he just creates the powerpoint with the slides without any formatting. Then I take it and purty it up.

My PowerPoint-challenged pastor just sends me the text of his sermon, and I develop the slide show in SongShow Plus (it could just as well be PowerPoint). He does highlight some important points, but after that it's up to me. I also put cues in the text and print a copy for the computer operators.

FWIW, we also have 6 "lay" speakers on the team who preach in rotation at our contemporary service. Their PPT skills vary, but they do produce their own slide shows. Kinda wish our senior pastor would accept the challenge, too, but he seems kinda determined not to learn to use PPT. Guess he'll go along with it as long as I keep doing his slides; makes me an enabler, huh?

Blessings,

Roger

[sempei13]

Why not either have someone at the ready to make the powerpoint when he's done or have him send you a simple text document with his points and you can do it?

Paul

[buggyboy]

Thanks for the responces. Here are a few notes.

a. my pastor generally controls the powerpoint. the song lyrics are run by the operator, but the powerpoint uses a handheld remote.

b. the pastor actually wants to do this himself

c. we haven't got the staff to habitually rework his outline (if he has an outline that others could decode). I mean, i can setup an acceptable presentation in about 10 minutes, but I'm already doing a hundred other things because "it's easier to just do it myself".



I argue that if only "extremely capable" people do things, others never have the chance to learn and grow.

Let's face it, anyone can learn powerpoint, and learn it well. There is no reason the 1 "Tech guy" in the whole church should end up doing everything from audio,recording,video,stage setup,cable coiling,set creation, pc troubleshooting, lights, etc,etc,etc. Many of these tasks can be broken down into manageable chunks and given to people who, while not "tech mavens", are capable of one thing.

I've seen firsthand the end results of one guy doing it all, just because it's harder to train others. I believe training is vital to the long term health of the church.

Ever had the "1 guy" get sick? the church grinds to a halt. or if not one guy, ever had one family absent... the song leader, the guitarist, the secretary, the soundguy...all gone.

I'm convinced that there should be enough cross training to have a backup operator for every position.

sorry for the rant, it's not directed at you at all. I imagine you are all on the same page with me.


Anyway, back to the issue.

I'm still looking for a video showing examples of bad presentations that point out the problems, and then show examples of good presentations.

I'm still hoping I won't have to make it myself.

thanks

[sempei13]

I agree with you about you not having to be the one to do it, but I don't agree that the pastor should do it. I think he should do the sermon, not do the tech. There are probably teens at your church that can do either something you're doing, freeing you up to do this, or do the powerpoint. My 9 year-old is making PowerPoint now, so there should be someone who can help.

Paul

[cmchamp]

Commedian's point of view
http://www.presentation-skills.biz/p...powerpoint.htm

Simple example of bad practices
http://www.slideshare.net/middletona...rpoint-example

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/20...ad-powerpoint/

http://www.meryl.net/2008/01/10/70-p...reat-examples/

How's that for a start?

[buggyboy]

(note: whoever I train on powerpoint will need examples of good vs. bad. also, the pastor wants to do this himself...It's not my battle to prohibit that, all I am trying to do is give him [or anyone else] the training necessary)


Thanks Cory, for bringing the thread back to the point. Those are good resources. I'll look through the extended links as see if there's something that fits.

Thanks.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I used to propose the Pastor's Powerpoint Edition. he would be limited to 2 fonts (or typefaces, anyway) in any given presentation.

Once a particular color was chosen, all other color choices would be limited to two "goes with" colors.

Backgrounds would automatically be darkened and blurred and text outlined and/or shadowed for readability.

Font size would bottom out at 28.

Most transitions and animations would not be available.

Somehow we'd need to limit the number of words per screen, so that they basically fit the 7 x 7 rule (no more than 7 lines of text with 7 words on each line)

We'd also have to reject thumbnail images that he tries to blow up full screen.

Whadayathink? Am I missing anything?

P.S. I'm very greatful to have a pastor(s) that all recognize that they aren't that good at this and allow me pretty much free reign over what I put on the screen.