Presentation software is as common in churches as electric guitars or drum kits. If you have lyrics up on a projection screen for worship, share videos for the congregation to see, or have Scripture that goes with your message, you are using some kind of presentation software. We want to help you figure out the best software to use it and how to use it well.
3 Presentation Software Solutions
Here are our top three presentation software solutions for you to use with your church. They are not the only solutions out there but they are the most optimized for what your church needs. We give you reasons you should use them, so take the time and pick the best option out there for you.
- PowerPoint
Price: $219.99
This is the best option for a group of people that have low expectations. Everyone knows the general use of PowerPoint and so training is super quick. For those that need to just get the job done because they do not have the money or time to learn a better option, you can use this. This is not geared for Sunday worship, but great for general presentations. If you are doing anything more than words on a screen, this is not your option. - MediaShout
Price: $399.99
MediaShout was created with the explicit purpose for churches to use on Sundays. It has great on-the-fly options, is a pixel perfect designer’s dream, and allows for you to integrate a whole Sunday morning program straight from this application without ever having to close or minimize this software. You can play videos, show off websites, have motion backgrounds to your worship slides, and navigate easily. One down side is that support for this software is limited. If you want to get too fancy, it may not be possible until the next release. - ProPresenter
Price: $799ProPresenter is like a great hybrid of the two. You do not have the design details of MediaShout, but the system is super intuitive. It has many of the same features as MediaShout and really the biggest benefit is that it is not difficult to understand how to use. That being said, there are some bugs with the presentation showing up at times as well as has been known to crash if too many other programs are running at the same time.
What presentation software do you use and how do you try to get the most out of what you use?
Ben Read says
Our church as a whole uses EasyWorship 2007. Not only do I hate it, but it also doesnt work on macs. Plus, I just hate it.
Our Student Ministry uses Proclaim, and I love it. It’s probably more expensive than what I’d like to be doing, but we haven’t had any issues with it.
seventy8Productions says
Thanks for the recommendation.
Bill Mitchell says
We use Easy Worship. It’s not great, but not a horrible option either. I definitely understand Ben’s hatred for it, in that if you’ve used any other presentation software and are forced to go backwards to Easy Worship…you end up realizing just how limited it is.
Jesse Gruber says
I used to use Easy Worship. I wonder why people can’t figure out good ui designs for these kind of programs…
Jesse Gruber says
We use Proclaim at our church. Love it because it’s cloud based and works great with Logos and Faithlife apps for android and iOS. Runs on windows and mac. Also, I would add Google’s Powerpoint suite. If you’re going for basic you might as well go free (rather than $200+) Plus you can collaborate in the cloud 🙂
seventy8Productions says
Jesse, I totally agree with the Google point, unfortunately people are very wary about Google apps. Not sure why and they just give the reason as “I don’t think I could figure it out.”
Jesse Gruber says
I find that interesting, especially with today’s economy. But I do seem to find that people don’t know how awesome it is until I share something with them and they watch me type with my device live on their screen. At community college people would Shell out the money for microsoft word not knowing that free options like libreoffice or Google drive exist.
seventy8Productions says
Agreed. It might be as simple as showing them, but they also call up tech support as soon as a problem arises, even if it is a quick solution, because they do not want to lose what they already have.
Jesse Gruber says
I have to agree with you. I’ve been in too many community college classes to disagree with you! That’s also the beauty of google services. instant saves 🙂
seventy8Productions says
I think I shared this on Twitter too, but we plan to have a review of Proclaim too. As for projector, I have used it and it is not ideal at all with all of the other solutions out there. I get that it is integrated… but other presentation solutions are SO much better that this does not compare. There are other apps out there that use mobile devices as your “running presentation up front” option and does not need to rely on PowerPoint.
Stephanie Murphy says
Thank you for the tip on Projector! and I see that Planning Center integrates with Proclaim (and Media Shout) as well.
I look forward to the Proclaim review! (right now they are having an issue with the Mavericks update on newer MacBook Pros)
Dennis Warner says
We’ve used a lot (Song Show Plus, Easy Worship 2007, OpenLP and now Proclaim) so far I’m loving Proclaim it’s NOT full of features but I think more will be added. I tried Media Shout and liked it but training others DIDNT go well. So for now it’s Proclaim.
seventy8Productions says
I have had the same issue of training people with MediaShout. Takes a lot of time to get it right. Would love to see your thoughts of ProPresenter compared to all of the others.
Ben Gonzales says
We use projector with planning center. Use iPad to run show with Apple TV. Upside is once it’s in planning center it is ready on iPad. Downside, you got to have great wifi. Doesn’t always sync well. Own propresenter on Mac Pro as well but seems to crash at times. Small church so for now sticking with projector.
seventy8Productions says
Thanks for sharing. Those are awesome points!
Dave Shrein says
Shoot, if you’re including powerpoint, you should throw in Keynote… it’s free now and is way more conducive to what would be useful in a worship environment. That said, we use ProPresenter because it’s dependable and native to the mac.
seventy8Productions says
That’s definitely true, though it falls in the same route as PowerPoint but is limited to Mac only and a big reason I didn’t include it. (The free part makes it a definite option though!)