A year and a half ago, I was serving in a young adults ministry that didn’t use technology at all. The more I served, the more I realized that we were missing huge opportunities to reach others with our time, talents, and treasures by not getting plugged in. So I started to do all the design work, created and moderated social media pages, and learned the basics of the sound board. The only thing left was our presentation. The church used EasyWorship, so we did too. I wasn’t a huge fan (I was also no expert in that type of thing), but it worked for what we needed it to do.
Here is what our church decided it needed and why Proclaim fit perfectly! Note, at the end a great surprise for all churches to take advantage of!
As our vision shifted from church ministry to church plant, our presentation needs shifted as well. We needed something that was affordable, portable, and interactive. We were planting with no funds and a young crowd who had never really been taught on faithful, generous giving. That’s when we heard of Proclaim. It’s like the team at Logos knew exactly what we needed and made Proclaim just for us. We use it and love it every week. The top three things we love about Proclaim are the cloud collaboration, competitive pricing, and deep integration. Let’s take a deeper look.
Cloud Collaboration
When we planted Missio Dei, we had no office hours or paid staff. Fast forward to present and we still don’t have these things. That’s why we loved the cloud collaboration. Our worship leader, presentation designer (myself), and pastor could all work on the same presentation throughout the week at our convenience. This helped to avoid last minute changes made on the fly Sunday night because everyone had access to the software ahead of time. The interface is easy enough that everyone was able to download, sign in, and run, saving us valuable time in teaching and learning the software.
Proclaim stores all the resources and presentations we create in the cloud for easy access. Images that I uploaded as backgrounds and galleries could be saved to the cloud so all of our team had access to the same materials. If I created a template that worked for us a month ago, we could search, find and reuse it. No browsing files, just a simple search box and the cloud.
Competitive Pricing
As a small church, MD needed small pricing. After we downloaded the software for free and tried it out (and loved it), we had to talk money. As the team member that was doing the research, I had to break the bad news… $20 a month, or $200 for a year for a church of our size. Bad news? Read: sarcasm. Even a nonfunded church plant could afford their base plan. For a full feature set and free upgrades for the life of your subscription, this was a no brainer for us. What if you have a larger church? Is it still affordable? Compare their base plan at $200/year to their largest plan at $350/year and I think you’ll discover even the largest church can afford Proclaim.
We preferred this to paying $400+ once for a software that was outdated in 6 months. Even though Proclaim is subscription based, we thought the investment was much more logical as time would continue, and software would be updated. A definite win.
Deep Integration
If you’ve been paying attention over the past few years, Logos has focused just as much on building an ecosystem as they have building great church resources. They went from their extensive Logos Software, to adding Proclaim and Faithlife to their lineup. Within their ecosystem, all the moving parts talk to one another, and this is another reason why Proclaim is so valuable.
I’m no Pew Research Group, but I would wager that there’s a large number of pastors that use the Logos Bible Software in their sermon preparation and personal study. If I’m wrong, I’d wager again that there is a large number of Christians who have plugged into Logos’ Faithlife web and mobile tools. Proclaim talks back and forth to both.
When you go On Air with a presentation at your venue, those using the Logos and Faithlife mobile app will be asked if they want to join your presentation. Once they accept, they’ll be able to access special messages, respond to surveys, add event announcements to their phone calendar, give, and have direct links to Scripture right from the presentation itself. A great way to keep your congregation engaged from start to finish.
Pastor, as you’re in Logos prepping for your sermons, you’re able to fling over images and Scripture right into your Proclaim presentation. This allows you to seamlessly study and prep for even more aspects of Sunday in less time. I recommend giving this a try and let the software work for you instead of the other way around.
The Fun Part
If I wrote a section on all the features and nuances of Proclaim, from their ever-growing media resources to the customizability of each slide, I’d be writing a book, not a review. So, to spice things up a bit, we have a special gift for you. The Logos team is offering all of you an extended 3 month trial of Proclaim for free! 78P is all about effectively equipping and empowering others with technology within the body of Christ, and we’re very thankful for the chance to get you all plugged into such a great resource for no cost. Head to the link below to get your free extended trial!
How about you? What presentation software do you use currently? Have you ever tried Proclaim? Will you now?
[image via Proclaim]
Jonathan Griffiths says
We’ve been using Proclaim since beta days and I love it for the same reasons you listed in the review. It’s tied to our SongSelect account, too, so importing new songs is simple, and we can work as a team to add all the elements.
There are still some features we really want to see, like batch editing of text format, or changing background without changing the rest of the slide, but the team is active in developing the application so these are the kinds of things I expect to see as they progress.
Jesse Gruber says
I completely agree with the changes you listed. There are definitely a ways for it to go, but the consistent updates and active development assure me of a hopeful tomorrow 😉
Jeremy says
We have been using proclaim well over 6 months and love the idea but the implementation just hasn’t worked. The software has proved buggy and slow. Even with well powered mac’s, freshly loaded OS, and still backgrounds it just can’t keep up with our services. I recognize that many have had good success – but I’m not alone if you read the forums. Just something to be aware of going in.
Jesse Gruber says
Fortunately, I haven’t experienced any bugs in our time with it, but I see where the performance can improve. As Jonathan said, the active development is definitely encouraging!
Dennis Warner says
I agree with this review and with Jonathan. You do need a good internet connection (which we do not have right now). The cloud is awesome. We use Macs at our church as well and it seems to run smooth. There are however a lot of things the could change or “make better”. I wish the font settings for the songs could be locked so when adding new songs or changing backgrounds you didn’t have to change the settings at all. Over all the other programs that we have tried (power point, OpenLP, Easy worship, Mediashout and Song Show Plus) this is by far the best one in my opinion.
Jesse Gruber says
I agree. For changes to announcements etc I just import the previous weeks and delete the text and start fresh in order to save the text editing, but it can get frustrating with editing song backgrounds and styling format. We only change our backgrounds when we start a new series, so it’s only a problem for us at the launch of a new series.
Dennis Warner says
We are NOT a series church (I wish we were) I’ve tried to setup templates but they don’t work so well). Even with the things I don’t like I still love the software. I’ve found 1 work around that seems to work so far. Syrup 1 song the way I like and duplicate it. Then click on the 1st song and import new ones. All settings seem to copy well.
Jesse Gruber says
That’s a great technique! I used it tonight and it did work well for being a workaround.
Seems like my next article should be entitled “Why Being a Series Church Will Care For Your Techies Well” haha
Dennis Warner says
I can’t wait to read it. I’m glad I can offer a tip
Jesse Gruber says
So, at first I was joking, but I definitely think I should…so many benefits for techies, congregants and pastors….hmmm
Dennis Warner says
The only problem with this work around is you have to do it twice (once for songs and another time for verses)