When people visit our church for conferences or services, they frequently find me after the service to ask technical questions about what kind of production equipment we use. More often than not, they eventually ask this question: "What software do you use for the graphics?" I really don't like giving an answer to this. Not because it's a bad question, but because I know that they won't be satisfied with my answer. They look at me with such anticipation, and are likely already waging bets inside their minds about whether we use ProPresenter, MediaShout, Prologue Sunday Plus, or some other expensive program. The simple fact is that it's none of those programs. It's not expensive, and it's a program you've probably owned for years: Microsoft's PowerPoint. In fact, we use PowerPoint most of the time, and I've become quite a "PowerPoint advocate".

The question of what software you should use in your worship services is beside the point. The real question to ask is this: "Visually, what are my church's capabilities?" This question goes way beyond software specifications to the heart of your staff and volunteer team. What kind of artists and talent do you have executing the visual aspects of your service each week?

If your answer is, "It's just me and I get by," then why do you need fancy software anyway? Most likely, "expertise in visual arts" is not the first line on your job description, so stick with what you know. Purchasing a program with higher-end features may end up burdening you with pressure to learn things at which you may not be gifted. At the same time, you may find that creating worship graphics can be very "life-giving"—not a "task" to be checked off, but a way for you to lead worship visually in a way few people are able to. If you do find yourself pulling off service after service single-handedly, let me encourage you: for your own physical and spiritual health, and the health of your church, find others to come alongside and help you. It's not good for anyone to work alone.

If your answer is that you have several volunteers or staff members who rotate responsibilities, then find out what each member is passionate about doing and creating, and begin to find ways to allow those passions to impact the worship service. Don't feel pressure to have video regularly if God has given you photographers. Moving images aren't necessarily better than still images. Honor God with the resources he's given you: That includes people. Definitely buy software with room to grow and develop, but not if that means added pressure to perform and neglect the gifts you already have.

If you're blessed with intermediate-to-expert level artists who are devoted full-time to designing and producing your visuals, then PowerPoint can still be an option. It probably won't be the only thing you use each week, but it's definitely a tool to always have on hand. It's been fun for me to find ways to do things with PowerPoint that it's technically "not supposed to" be able to do, even though I may have programs specifically designed for what I want to accomplish. I still find PowerPoint to be capable software. Over the next few sections, I'll share some of the "tips and tricks" I've learned over the years that will expand your view of what PowerPoint can do.

I ask you to understand WHO will be using the software because, from a congregational perspective, the biggest concerns are on two levels. The deeper level: "Am I as a congregant being drawn deeper into the message because of the visuals?" They probably won't verbalize this to you, but it's the real reason we use images instead of just words. On a more practical level, and the concern they will voice to you: "Can I read the text [Scripture, song lyrics, etc]?" These are important things to keep in mind because 1) having expensive software means your staff and volunteers will be need to able use it correctly and 2) cool graphics or moving video behind text aren't always readable and don't always help communicate the focus of the service.

Another reason you should consider using PowerPoint is that you and your volunteers already own and know how to use it. Save time and money. Use what you already have.

I realize PowerPoint isn't the most glamorous program ever. But we should get over the lack of curb appeal and realize that the program actually does a great job. It's easy to use. The menu structure is akin to Word, which we're all familiar with. PowerPoint has been around for many years and has been updated multiple times, resulting in extremely stable coding and an intuitive interface. It's a dual platform program, which I particularly appreciate as a Mac user.

Because most people own and know how to use PowerPoint, it becomes easier to delegate work to volunteers of other staff members. For instance, your worship leader can type lyrics and copyright information and your pastor can create sermon notes. No more waiting around for them to get back to you late Saturday night! Let them be responsible for their own text and drop it into your presentation in the morning. After a few formatting adjustments, you'll be ready to go.

We're all on a budget, and your church probably already owns PowerPoint software. So often we spend money on things we think we need, but realize—after several months of watching our purchase collect dust—we could have saved our money. Don't let a program's curb appeal force you into a purchase. Like Nancy Beach says, "Do the best you can with what you have." You already have PowerPoint. Use it!

If you have volunteers who are interested, take the $400 you would have spent on a program other than PowerPoint and put it toward tools to make your PowerPoint experience even greater. Invest the money by purchasing a quality graphics program like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw. This can solve the problem of text legibility over graphics—when you find the perfect photo but then realize it's impossible to find a font color that works over the entire image.

In fact, instead of building your presentations in PowerPoint, I suggest creating your slides entirely in a graphics program—both text and images. Using the type-style options, you have full control of the way the type interacts with the image below. These options, which adjust the color, opacity, width, and range of a shadow, glow, or bevel, will become indispensable tools and will allow you to make any image usable. Save the file as a JPEG and open it in PowerPoint as a slide background. The still graphics you create with any of these design programs will be just as compelling as any moving image you can put on the screen. But more importantly, you will be able to consistently read the words on the screen because you will have complete control over text treatment.

Finally, there is more to PowerPoint than meets the eye. Most people associate PowerPoint with cheesy animated graphics flying across the screen and utterly random transitions. Remember the checker box transition? Classy.

Here is a tip: Don't use those transitions … ever! Again, just because you have hundreds of options doesn't mean you should use them. Try treating PowerPoint transitions in a manner similar to transitions you've seen in films. The three staple film transitions are the cut, the fade, and the cross-fade. The cut, for example, creates a sense of rhythm and continuity. Cross-fades, on the other hand, are smooth transitions between scenes in differing times or locations. There are lots of theories written about when and why to use these, but anyone who watches films probably has a general sense of them.

Think about the transitions in your services with the same intentionality as a film director who plans shot and scene transitions. The way you transition through the service effects the way an audience responds, whether in the transitions between slides, or in lighting, or in the words we speak as we lead the congregation toward a moment of change. Try experimenting, then see the way your visual transitions can impact your services.

The secret weapon of PowerPoint is its QuickTime powered cross-fade transition. It's very smooth, and it looks really good, every time. This can be a complex idea, but give it some thought and see how it can impact the flow of your services.

Another little-known capability of PowerPoint is the option to adjust aspect ratio. The aspect ratio refers to the screen dimension, length by width. The standard ratio for televisions and computer monitors, referred to as "full screen," is 4:3 (pronounced "four three"). The typical cinematic and HDTV ratio, or "wide screen," is 16:9.] If you need to change the aspect ratio, this can be done manually by clicking the "File" menu, followed by "Page Setup." Typically graphics and video are measured in pixels. PowerPoint, however, uses inches, so you'll have to do a bit of math to resize the video output to match your projection screen. PowerPoint is automatically set to 4:3, or 10"x7.5". If you need to project 16:9, change the settings to 10"x5.63" (actual: 5.625 rounded up).

Because PowerPoint is part of the Microsoft Office Suite, it has the unique benefit of sharing Word's spell-check function, which is familiar and trustworthy to most of us. There's nothing worse than a typo in the middle of worship. It distracts the congregation from the meaning of the song, and the worship leader usually has no idea what happened. The worship leader is left reeling, confused and trying to recover from something he or she had no control over. At times like these, graphics are more hurtful than helpful. Having a solid spell-check tool, like PowerPoint, solves this problem. With the ability to expand its vocabulary to theological terms often not included in software dictionaries, why would you trust anything else?

When it comes down to it, great software doesn't mean great services. It doesn't even mean great-looking services. The tools you have are only as good as the artists who use them. The financial resources your church has been blessed to steward are tools as well. Before assuming the latest offerings in presentation software will improve the impact your church has on your community, it would serve you well to investigate PowerPoint as a resource you may have underestimated. If your church is beginning to explore the role of the visual arts in your services, PowerPoint is an excellent place to start. Even as a church that has stretched and strengthened its visual muscle, you may find PowerPoint to be the one tool in your chest that always seems to meet the task at hand.

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