Preaching and PowerPoint

PowerPoint is secondary to the spoken word, but secondary thing matter. The icing is not as important at the cake, but who really likes a cake without icing? The atmosphere is not as important as the meal, but I like a nice restaurant to have both. Good PowerPoint can really enhance the spoken Word. Bad PowerPoint is a huge distraction.

This last weekend I spoke on jealousy. I threw this pic up on the screen.

It talked about how there is good jealousy and bad jealousy. Suppose the boy in this picture is the boyfriend of the girl on the right. Isn’t she right to be jealous? Good jealousy is if my wife wanted to go out with another guy it would make me mad. God is jealous that way. Bad jealousy is when my wife gets a promotion or receives some positive attention and it makes me mad. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice. If she is blessed, I should be happy for her, not jealous of her.

I think this PowerPoint slide helped to make that point. It captured people’s attention. It made them smile. It made the sermon a little more interesting. Good PowerPoint does that.
Bad PowerPoint, on the other hand, is just a huge distraction. It gets in the way. Better to have no PowerPoint than to have bad PowerPoint.

We live in a visual age. TV has spoiled us. We are used to high-quality graphics enhancing the message. Your audience expects it. If it is not there it feels like popcorn with no salt.

I’d like to write a series of articles on how to use PowerPoint in preaching. I’d like to ask you to help me. I’d be interested in your comments below. Tell how you like to see PowerPoint used and how you hate to see it used.

Post your response here: http://www.joshhunt.com/2013/03/preaching-and-powerpoint/