The bottom line is that people who communicate well don't need to use presentations that much, except where they have content that can only be presented in graphic form.
It made me think about the preachers I know who use presentations (usually badly!) in their sermons. Here is part of what Bruce Byfield says:
Instead of making your slide show a summary of your talk, use Impress at what it's good for: that is, presenting graphics for your audience. Write the notes for your presentation, then mark the places where a graphic might help your audience's understanding (it might help to ask yourself where you might put a graphic if you were writing an essay rather than a slide show). Do the same for any keywords or citations that your audience might want to know how to spell or to look up later for themselves. Add a title page, and possibly a summary of key points at the end, and that is all your slide show is likely to need.
Admittedly, preparing a slide show of this kind will feel awkward -- even wrong -- if you are used to presentations that are basically your notes. What everyone else is doing has a way of quickly seeming the only correct way to do things, regardless of whether it is effective or not. But if you persevere, you will find that this style of slide show dramatically changes your relation with your audience during the presentation.
Without a summary of your notes on the screen, both you and your audience will spend less time staring at the screen and more time looking at each other. As a result, the audience is more likely to stay attentive, and will probably ask more questions. Chances are, too, that you will notice the audience reaction and know when to depart from your notes to explain or emphasise more, or to invite more questions.
Of course, for inexperienced users, the kind of slide show I am suggesting is not as safe as the stereotypical summary. It forces you to focus more on your audience, and denies you the comfort of clinging to your slides. But it is far more likely to succeed in conveying information -- which is, after all, what you are supposed to be doing. If you try it, I think you'll be surprised at how much more effective your presentations will become.
So there it is- most preachers who use presentations are using them to protect themselves from real connection with the congregation!
Or they are the type who don't have any charm.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't just preachers who use them - I hate a presentation where not only do they read what is on the screen but give you a copy - I can read!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I haven't seen enough preachers, though I agree with Rozie regarding presentations at large.The only preacher I actually recall having volumes of text tended to have lists and acronyms - handy if you wanted to take notes of the lists (which would also be in his books :-)I heard a teacher recently describing her experience at teachers' college: In a lecture on use of slides, the course content was good, but the presentation was exactly the opposite. Apparently it was an effective demonstration of everything wrong, but seemingly not deliberate!e.g. "Don't just read down a list" was read in a dreary voice, down the list.
ReplyDeleteGreat responses people!I've seen preachers do these things with laptops balanced on the pulpit. I think I tend to divide my attention between the aesthetic quality of the slides and wondering whether the laptop will survive the time of the sermon!The most boring presentations I've seen have been by various bureaucrats doing just what Rozina mentioned- reading their slides with little extraneous input. So boring!A couple of research findings have made me very cautious about using presentations in church.1. Having a text in front of you while hearing it read out is less effective than one or the other. Hence the "boredom" factor in seeing someone read a slide presentation. Asking people to follow along in their bibles while the same text is read aloud can also hinder understanding.2. Churches where the bible readings are projected onto the screen during the service find that people soon realise they don't need to take their bibles to church. But when people don't take their bibles to church they tend to read them less at home!All of this is saying that we need to be judicious in our use of technology. Just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should!
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