Anybody use their android tablet to preach?

Hi Caleb,

I use my Acer Iconia to preach from and find it very easy - -and I think an improvement - easy to read and adjust.

I use Documents to Go by Data Viz -- prepare my sermon on my PC and then upload notes to the Acer -

The more I have used it the less notes I seem to need - with highlighting and colours I find it very easy to see and keep on track.

Hope this helps,

Blessings,

I use my android tablet to teach youth lessons & serves as a bible, and I love it.  I write my lesson in MSWord using logos to support, then save my lesson in drop-box.  Once I get to church I pull my document up on my Android transformer in dropbox and start boring people.  And I love it.

The other night we had a black-out at the church, and paper bibles were obsolete, so we all studied in the glow of smart-phones and tablets.  The adults just prayed and waiting on us to finish. :-)

I also just began using my Asus Transformer to preach and it is way better than fumbling around with pages. I use the built in Polaris Office that opens up .doc and .docx very nicely. It is not the best editor for these documents however, but I do all my editing in word then transfer over.

Caleb Stomberg said:

I am debating beginning to use my android tablet to preach off of.

I think the voice would not be particularly acceptable to most congregations.  [;)]  [:D]

Tommy Johnston said:

I use my Transformer Prime to preach/teach in certain contexts, and have found it to be a delightful experience!  I do some tinkering to get my notes in a format that looks good in landscape, with the end product being a two column PDF in landscape mode that is perfect for my eyes to find what I need (around 14 point font is my sweet spot).  EZpdf reader tends to be my favorite app for this.

Like Tommy Johnston, I too use an ASUS Transformer (I have a TF300T), and have found that ezPDF Reader to be the best way to go.  I write in WordPerfect or Word on my laptop, use Segoe UI 20 font, letter size page. Save as pdf and transfer to the tablet. edPDF Reader is super customizable, and allows the user to add mark up, highlighing, drawing, notes etc., which can be 'flattened' to be part of the file.

http://johnbotkin.net/2012/05/29/practical-pastor-preaching-from-a-tablet/ mentions some helpful points, such as turning off wifi, alarms, etc. Make sure your screen stays on and that you lock its orientation (I prefer portrait), sound off, notifications off.

I've been using my tablet for preaching notes since July 2012, two services a Sunday, except for funerals -- then I return to paper. I appreciate using my tab, but I think for funerals and weddings I want to eliminate as much as possible things going wrong.[;)]

Ed

I also use my ASUS Transformer (TF101). I work on my sermon on my Mac in Word or TextEdit and save it as a PDF. I use ezPDF Reader PRO to read my sermon. It's taken me almost a year to do this though. Always worried about the "what if's"...like a screen gets left on and battery dies.

I preach from an expanded outline or, on occasion, a mindmap (in which case my sermon is a single image...google Preach By Ear).

I did see that Proclaim now has a note feature where I can use my tablet as a remote and see my notes at the same time. That may be of interest.

I've been using my HP TouchPad at worship for the better part of a year now. Most recently, I've been using Android on it rather than WebOS, because of the Logos app.

Since I come from a liturgical tradition, I have quite a few PDF documents open in multiple tabs on Sunday morning:

1. The bulletin (order of service), exported from Word.
2. The full text and music of the liturgy, exported from Word.
3. The most recent prayer list for worship, exported from my custom Excel prayer spreadsheet.
4. My sermon, exported from Word.
5. The readings, prayers, and hymns for the day, "scanned" from the hard copy into a PDF using HandyScan on my Windows Phone.
6. Sometimes there are also choral anthems or other supplemental documents.

As complicated as it may sound to juggle all these files, it's not really any harder than dealing with their paper incarnations. And it's much less to tote around during worship. It does, however, take a certain amount of organization to be sure I have everything I need before worship starts!

For those of you who have incorporated tablets into your worship, I'm very curious how your congregations have perceived the technology. I had a few members who were quite offended that I would read the gospel from a digital device, rather than "the Bible" (actually, I had been reading it from an insert, set on top of the pages of my hymnal, and not from a Bible at all). They found it disrespectful. I suggested that there's nothing inherently respectful or disrespectful about pixels vs. ink. I also was tempted to observe that our bulletin inserts with the printed word of God almost all end up in the bathroom garbage after church - the nearest wastebasket to the door - and that seems far more disrespectful to scripture than reading it from a tablet!

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Hi. I use Evernote (free app). It's a fantastic app that syncs everything you put into it from any device you're logged in to. I write my sermons on my PC in either Evernote or Word (and then paste into Evernote). Then I open Evernote on my tablet and it's there. The interface is simple and easy to work with while preaching.

I tried using EZPDF to preach off but it was never quite as flexible and easy to use as I wanted.  I wanted to not have to think about my device at all while I was preaching.  I think I have figured out how to take a MS Word file and put it into Kindle format.  It takes about 15 minutes to set up but once set up, in the future I should be able to put my sermons on my tablet's kindle app or a kindle and preach with the fonts, margins exactly at their most readable, which is something I could never do with PDFs.

I detailed the instructions on my blog.  

http://oliverinthehat.ca/2012/11/tech-victory-sermonizing-with-tablets-and-kindles/

I wanted to say thank you for this thread. I just bought my daughter a Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 with ICS for her birthday. We got my dad (who is also a minister) an iPad last year and my plans were to get one also. But after playing with the Galaxy I am considering one instead.

However all the information online is usually geared toward preaching with an iPad and the apps associated with it.  This thread has given me hope that I will be able to also do it with a Galaxy if I decide on one.

I already use Evernote and usually use Word to create my sermons. But I am always interested in what process other ministers use. I have made a note EZPDF.

Are there any other apps/tips anyone has for someone considering preaching with an Android device instead of Apple?

Thanks. God bless

lj

Sola Gratia

I have used my Motorola Xoom Android Tablet for quite a while now. I normally convert my sermon notes Word document to a PDF and use the  PDF on my Xoom.  I have experimented with placing my notes into Proclaim so I can control Proclaim and have my notes at the same time.  This works well most of the time but I had a couple failures so I keep my notes in PDF, even when putting my notes in Proclaim. The Proclaim Android app is a great resource and if you place your notes in the right place it works well to preach from. I don't think I could go back to paper. 

Rich

Good afternoon Carl,

I have a basic Kindle that I use.  it works great.  I don't save it as a PDF - I just upload the document to my Kindle and open it up.  When the document is open, it moves from page to page like turning a page in a book you are reading. You can change the font size etc. that works for you.

If you want the ability to make changes to the sermon, you can purchase an office app and then also get a free Google Drive account to upload your document which allows you to make changes.  you can then access it through the office app.

I wasn't sure if a kindle would work over a tablet or iPad but I have used my Kindle to preach from.  The first time I printed my manuscript just in case there were problems so I would have a backup but that wasn't needed.

wish you well in your ministry and updating your technology.

blessings,

Brenda

I use an Asus Transformer for the vehicle, but Evernote is the only app besides Word that I need. I really don't even need Word. I use it out of habit. Evernote really has all the word processing functionality I really need. Write it up on my home desktop. Close Word, grab my tablet, run out the door. Open Evernote when I get in front of the kids and voila! Way easy.