iPad and preaching?

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to reach out to the Logos community to learn from the best practices I'm sure you all have when preaching with the iPad.

Most often my sermons included a powerpoint and as such I have a powerpoint file on my PC laptop and have that hooked up to a church's projector with a remote control in hand and printed out powerpoint slides in notes layout. I also usually bring up a voice recorder to the pulpit so i can upload an audio recording of my sermon after.

I am thinking of using the iPad (maybe using Pages) to have my sermon notes but it would be nice to have it in powerpoint notes form so i have the notes per slide.

I was wondering what you all do as optimally it would be nice to have keynote used on my iPad for slides with a notes function (+ use a voice recorder on the iPad) for me to see (and not the congregation) but then I would need to connect my ipad via vga to the church projector which isn't very practical.

Any suggestions on what I can do or what you do as I find it odd to bring a laptop, remote control in hand and then have my iPad (although it saves killing trees by wasting paper)?

God Bless,

- Sumair

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si_cochran

Any suggestions on what I can do or what you do as I find it odd to bring a laptop, remote control in hand and then have my iPad (although it saves killing trees by wasting paper)?

Sumair,

You can acquire a remote control that would advance slides from afar. This would eliminate the need to bring your laptop into the pulpit. As far as the iPad is concerned, I have little experience with them. I have played with one at the Apple store, but that is about it.

but then I would need to connect my ipad via vga to the church projector

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I do not think the iPad has an output that would convert to vga (like a mini-dvi port).

Jon

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134850#Comment_134850

As with the iPhone and iPod touch; there are a variety of connectors available to go from Apple's proprietary connector to VGA/composite/component...

Kevin A. Purcell

I wanted to reach out to the Logos community to learn from the best practices I'm sure you all have when preaching with the iPad.

Most often my sermons included a powerpoint and as such I have a powerpoint file on my PC laptop and have that hooked up to a church's projector with a remote control in hand and printed out powerpoint slides in notes layout. I also usually bring up a voice recorder to the pulpit so i can upload an audio recording of my sermon after.

I am thinking of using the iPad (maybe using Pages) to have my sermon notes but it would be nice to have it in powerpoint notes form so i have the notes per slide.

I was wondering what you all do as optimally it would be nice to have keynote used on my iPad for slides with a notes function (+ use a voice recorder on the iPad) for me to see (and not the congregation) but then I would need to connect my ipad via vga to the church projector which isn't very practical.

Any suggestions on what I can do or what you do as I find it odd to bring a laptop, remote control in hand and then have my iPad (although it saves killing trees by wasting paper)?

First let me say I think you are trying to do too much yourself. Get some volunteers involved to help you with ..

1. Recording the sermon. Hook up a PC to your church sound system and record using something like Audacity. That is what we do. They then burn a CD of the sermon and copy the CD so I can mail them to shut-ins.

2. Advancing your PP slides. I have a volunteer that does this. I go over the sermon with the person (two people trade off) and they advance the slides based on what I am saying. I don't even think about it except in the few times I made reference to it.

3. If you had the above two then you could use your iPad to show your notes/bible reading. I use Pages for mine. I have my sermon files in a DropBox folder and then access them on the iPad via DropBox app. It has the functionality to Open in Pages where I then select all and increase font size so that it is easy to see. Once iPHone 4.0 comes out and allows background applpications you could record the sermons using a recording app that runs in the back ground while you read your notes from the iPad.

Sadly I know of nothing that will display PowerPoint slides (or any slides) while letting you see notes yourself, like the PC version of PowerPoint does. Keynote on the iPad doesn't have this functionality. It does, however let you display slides through the iPad Dock to VGA adapter. There is also a nice app that is a virtual whiteboard that does the same thing. And some let you display web sites. So if it has HTML5 video you could even play video via the iPad.

Bill Gordon

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135693#Comment_135693

I don't have an iPad, but I have been using my Kindle DX while preaching for a while. I normally save my notes as a PDF file.

Jonathan

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135693#Comment_135693

Sadly I know of nothing that will display PowerPoint slides (or any slides) while letting you see notes yourself, like the PC version of PowerPoint does. Keynote on the iPad doesn't have this functionality. It does, however let you display slides through the iPad Dock to VGA adapter. There is also a nice app that is a virtual whiteboard that does the same thing. And some let you display web sites. So if it has HTML5 video you could even play video via the iPad.

I use an app called I-Clickr on my Ipod Touch for Sunday School. It allows you to view your entire current slide or notes. It is helpful in that I can see my entire slide while I click through the bullet points for everyone else. It also allows me to switch between a view of my notes and a view of my slides and thus allows me to see extra info I might not include in my slides.

Perhaps this app would accomplish what the two of you are looking to do on your ipad.

Dennis Miller

I have been using the Pages App on my iPad to display and scroll through my notes at the pulpit without any problems. I have both imported from Pages on my iMac and created notes right in the iPad app for use, both work great.

Sumair

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136392#Comment_136392

Thanks everyone. At my church it is easy enough to patch into the audio system but unfortunately not as easy when I preach at other churches.

I'm going to test printing the "notes version" of my powerpoint to pdf and then using GoodReader or dropbox to open it. Thanks for the suggestions.

I was hoping to record the audio but, as you pointed out Kevin, I'll have to wait till Fall till multitasking hopefully comes into play.

Thanks everyone. God Bless.

Dennis Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137405#Comment_137405

I do not believe what is in iOS4 is true multi-tasking (several processes running concurrently) it is more like task switching where it will freeze whatever you were doing while you switch to another application and then come right back where you were at when you return to the other. The idea of reading your notes while simultaneously recording audio may not be possible. We will just have to wait and see. Upgrading your iPhone in a couple of weeks, if you have one, will give you a preview of the OS before it comes to the iPad.

Steve Hultquist

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137520#Comment_137520

I do not believe what is in iOS4 is true multi-tasking (several processes running concurrently) it is more like task switching where it will freeze whatever you were doing while you switch to another application and then come right back where you were at when you return to the other. The idea of reading your notes while simultaneously recording audio may not be possible. We will just have to wait and see. Upgrading your iPhone in a couple of weeks, if you have one, will give you a preview of the OS before it comes to the iPad.

hey, Dennis... This is incorrect. iOS 4 includes a set of calls that allow for a broad variety of background processing, including audio playing (they showed an example of Pandora playing at the iOS announcement event), "calling" (they showed Skype), GPS (two versions), and more. In fact, since I'm running iOS 4 on my iPhone (I'm in the Dev program), I just tested Voice Memo, and it does, indeed, continue recording in the background.

Apps have to be specifically coded to work this way, so all audio apps may not do this immediately (although the betas of this function have been available for months!).

Rodrigo Quema

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140003#Comment_140003

Preaching with my IPad. Turn up the brightness, using GoodReader to import sermon and ceremony from IDisk and I'm set! No more flying paper...

Jacob Hantla

I would be terrified to bring an electornic device into the pulpit. No matter how good they are, a spontaneous crash, or one mispressed button and the screen changes or goes blank (or the battery dies)....[awkward pause while I fix this thing]

I think that preaching notes may be one time where I think that the surefire dependability of physical paper is worthwhile.

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140051#Comment_140051

I would be terrified to bring an electornic device into the pulpit. No matter how good they are, a spontaneous crash, or one mispressed button and the screen changes or goes blank (or the battery dies)....[awkward pause while I fix this thing]

I think that preaching notes may be one time where I think that the surefire dependability of physical paper is worthwhile.

For last few years I preach from my 13" notebook. I always make sure I switch to the special presentation mode, I start it 10 min. before I go to the pulpit and one more thing: I always put my sermon notes to the flash disk as a backup in case something happens. We have some other notebooks in the service I would be able to grab in case of any disk failure or so.

Last time I had an accident with opening the notebook and... nothing happened, was 10 or 15 years ago. It was not sermon, It was business conference of our denomination and I had a conference resolution on my notebook prepared to read to people. I shut the lid of the notebook, went to the pulpit, opened the notebook, and... black screen. I had to restart the notebook. Terrible moment. Since than under the setting what to do if the lid is closed? My answer is "nothing" and I advice it to you also [:)].

I use notebook because of my eyes. I do not see properly to my notes. I am looking forward to having something like iPad for preaching but I need to make sure it really works well.

But you can have surprises even with the paper notes. Once at the wedding ceremony, I wanted to print the notes and somehow I was not able to do that. Not a single computer in the office, not my notebook, just nothing worked that day. Finally it worked and that time it was not me waiting the bride and the bridegroom, but them, ready, waiting me to start the ceremony.

But you are right. Paper is paper. You have it in your hand. With the electronic text, it is just about nothing proper in your hand... [:)]

Dave Dunkin (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140040#Comment_140040

Waterslides? I'm going to Rodrigo's church!

Neil Cadle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140061#Comment_140061

I just recently stopped by an Apple store to drool over an iPad (haven't yet purchased one). But its size and speed look absolutely perfect for preaching! As I worked with one at the store, it seems to be very stable (since it uses flash memory instead of a spinning hard drive). Like other have said, it looks like if you set your settings safely and properly, it should be a no-lose situation. Perhaps this is how I can justify purchasing one! :-) Thanks for all the info, everyone!

Neil Cadle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140147#Comment_140147

Oh yeah; wanted to ask: has anyone tried using the teleprompter apps for preaching/teaching/lecturing?

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140146#Comment_140146

Waterslides? I'm going to Rodrigo's church!

Cool! (You would enjoy that, Dave Dunkin' [:)])

Brett Meador

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140153#Comment_140153

I've tried ProPrompter for my sermon notes. It's a bit restrictive. If you want to back up you need to start the prompt from the beginning. ProPrompter worked well with worship songs I've been learning, but for sermon notes I'll stick with Pages for now.

Robert Mullen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140146#Comment_140146

Waterslides? I'm going to Rodrigo's church!

No kidding. Baptism would be a lot more exciting. I am going to go on on a limb and guess they are in the immersion camp. [H]

Dan Sheppard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140292#Comment_140292

No kidding. Baptism would be a lot more exciting. I am going to go on on a limb and guess they are in the immersion camp.

If they are not Bob, I bet they get a HARD LANDING AT THE BOTTOM.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140310#Comment_140310

Apple Support => "Keynote for iPad: Best practices for creating a presentation on a Mac for use on an iPad"

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4114

Blog entry has 6 iPad Presentation Tips:

http://theappleblog.com/2010/05/26/5-ipad-presentation-tips/

Appears Apple's VGA connector for iPad limited to landscape: (reviews note other opportunities for improvement)

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC552ZM/A

Keep Smiling [:)]

Neil Cadle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/140183#Comment_140183

I've tried ProPrompter for my sermon notes. It's a bit restrictive. If you want to back up you need to start the prompt from the beginning. ProPrompter worked well with worship songs I've been learning, but for sermon notes I'll stick with Pages for now.

Thanks for the info on teleprompters, Brett!

shazetta Thompson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135693#Comment_135693

Hi, could you tell me where I can find more info on recording directly into the computer. I am a part of a small congregation and we are low-budget for media. I would love to be able to do this.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/153666#Comment_153666

Hi, could you tell me where I can find more info on recording directly into the computer. I am a part of a small congregation and we are low-budget for media. I would love to be able to do this.

If you have a Mac you can do it with Garage Band, which I believe comes with the Mac OS.

Also, there's the free open source sound recorder and editor, Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), which has Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

You'd want to get a decent microphone, but other than that no special hardware is required.

For help on learning how to do these things just Google "Garage Band" or Audacity or recording church services computer. Here's a church that has posted a nice tutorial on their website on how to record sermons using Audacity and post them on the web: http://www.grbc.net/sermons/encoding_sermons1.php. Here's a forum thread with tons of info: http://geeksandgod.com/forum/ministry-technology-q/recording-church-services

Rev Chris

Most often my sermons included a powerpoint and as such I have a powerpoint file on my PC laptop and have that hooked up to a church's projector with a remote control in hand and printed out powerpoint slides in notes layout. I also usually bring up a voice recorder to the pulpit so i can upload an audio recording of my sermon after.

I am thinking of using the iPad (maybe using Pages) to have my sermon notes but it would be nice to have it in powerpoint notes form so i have the notes per slide.

I use an ipad for my preaching, although I don't use powerpoint b/c we don't have our video screen up for all services. I use Pages to read through my outline and it works great. Had an issue only once when I hit something and it went to margins editing mode or something. Had to fumble my way back. But, I usually have the sermon pretty much memorized anyway, so it's not a big deal for me. I mainly just use it to read quotes, etc.

If I were to use Powerpoint or Keynote in my sermon, I'd use one of the powerpoint/keynote remote apps that allow me to see my presenter notes (where I'd put my outline). That, or I'd use a VNC remote and have the presentation on the computer ... that way if the iPad had a problem, a volunteer could step in quickly. Also would allow me to switch to a website such as Youtube for a video illustration.

Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/173335#Comment_173335

A couple new apps you might want to consider:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sermon-design-for-preachers/id527203082?mt=8

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sermonotes/id528894781?mt=8

George Kuruvilla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/403142#Comment_403142

You got to use Sermonotes

Steven Branson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/447045#Comment_447045

Using an ipad for preaching is simple and easy. I have used it since the first day it came out. I write my sermon on pages on my mac. Save it to iCloud and it automatically appears on my iPad. I put my Biblical text in my notes so I can see my passage at any time and I also have Logos ready to swtich apps while I am speaking. I cannot imagine ever having to go back to paper notes.

In fact one of the great things about the iPad, is that I can add notes during the song service if I suddenly get a great idea. Also I speak at both services, and sometimes between services I edit my message for the second service from an idea I picked up while preaching during the first service.

Many times people would like my notes, I can email them to them on the spot and not have to worry about remembering it later.

In fact I now use my ipad for teaching at Seminary when I teach my class, I now have all my notes at my fingertips literally. And with Logos I have my entire library with me in the classroom.

I am grateful for all the new technology, it helps my ministry in ways I could have never imagined.