Find us on Google+

Monday, July 05, 2010

How Many Slides Per Sermon

I was reading Seth Godin's blog (again) and he proposed a radical idea: give a presentation with 200 slides. He says,
You're used to putting three or four bullet points on a slide. That's at least four distinct ideas, but more often, each of those ideas has three or four sub ideas to it. In other words, you're cramming 32 ideas on a slide, and you're sitting on that slide as you drone on and on. Perhaps you spice it up with some reveals or animated bullets, but it's still 32 ideas going stale before our eyes.

So, what does that mean for preaching? I've tended to go another direction, I like to have about 5 slides (one to open, one to close, and one each for the major moves in the sermon). Each slide is an image and a word or short phrase describing the point I'm making.

I don't use bullet points (anymore, I've repented in sackcloth and ashes), but I don't think that the answer is necessarily using bunches of slides. I still break down each point with one slide, but I try to make fewer points and to make them well.

What do you think? Would you give a sermon with 200 slides?

No comments: