Now Presenting: ProPresenter

A new month is upon us, and we are delving into a new blog series to last us for the entire month. September was all about websites to some degree, and October is going to be all about church presentation software. To all of you out there who are not involved in ministry, hang in there. Presentation software is an important topic in the realm of ministry right now, especially as COVID-19 has put a lot of pressure on online services and live-streaming capabilities. Church presentation software is key in organizing your service, projecting words to songs/scripture/key points, and it can incorporate a lot of different multimedia elements in one place. Microsoft Powerpoint doesn’t usually cut it on all of these different elements, which is why we’ll be breaking down over this month five different church presentation softwares that ministries might find useful. 

INTRODUCTION

So, first up is ProPresenter. This is one of the most recognizable names in the world of church presentation software, and if you need something with a wide-range of capabilities for larger audiences, this is one of the most popular options. It’s developed by Renewed Vision, who have been around since 2000, and this software is compatible with both Mac and Windows.  

FEATURES

While this software and others we’ll look at have quite a few features, these are some of the ones to highlight. 

• High-Quality Video Output

  • Video can be easily uploaded into ProPresenter. From there, you can adjust color, brightness, and volume as well as crop or scale videos. These adjustments and effects are also available for live video sources. 

• Slide Flexibility

  • There are a lot of options for slides in ProPresenter. Their software allows you to have backgrounds, live video layers, slides, props, and masks to be controlled independently. You can use current time and countdown times. You can scale and crop media. You can have individual slide settings for transitions. You get the picture. 

• New Advanced Features

  • ProPresenter 7 is the latest iteration of the software, and it’s added quite a few advanced features that used to be paid-for modules. Most of these will appeal to much larger churches, and to be honest, they get into more technical areas than most people care about. However, these advanced features include things like edge blending and multi-screen outputs. 

• Stage Display

  • One of the features of ProPresenter that is appealing is their Stage Display output. This allows for you to communicate to people on stage with features such as timers, clocks, slide notes, and the next slide. 

• Planning Center Online

  • For churches, one of the advantages of ProPresenter is that you can import service plans and automatically link them to ProPresenter documents. 

• Scripture Engine

  • Their scripture engine allows you access to dozens of Bible translations in a variety of languages. You can even compare multiple translations. 

• CCLI SongSelect  

  • You can also import lyrics for your worship songs directly from CCLI SongSelect within the ProPresenter interface. This mainly saves you time in the grand scheme of things. 

PRICING

So, if you go on their site, you’ll see pricing broken up into “Seat” and “Church Campus.” When they refer to “Seat,” they mean that one seat is equal to enabling the software on one computer. Granted, you can move between computers by deactivating and reactivating as needed. 

Their “Church Campus” package is geared toward one campus and allows the program to be used on up to 20 seats (aka 20 computers) at once. 

• One Seat- $399

• Church Campus- $999

The pricing above is for one year of ProPresenter+ and renewal fees are $159 a year for a seat and $399 a year for the campus renewal. It should also be noted that discounted pricing is available for bulk purchases of 5 or more seats. 

TYPICAL AUDIENCE

While ProPresenter can be used in anything from small to large gatherings, we would recommend this presentation software for larger churches. It has a lot of useful features, but for the most part, it is geared toward larger, more complicated tech setups. We also understand that most churches are battling a tight budget, which means that while a great program, ProPresenter might not be the most cost efficient option. 

However, if you are interested in ProPresenter, you can download a free trial of the program from their website. They also do provide free training videos for those who download, and it is designed to be volunteer friendly. 

So, have you ever used ProPresenter? What did you like about it? What did you not? Comment and let us know. 

Stay tuned next week as we delve into another presentation software designed for churches.