Tools are great! They make difficult jobs simpler, and using them usually results in a much better product. The key is being comfortable enough to use the tools.

When I was in eighth grade, I made a model race car out of wood, using tools in my woodworking class. Some of the tools I used to craft my car, such as a band saw and a disk sander, scared me to death! Fresh off a school-mandated horror film about losing skin, fingers, eyes, and even one’s life to the angry teeth of power tools, I cautiously approached the band saw and slowly cut a car out of a block of wood. Throughout the ordeal, I was terrified that the band saw’s blade would somehow snap and lacerate my neck, leaving me to bleed to death on the cold and dirty woodshop floor. My fear kept me from relaxing and using the tool to its fullest. As a result, my car ended up hopelessly lopsided. The band saw became my enemy instead of my friend.

Power tools aren’t just for woodworking and building anymore. Even in a Sunday School classroom, “power tools” can help a leader communicate Bible truths more effectively. PowerPoint is such a tool. When used confidently, it can greatly enhance a Bible lesson. Consider the benefits of using PowerPoint as a “power tool” to help build the lives of your learners.

Benefit 1: Tracking the Lesson

If learners fail to track the lesson, then they will either mentally check out of the lesson or become distracted by trying to figure out where you are in the lesson. If that happens, the chances of them making any changes based on the lesson are small. PowerPoint gives your learners an easy way to stay connected with the lesson. When you display the outline or main points on slides, you avoid the possibility that the learners will miss the flow of the lesson.

Putting questions and key statements on PowerPoint slides helps your learners focus on what is important to remember. Plus, if they are taking notes, they can copy a phrase from a slide more easily than trying to remember what you just said.

Benefit 2: Portraying the Lesson

Most learners appreciate visuals. While visuals are nice to look at, they serve a bigger purpose than just giving your learners something to keep their attention while you teach. Visuals communicate truth. In fact, one visual can communicate a truth that could otherwise be communicated only through many words. Words take time and have a high potential of being misunderstood. Using visuals in PowerPoint is a tremendous benefit to both you and your learners.

If you don’t use PowerPoint, you are left with the options of printing visuals on paper or transparencies or of using none at all. Printing visuals on paper results in visuals that are hard for your learners to see. Printing them on transparencies is time consuming and expensive.

PowerPoint is the best option for using visuals to portray a lesson. You can add as many visuals as you desire to a PowerPoint presentation. The Web and digital cameras make it easy to get appropriate pictures and clip art.

Once you have secured your visuals, you can use PowerPoint’s features to create emphasis or add text to the visuals. For instance, the features in PowerPoint allow you to trace the route of a person from city to city on a Bible map or to highlight a particular item in a picture. None of the features in PowerPoint are hard to use. Simply experimenting with the features can be a good way to learn how to use them. Otherwise, asking an experienced PowerPoint user to show you the basic tools will help you get started.

Benefit 1: Keeping the Lesson Neat

Writing in a notebook on a table in front of you is one thing; writing on a whiteboard, a flip chart, or a transparency in front of a group of people is quite another. Most teachers find it difficult to neatly write words that are large enough for all their learners to read. PowerPoint helps cut down the amount of writing you need to do in front of your learners.

If your writing is downright messy, then decreasing the amount of writing you do in class is highly beneficial. Messy writing distracts you because you are worried about the learners’ reaction to the hieroglyphics you just scrawled before them. Sloppy writing distracts your learners because they are either trying to decipher what you wrote or are making a mental list of all the adjustments you need to make to your handwriting. Distractions hurt your lessons. Using PowerPoint will help you to lessen any distractions your handwriting might cause. Neatness is always less distracting than messiness.

While using PowerPoint is highly beneficial, you must use it with caution. Take note of the following precautions.

Precaution 1: Ensure Readability

A PowerPoint slide is worthless if you can’t read it. A slide’s readability is affected by three factors: light, color, and font. Light is perhaps the most important factor. In most cases, you can’t increase the lumens, or brightness, of your projector without buying a new projector. But you can decrease the brightness of your classroom. If possible, cover windows and turn down or turn off the lights that are closest to your screen. However, make sure you leave enough light for your learners to comfortably read their Bibles and clearly see your face. You may have to change how you control the light in the room as the sun changes its position in the sky throughout the year. You may even want to change the arrangement of your room so you can put your screen in the place that gets the least amount of light.

Color is also vital to a slide’s readability. Contrast is the key. Choose font colors and backgrounds that contrast one another. For instance, for fairly dark backgrounds, choose light comlors (white and bright yellow being the best) for the color of fonts or other objects. For light backgrounds, use dark colors (black and dark blue being the best) for the colors of fonts and objects. Overall, it is best to avoid medium tones that tend to blend together when projected. Remember that a beautiful slide on your computer screen may be nearly impossible to read once it is projected. It is best to test different color combinations ahead of time so you know what works well.

Fonts can be a lot of fun to use, but a crazy font can sometimes be hard to read. Stick to sans serif fonts like Arial for your lesson outlines or main points. The crisper and cleaner the font, the easier it is to read. Also remember that not all computers have the same fonts installed. A fancy font on your computer might not be available on the computer you use when you teach. If that is the case, a default font will replace your choice, causing your presentation to look messy and out of sorts.

When choosing the font size, try to avoid going below 18 points. You should be able to read all of your slides clearly from the back of your room.

Precaution 2: Avoid Cluttered Slides

Don’t pack a lot of pictures or words onto one slide. Spreading the material over several slides doesn’t cost you anything, and it will help keep your presentation cleaner.

If at all possible, don’t mix the types of illustrations you use on one slide. For example, don’t use photographs and clip art on the same page. Mixing illustrations will give your slides a cluttered and disorganized look.

Precaution 3: Choose Animation Wisely

PowerPoint gives you the option to bring words and pictures onto your slides in many different ways. Before choosing an animation, determine if there is a good reason to use an exciting animation. If not, then use one that is subtle (e.g., rise up or dissolve in). Save the exciting animation for bringing in words or pictures that should generate some excitement. A PowerPoint presentation with words and pictures unnecessarily flying all over the place is very distracting.

Conclusion

The Life Design adult Bible studies resource CD-ROMs include a prepared PowerPoint presentation for all thirteen lessons. All of the lessons are designed with these cautions in mind. You can use the presentations as they are without worrying about unreadable or cluttered slides. As you become more comfortable with PowerPoint, you can begin both to adapt the Life Design presentations to fit your needs and to add your own slides.

If you’re intimidated by PowerPoint—the Sunday School “power tool”—don’t worry! No one has ever lost an eye or died while using it!