About a year ago, or maybe a little more, Paul Martin (the Senior Pastor at Grace Fellowship Church) went away for a couple of weeks and left me to preach. Because I prepare my sermons digitally, I was finding it increasingly silly to convert them into the older medium of paper. They say that \u201cwhile the cat\u2019s away the mice will play,\u201d so I took this as an opportunity to begin preaching from an iPad instead of a paper manuscript. I have been preaching from that iPad ever since.<\/p>\n
There are many ways to go about it, but I will tell you about the system I have been using for the past year or so. I have found that it works very well. You need only two programs to do this: Pages and GoodReader (or Word and GoodReader if you use a PC). While I continue to use a full-size iPad, this system will work just as well with the Mini.<\/p>\n
Preaching from an iPad can be a little bit intimidating at first, largely because we have a good deal of confidence in paper and a lot less confidence in electronics. It always amuses me that if something goes wrong with your paper manuscript (e.g. You drop it, or the pages get out of order) you blame yourself, but if something goes wrong with the iPad, you blame the iPad. The fact is, both are simply media and both have advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses.\u00a0If you are going to preach from an iPad, you have got to do it boldly, not dreading it and not convinced that something will go wrong. Make sure you understand the process and be sure you practice it a few times. At the beginning you may want to take a paper backup with you as a means of increasing your confidence.<\/p>\n
While the iPad is an excellent tool for preaching, it can also serve as a distraction if people think, \u201cHe\u2019s preaching from an iPad!\u201d This concern is fast fading as iPads become ubiquitous, but for the time being, I find there is value in using a case that looks like a notepad. This is not to hide the fact that you are preaching from your iPad as much as it is to keep the fact from becoming a distraction. The cases from Pad & Quill are excellent, though there are also less-expensive alternatives.<\/p>\n
I have found the best tools to use are Pages and GoodReader. Pages is excellent for preparing your notes or your manuscript. Using iCloud, you can prepare it on your computer and have it automatically sync to the iPad. When you are finished, bump the font size to 16 or 18. It will look obnoxiously large, but make it far more readable at a glance. The new version of Pages allows you to very easily add page numbers which can be helpful with your pacing. Once your sermon is ready to go in pages, you\u2019ll need to get your file to GoodReader. To do this, tap the icon at the top right (the square with the arrow pointing up) and then \u201cOpen in Another App,\u201d \u201cPDF,\u201d \u201cChoose App\u201d and \u201cOpen in GoodReader.\u201d A couple of seconds later you will be ready to go.<\/p>\n
The reason you want to preach from GoodReader rather than Pages is that it allows you to swipe or tap from one page to the next; you do not want to scroll from page to page as it is too easy to lose your place.<\/p>\n
If you use a PC, find a program (such as Word) that will allow you to save a PDF file, and either email that to yourself or use Dropbox to transfer it to your iPad. Then open it in GoodReader.<\/p>\n
You will want to be sure that your iPad has enough of a charge to get through your sermon. The last thing you want is to be giving part of your brain to worrying about how long it will be before the iPad shuts down. I find that a 45-minute sermon takes only 10% of the battery (and that\u2019s with an older iPad), but to be safe, I always charge it up all the way.<\/p>\n
The iPad has a bright and glowing screen and depending on the lighting in your church, the angle of the pulpit, and other factors, it may prove an annoyance by lighting up your face or reflecting off your glasses. The best way to counteract this is to use the \u201cInvert Colors\u201d functionality which changes white to black and black to white. To use this, go to Settings, tap \u201cGeneral,\u201d then \u201cAccessibility,\u201d and switch on \u201cInvert Colors.\u201d Even better, go to Settings, tap \u201cGeneral,\u201d then \u201cAccessibility\u201d and \u201cAccessibility Shortcut.\u201d There you will see the option to set a triple-click of the home button to invert the colours. Now, right before you preach, simply triple-click and you will have a reversed screen.<\/p>\n
When it comes to preaching, the iPad\u2019s greatest weakness may be its multi-functionality.\u00a0Your stack of paper was never going to ring or beep or buzz, but your iPad may. Be sure to turn off notifications so you will remain undistracted while you preach. The simplest way to do this is to set the iPad to airplane mode. iOS 7 has made this simple: You can swipe up from the bottom of the screen and push the \u201cairplane\u201d icon; this will turn off all wireless functions. At the same time, click the \u201cmute\u201d button and turn the volume all the way down.<\/p>\n
Auto-lock is the background timer that counts down from the last time you touched the screen. When time runs out, it turns off the screen and locks it with a password. This is a good security feature, but a difficult distraction when you reach down to swipe to your next page of notes and find yourself having to enter your password. Turn off auto-lock before you begin.<\/p>\n
If you are preaching from a pulpit with a high angle, this may not matter. However, if your pulpit has a flat or low angle, you will want to lock the orientation so it doesn\u2019t switch from portrait to landscape (or vice versa). You can use the switch on the side to do this.<\/p>\n
Steps 5, 6, 7 and 8 may seem like they combine to make a lot of work, but all together they will take just about 10 seconds and can be done just before you walk to the pulpit.<\/p>\n
GoodReader allows you to make annotations directly onto your PDF manuscript. This is very helpful when you think of a last-minute application or when you realize you need to make an announcement at the very beginning or end of your sermon. Simply click on the screen and you can type, draw, add arrows or whatever else will prove helpful. I often write little notes to myself like, \u201cSlow down!\u201d or circle things I may otherwise forget.<\/p>\n
The iPad has many excellent Bible apps, but I believe it is far better to take your printed, leather-bound Bible to the pulpit with you. There is value in demonstrating that you are drawing your message and your authority from God\u2019s Word. This is demonstrated for all to see when you hold up a Bible, but lost when you read from the iPad.<\/p>\n
About a year ago, or maybe a little more, Paul Martin (the Senior Pastor at Grace Fellowship Church) went away for a couple of weeks and left me to preach. Because I prepare my sermons digitally, I was finding it increasingly silly to convert them into the older medium of paper. They say that \u201cwhile … Continue reading “10 Steps to Preach From Your iPad”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}