Taking a quick glance at Google, most of the top search results are a bunch of blogs or info-products pushing an agenda. They’re all in your face, saying the best software for church sound is A, B, or C and here’s why. Since I don’t want to send traffic to any one person’s site and I want this resource to be valuable for years to come I hope that you’ll do me a favor and help make this article as valuable as possible by making suggestions, adding answers, and writing your own reviews.
Have you ever wondered which software is best for your church’s sound needs? There’s an array of systems that do a variety of things: some are designed to help in the delivery of music during services, while others focus on helping musicians in their practice at home. Hopefully this post helps bring some clarity to the seemingly endless sea of options.
It’s also known as church projection software or worship presentation software, it’s the best presentation solution for projecting song lyrics and/or Bible verses during a worship service. According to a Gallup Poll, only 42% of millennials are church members. Using modern technology to update worship services might be instrumental in getting more millennials to attend church services.
But what is the best church presentation software in 2022? Whether projecting video files, sermon notes, PowerPoint from a Windows PC, or Keynote from a Mac OS, check out our pick of the best cross-platform solutions allowing Linux or operating system agnostic support in our list below. We’ve included some free church presentation software along with open-source and Android remote app options and paid options with ease of use, top of mind in our selection.
Church presentation software can help you organize and display multimedia aspects to your weekly sermons and special events. This helps you reach both visual and auditory learners with your message. Be sure to follow along with The Lead Pastor blog to keep up with more church software trends.
Best Church Presentation Software
- OpenSong – Best free, open-source church presentation software
- OpenLP – Best free church presentation software for Linux and FreeBSD
- Song of Songs – Best free church worship presentation software
- FreeWorship – Best for small churches
- Presenter – Best for large churches
- Slipity – Best Mac and iOS users
- Praisenter – Best for lyrics projection
- Quelea – Best for sermon note integrations
- SlideDog – Best for simple stage display support
- Big Screen – Best for multilingual Bible verses
Church presentation software could be the tool you need for creating presentations to display at church services and church events.
Why use church presentation software?
Church presentation software helps to make your church service accessible to the whole congregation. With a dynamic presentation displaying lyrics and scripture, the congregation can join in together.
Here’s why you should consider using the software for your church:
- Enables congregation participation during worship
In the past, song sheets or songbooks were the norms, but church presentation software makes them obsolete. When song lyrics get projected onto a big screen or screens, the whole congregation can easily read the song and sing along without getting lost. It makes the service accessible to everyone, to the same extent, without having prior knowledge of the song.
- Provides the congregation with quick (and multilingual) access to scripture
Many people don’t want to carry a Bible with them, as they’ll use their phone instead. But using church presentation software for sharing scripture references means your congregation doesn’t get distracted while they start looking up Bible verses! What’s more, some solutions have multilingual functionality and can simultaneously display scripture in multiple languages, which can be great for multilingual congregations.
- Provides easy access to important information
Church presentation software enables you to share your church notices and announcements either passively before and after the service or together with verbal announcements.
Church presentation software functionality
Many church presentation software packages include feature-rich functionality for the needs of churches to allow seamless church presentations:
- Presentation streaming for worship services
- Scripture database to display bible verses
- Video file playing from worship software
- Custom slides to allow a slideshow of notices or information
- Slide integration from Windows or Mac PowerPoint, Mac Keynote, or Google Slides
- Layout management and customizable slide layouts
- Multi-Screen display support
- Multilingual Bible and Bible translation support
- Drag and drop presentation tools
- Media library to allow playlist support including Spotify, YouTube or VLC
- CCLI SongSelect (Christian Copyright Licensing International) usage tracking
- Remote control (often within a functionality for the preacher to
- Countdown for the service to begin
- Stage display or stage view preview
It’s also worth considering plugins for other church management software support, as many, like Planning Center, offer support and integrations.
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Overviews of the 10 Best Church Presentation Software
Here’s a brief description of each of the church presentation software on my list, showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.
1. OpenSong – Best free, open-source church presentation software
OpenSong is an open-source presentation app focused on lyric management, chord sheets, and bible verses. It supports timed loops of slides and allows you to keep track of song metadata and CCLI information. It is cross-platform, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, and supports multiple languages.
OpenSong is best for you if you want a church presentation software without spending a dime because this software is free. OpenSong is also open-source, allowing you to alter and improve the software to suit your church’s unique needs. It can also save your church money because, aside from being free, open-source software is less demanding when it comes to hardware requirements.
OpenSong is free software.Visit website
2. OpenLP – Best free church presentation software for Linux and FreeBSD
OpenLP is a church presentation software with various functionalities to make church services interactive and more interesting for church members. You can use it to create slides from templates or custom ones for church services or make announcements. OpenLP comes with a free Android remote control app allowing you to control your presentation using your Android device anywhere inside your church.
If you’re using Linux or FreeBSD as your church’s operating system, then OpenLP is the best church presentation software for you because OpenLP was made specifically for these operating systems. You can use it to search and download a few selected Bible verses from a Bible site for use during presentations. You can use OpenLP to set up custom liturgies and setlists to make church services personalized in response to your congregation’s needs.
Formatting multimedia files won’t be a problem for you because OpenLP integrates with VLC, allowing you to play audio and video formats in almost any format available. OpenLP also integrates with PowerPoint, PowerPoint Viewer, LibreOffice Impress on Windows, and Linux/FreeBSD.
OpenLP is free and open-source software.Visit website
3. Song of Songs – Best free church worship presentation software
Song of Songs is free church worship presentation software to create or import songs from CCLI, so you can use a song library during worship services. You can use it to create presentations manageable by operators or yourself via remote control during services. It also has a liturgy builder functionality to help you build and manage your liturgy in a centralized location for easy access during services.
Free software is always welcome and can help your church save money, so if you want free church worship presentation software, then Song of Songs is the best one for you. It has periodic free upgrades, so your software always has the latest features at no cost. Song of Songs is easy to use, making it ideal for users even if they are not tech-savvy.
Song of Songs integrates with VLC letting you play any video format.
Song of Songs is free software.Visit website
4. FreeWorship – Best for small churches
FreeWorship allows the customization of presentations to help you prepare for worship services in advance.
FreeWorship is an easy-to-use software for creating and managing presentations for use during worship services and other church events. It has a video enhancer feature for adjusting brightness and contrast, ensuring optimal viewing of videos. FreeWorship also allows you to search for specific hashtags when searching for multimedia items.
FreeWorship is best for small churches because it has basic features and is uncomplicated to use. It has a drag and drop functionality, making adding files and images straight to your service list easier. FreeWorship has a Child Lock feature to keep your files and formats secure by limiting who can make changes on critical files and presentations.
FreeWorship integrates with Google Slides.
FreeWorship is free software.Visit website
5. Presenter – Best for large churches
It is a multimedia projection solution equipped with an independent media control and browser to access your favorite files. It has built-in CCLI support allowing you to display song lyrics. Presenter has picture-in-picture functionality, letting you play videos while navigating your presentation.
This software is best for large churches that need church presentation software with advanced features to meet their congregation’s unique demands. It supports up to six independent outputs to support your church’s multimedia system, no matter how demanding it is. You can use Presenter to overlay text on images and videos to customize your church presentations.
Presenter has a free forever version while Presenter Standard costs $12/license/month.Visit website
6. Slipity – Best Mac and iOS users
Slipity is an iOS app for projecting texts, song lyrics, media, and YouTube videos on an external display. It allows customization of slides letting you control the size, duration of transitions, and background elements, so your slides look precisely how you envision them. You can use Slipity’s time-based triggers, allowing you to schedule the launch of a specific presentation.
If your church uses Mac and iOS devices, Slipity is the best for your church because this software works best for the said operating systems. You can use AirPlay Mirroring to control presentations projected on a full screen. Its Stage Display feature lets you view current and succeeding slides on plain text on your control monitor while displaying full output on your projection screen.
Slipity pricing is available upon request.Visit website
7. Praisenter – Best for lyrics projection
Praisenter is a church presentation software for producing slides and presentations with song lyrics, Bible verses, images, and videos. You can use Praisenter to search for Bible verses and save them for later use. It also allows you to import translations from The Unbound Bible, letting you present two translations of scripture simultaneously, making it ideal if your church has multilingual members.
Praisenter is the best church presentation software for your church if you need to project lyrics for your congregation. You can use the software to search, edit, and create songs for worship services. It has a slide editor that allows you to customize different aspects of your slides or templates, including gradients, text outline, video looping, and others. Praisenter also lets you add images, pictures, audio, or video on your templates for full customization.
Praisenter is free software.Visit website
8. Quelea – Best for sermon note integrations
Quelea is a free and open-source church presentation software for creating amazing presentations you can use during worship services and other church events. It has a stage view feature enabling you to guide your music team with music chords without showing them to your congregation. Quelea supports multiple languages, including English, German, Spanish, Swedish, and Czech, making it ideal if your congregation has non- English speakers.
Quelea is the best church presentation software if you need one that allows you to integrate sermon notes into your presentations. Use the software to include guide notes helping you emphasize critical points in your sermons. Sermon notes are visible only to you and not to your congregation so that you can include private notes depending on your preference.
Quelea is free software.Visit website
9. SlideDog – Best for simple stage display support
SlideDog is a multimedia presentation software you can use to combine PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, video clips, audio files, web pages, and others. Share your presentation in real-time so congregation members on their own devices. Another unique feature allows your audience to provide anonymous feedback to help you improve future presentations.
SildeDog is the best church presentation software if you want something to use in creating simple stage displays and presentations. It lets you switch back and forth between different slides if you need to go back to a previous point. You can use SlideDog to remote control your presentation using your PC, mobile device, or tablet.
SlideDog pricing starts at $19/account/month.Visit website
10. Big Screen – Best for multilingual Bible verses
Big Screen is a church presentation web app to help you create and manage presentations for church services and social events. You can use it to create themes giving presentations a consistent look and feel on different platforms. It supports multiple outputs making it ideal no matter how many output devices you have.
Big Screen is best for your church if you need church presentation software to create presentations with multilingual Bible verses. It comes with scripture translations from the New American Standard Bible, New King James Version, La Biblia de las Américas, Japanese Contemporary Bible, etc. With Big Screen’s multilingual capability, you can promote inclusion and make non-English speakers feel more welcome in your congregation.
Big Screen pricing starts at $10.91/license/month.Visit website
Other Church Presentation Software
- VideoPsalm – Free church presentation software for presenting songs, videos, images, and text to your congregation.
- Worship Him – Presentation software for churches for displaying song lyrics, announcements, Bible passages and other multimedia files.
- ZionWorx – Professional presentation software for presenting text and media to church members.
- Worship Extreme – Multilingual presentation software for churches for enhancing your congregation’s worship experience.
- Sharefaith Presenter – PowerPoint plugin allowing you to transform PowerPoint into a church presentation software.
- Mediashout – Customizable church presentation tool with a library of songs and Bible passages.
- Christie – Provides services including projectors and AV displays for churches.
- EasyWorship – Church presentation software for churches of all sizes.
- Renewed Vision ProPresenter – Presentation software for churches, concerts, sporting events, and fixed installations.
- Faithlife Proclaim – On-premise and cloud-based church presentation software for remote displays and presentations.
- WorshipStorm – Church presentation app you can connect to Planning Center for displaying lyrics, videos, images, and slides.
- Yodeck – Screen management platform for creating and managing digital displays and signages.
CONCLUSION
Some churches are lucky enough to have a full-time sound engineer, but not that many churches can afford that luxury. This leaves you having to do the job yourself, or hire someone for the day who has more knowledge than experience. Members of your congregation might be good with computers and other electronics, but how much experience do they have with sound equipment? I’ve found in my own time in sound engineering that there is software available to help make life easier. This can be both for solo musicians, as well as larger venues where you need to keep tabs on everything being routed through the computer. It may be hard to know what software is best in church sound, so why not find out now?