How to Create a Great Power Point Presentation

Communicating on a weekly basis with Teenagers means that Youth Workers constantly need to figure out the best way share Jesus with students in a real and relevant way.  One tool that everyone either uses regularly or at least has used is a Power Point Program like Microsoft’s Powerpoint, and Mac’s Keynote programs.  I used to hate using powerpoint.  Giving a message to students about Christ can be hard enough without having to give your message and then have your points sync up with your message.  This is a tricky thing, and I know some of the best communicators struggle with using slides with their message.  Below are a few simple techqniques that will help you communicate better through powerpoint or keynote.

• 1. Simplicity: Think of your overall theme.  What is the main message?  Essentially what is the point?  Once you have your main message, then you can convey how you will communicate that message in your slides.  In Nancy Duarte’s book, slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, She states in the second chapter that you are building ideas not slides.  This is a key concept, its not about the slides, it’s about your story.

• 2. Less is more: I have viewed a lot of powerpoint presentations, some were great, a lot were terrible.  Putting a horrible slide show takes away from what you are communicating.  I tend to use a slide per point.  Here is a presentation I gave for a Youth Workers Conference.  It is mainly driven by text, and there are a few images at the end.  I try to keep my slides when I give a message to my youth ministry under 10, I think for my messages 5 slides is a perfect number.

• 3. Think like a designer: This means you have to be intentional with the images you put in there.  Don’t just drag crappy clip art, actually don’t use any clip art!  You can use google images, you can build custom backgrounds in Adobe Illustrator, or you can find sites that give you great looking images.  Here is a like to 25 free stockphoto sites.   Also, here is a great link to slide effects from Microsoft’s powerpoint, download them asap and start using them.

• 4. Have fun:   Everyone messes up their slides, so don’t worry about it.  Some weeks my slides backup my point, and some weeks it fails for some crazy reason.   I have learned to roll with the punches when it comes to getting computers to work when you absolutely need them to work.  Also, if you are comfortable and are having fun feel free to ditch the slides altogether and go where you feel God wants to teach.  I have had a few moments when I just park the powerpoint presentation on my main point and then don’t use the other slides.

Communicating with powerpoint can be a difficult thing.  If you don’t  have the time to put into your slides, then do use slides. I think it is so sad that Youth Workers could spend a considerable amount of time working on a message and just throw together a powerpoint presentation to go with it.  Sometimes, I will use just one slide as the main image and just leave it up there.

How often do you use powerpoint/keynote when you communicate to teenagers?

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