Instagram Friday: Preaching From an iPad

There are few things I get more excited about than new Apple products. That’s why when Megan got me an iPad 2 as a wedding present, I was stoked. Not only because I’d wanted one since the first day I saw the commercial, but I knew that since I was going on internship, I’d have a lot of opportunities to use it. Right after I got it, I Googled “Best iPad apps for  Pastors” and found a great blog post about all the different ways to utilize the iPad. One of those opportunities is in preaching.

I use the Goodreader app and have been really impressed with how smoothly it works to just flip to the next page. This picture I took is the sanctuary out at the Gold Canyon campus as I got ready to preach out there a week or so ago. I didn’t receive any negative feedback from the congregation, mainly because it went pretty undetected. That’s the key. As long as it flies under the radar and you don’t make a big deal about it, it can be a great tool for preaching, teaching and a lot of other things.

If you’re going to preach from an iPad, here are a few things to make sure everything goes well.

• Turn the Mute switch off: You don’t want your alarms or other alerts go off while you’re preaching. It’s just easiest than worrying or waiting for an interruption.
• Lock the Orientation in Portrait Mode: This isn’t an issue if you’re just setting your iPad on a stand or a pulpit, but if you’re walking around with it, you don’t want the orientation to change mid-sentence. That’s happened to me before, not good.
• Set the Screen Auto-Lock to 10 Minutes or longer: this way the screen doesn’t turn off on you while you’re preaching (especially awkward if you are going from a manuscript)
• Turn the Wifi Off: If you have it loaded on there, it can save battery. If you have a full charge, you’ll be fine. But if you’re running low, it’s a good and easy way to save battery.