Griping

I'm sitting in a VBS planning meeting (not FPC), and we're discussing all things Bible school related. Our curriculum this year is a repeat and I realized I had the transparencies for that year's music. "Great!" said the pastor leading the meeting. Then, he got this starry look in his eyes and said, "Oh, man, wouldn't it be great if we could get one of those projectors that projects from a laptop? That would be great!!!"

What is the deal? Why are people so obsessed with and determined to use powerpoint? "It would make it a lot easier" he said.

NO! NO! NO!

One of the greatest lies of our times is that powerpoint lyrics are easier and better than transparencies.

Consider the transparency process:

1. Type the lyrics into a standard word processing document.

2. Print

3. Place on overhead, turn on. Adjust if necessary for focus.

4. Sing. Move the doohickey up and down if needed to move the words.

Powerpoint process:

1. Type the lyrics. Break them into segments. Add cheesy graphics.

2. Save onto a disc, or somewhere on laptop

3. Set up the projector.

4. look for a cord that will enable your laptop to work with that projector.

5. Fail. Find someone else's laptop that has the right cord

6. Burn disc, transfer to new laptop

7. Gather everyone

8. Turn on projector and allow it to warm up for X minutes

9. Turn on computer.

10. Search for files while everyone preparing for worship sees the embarrassing desktop wall paper and follows the mouse as you click through the computer.

11. Re-activate the projector as it's gone to sleep.

12. Start singing. Have someone available to scroll through the lyrics.

13. OOPS! We've lost the third verse (Scroll, scroll, scroll)

14. Sing song number two. It repeats the same lines so often the computer goes to sleep--re-open.

15. Scroll through fifteen different songs to find the next one.

Can you, gentle readers, understand now why when I heard the phrase, "Oh, man, wouldn't it be great if we could get one of those projectors that projects from a laptop? That would be great!!!" I groaned deep down inside?

Good idea: transparencies. Bad idea: powerpoint.