How the iPad Will Change the Church
February 6, 2010
That day has finally come. The long rumored Apple Tablet has finally been announced as the iPad. Though many have expressed disappointment with the new device, not grasping the potential that is locked within the 9.7 inches of glass and regarding it as “just a big iPod”, the truth is this is a revolutionary device that will change the face of computing forever.
But I won’t try convincing you of how revolutionary this new Apple device is, instead I’ll just point you to some other people much smarter than myself and let them do the talking.
- Frasier Speirs - Future Shock
- Steven Frank - I Need to Talk to You About Computers
- Sean Sperte - Getting Intimate With the iPad
- William Van Hecke - iPad Is A Big Deal Guys
- Ethan Nicholas - Why My Mom’s Next Computer is Going to Be an iPad
With that out of the way - I think one place that is going to be turned upside down by the iPad is the church.
Presentation Control + Live Sermon Notes
There will be the Keynote app available at launch, and soon there will be many apps for the iPad that allow someone to wirelessly control ProPresenter and other presentation apps. This will allow a pastor to easily flip between slides without turning his back to the audience. Though perhaps not ideal at larger churches where there is a lot to control and there are teams dedicated to keeping them in control… but for the small to medium church where they may not be a dedicated team this is an easy way for the pastor to keep things top notch.
With the larger screen size one might hope that an iPad app for controlling ProPresenter or MediaShout would have a “pastor” mode which would allow the pastor to have all of his sermon notes on the screen, with a sidebar to enabling skipping to the next slide. It could even work dynamically - say a pastor decides he wants to share a bible verse listed in his notes that he hadn’t prepared in his slides. The app could automatically create slide based on the presentations template and instantly display it on the screen.
Worship Leader Planning & Performing
Imagine an app that contains all your worship charts, you can easily scroll through all your inputted songs, listen to a quick preview, and then drag a few to create next weeks playlist. As you’re going through the music you remember that your lead singer has a lightly lower voice so you quickly adjust the key to your charts, bringing it into a better register. You hit “sync” and it auto updates all your musicians apps which you can use on stage in portrait mode, tapping the screen to get to your next song.
This is actually my favorite use for an iPad in church, one that I would love to create myself, if I could just find an app developer to partner with (if you’re a developer and interested - contact me!).
New Musical Instruments
This one remains to be seen but based on the history of the iPhone, the iPad will likely be a breeding ground for tons of new music applications. The larger screen allows a lot of possible applications. At a churchplant I was once a part of we had a hard time finding a good drummer, though we had excellent musicians other than that. I would’ve loved the ability to program a live drum-machine beat from the stage.
Conspicuous Soundboard
Many churches have a large soundboard box which is either tucked off in a corner where it gets an inaccurate reading on the sound in the room, or it is this big ugly cubicle sitting amongst the crowd.
What if the sound guy was just sitting in a seat, somewhere in the middle with just an iPad in his hand - getting a perfect bearing on the sound in the room and being able to adjust volumes on the fly with his portable touch interface. No need to handle a giant soundboard, simply tap through different screens to adjust all the volumes and tones of everything on stage.
Like magic.
Other Uses
And those are just a few, there are tons of other uses - lighting/video control, portable hearing impaired solution for churches that are unable to support a deaf ministry, children check-in stations… the possibilities are endless!
How do you see the iPad affecting your church or ministry?