I mean it’s such a painfully inefficient way of doing things—especially when there are so many superior and free church presentation software that take just a few clicks to setup and get going.
If you want a PowerPoint alternative or simply want to learn more about the best church presentation software available for free to support your worship services, you should read this article.
A screen displaying lyrics and Bible texts is more or less replacing printed material at most places of worship. Depending on how it is used, the screen can be a purposeful aid or an unfortunate distraction.
Choosing the right church software to run your slides is therefore an important decision to support the worship environment.
If you’re on a tight budget, here are a number of free worship software in no particular order that offer a variety of features to suit your church presentation needs.
13 of the best free presentation software for easy worship in your church
1. Praisenter
If you’re looking for a reliable free option for your worship software requirements, you should take a serious look at Praisenter.
Managing worship songs
- Adding songs to Praisenter is not rocket science. It comes with an import facility, which facilitates bulk import of songs, provided they are in ChurchView or OpenLyrics format
- Song parts (verse, chorus, bridge etc.) can be tagged easily—in fact, we can add unlimited number of parts to a song!
- There’s a Quick Send panel to present songs immediately too (with hot key support)
- A fast song search feature is also available
- Like songs, importing a Bible is also a piece of cake. Praisenter supports import of Bible translations from The Unbound Bible, which should take care of most scripture projection needs
- Search for Bible phrases, words, verse locations, present them on the fly
- Save lists of scripture verses for later reference/study
- Praisenter is an audio / video presentation program. Images, videos, audio and video files can be added to any kind of slide (songs, Bible verses or custom slides)
- Videos and images can be used as slide backgrounds or as floating components. And yes, videos can be looped!
- With respect to format, Praisenter has you covered by using the Xuggler library
- With Praisenter, custom slide templates can be created separately for Bible verses, Songs and other content
- Slide transition effects, notifications (again, with customizable templates) and more round off the wide array of features
- Praisenter can display up to two translations at the same time—great for multilingual services!
- You can create slides and templates in a machine, export them and then import them into another machine including attached media. So we can work on one computer and use another computer for the final presentation
- Praisenter can be installed on Windows, Mac and Linux machines.
Praisenter is a beautifully designed, classy church presentation software that's sure to thrill any worship ministry.
2. Open LP
It facilitates custom alerts, Bible import through CSV files, CCLI/SongSelect integration, PowerPoint file import etc.
Managing worship songs
- OpenLP can import songs from a wide variety of sources like Easyslides, Opensong, Videopsalm, Zionworx, DreamBeam, MediaShout etc.
- You can tag verse types, preset verse sequence, add formatting and manage songwriter information
- A quick song search is also available
- Bibles can be imported from OSIS by the CrossWire Bible Society, any CSV file, OpenSong, Zefania etc.
- You can even download a few selected verses from a Bible site, display verses in many custom formats, easily search verses by scripture reference (e.g. John 3:16-17) or by a search phrase to add into your set list
- OpenLP integrates with one of the most popular open source media player of our times: VLC!
- This means you can use almost any video / audio file format in OpenLP that is compatible with VLC
- Slides and templates
- OpenLP can be used to set up custom liturgies/set lists as per your church’s needs
- Announcements, alerts or custom slides are also possible—custom slides can also be looped if required
- OpenLP also integrates with PowerPoint, PowerPoint Viewer, LibreOffice Impress on Windows and LibreOffice Impress on Linux/FreeBSD. Imported presentations (sermon slides for example) can be controlled from inside OpenLP
- The one strange limitation in OpenLP is it does not support video backgrounds in slides
- OpenLP also has a FREE Android remote app to control the presentation from anywhere inside your church using an Android device—as far as I know, this is a first of its kind app!
- Built-in stage view accessible from any device with a web browser. Use any device on the local network as your stage monitor, meaning unlimited stage monitors without any extra hardware constraints.
- Ability to add backing tracks to songs
- OpenLP is available for Windows, Linux, Mac or FreeBSD
3. OpenSong
It may not have all kinds of bells and whistles when it comes to features, but it does just enough to meet the most important church projection software requirements.
Managing worship songs
- OpenSong can easily double up as a worship song management tool—you can type in songs yourself or import them from CCLI’s SongSelect
- Or you can always go to any site providing lyrics and chords for worship songs and just copy paste from there
- Songs can be stored with chords, which of course won’t appear in presented slides. There’s a quick song transpose option also if you want to practice a song in a different key—it’s extremely convenient for musicians
- OpenSong also provides many free song packs in various languages to help get you started
- OpenSong’s website hosts a wide variety of Bibles that you can download for free and import into your system.
- Zefania XML Bibles, NRSV, NIV, KJV and more are available and supported for import apart from Bibles in other languages (French, Filipino, Portuguese, German etc.)
- Any image file can be set as a background for songs and Bible verses
- Fonts, colors etc. can be custom formatted separately for song slides, scripture slides and alerts
- While video backgrounds are not natively supported, it’s not completely impossible either if you can learn this workaround
- With OpenSong, you can present songs, Bible verses and alerts specifying the order of slides, such as verse 1, then chorus, then verse 2, then bridge, then chorus again and so on
- You can also present a preset timed loop of defined slides, create custom set lists in just a few minutes, search and find any Bible verse or song in seconds.
- OpenSong can be installed on Windows, Mac and Linux machines.
4. FreeWorship
This church worship software supports themes, slide transitions, quick search, import of a variety of lyrics and Bibles etc.
FreeWorship is a solid free worship software that should cover most of your church presentation needs.
Managing worship songs
- For quick setup, worship songs can be imported many, many sources!
- FreeWorship accepts songs from CCLI SongSelect, Easy Worship (2009 & 6), DreamBeam, Mission Praise, OpenLP, OpenLyrics, OpenSong, SongPro, SongShow Plus and Words of Worship
- So if you’re switching from some other software, FreeWorship makes it incredibly easy to migrate your existing song base in no time
- FreeWorship can import Zefania and OpenSong Bibles, which should take care of most of your scripture projection needs.
- All popular image formats can be handled in FreeWorship
- Like OpenLP, FreeWorship also integrates with VLC for video playback—so any file format supported by VLC can be run here!
- This free presentation software also handles PowerPoint files (versions 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016)
- The presentation slides can also be spanned across multiple projectors.
- Songs, bible passages, images, videos, PPTs, webcams, clocks and timers can all be setup to display on screen just a few minutes
- There are flexible slide customization options too with the ability to tinker with the fonts, colors and backgrounds
- There’s a really cool auto verse feature, using which FreeWorship finds a related Bible verse when you search for a song!
- Stage/foldback display to give your worship team and speakers on stage more information about the current slide and what is coming up next
- You can use a file synching service like Dropbox to edit songs on one PC while presenting on another
- FreeWorship is Windows only at the moment
5. EasySlides
With over 80,000 downloads and counting, EasySlides is a very popular option for anyone looking for free church presentation software.
Managing worship songs
- EasiSlides installer (version 4 onwards) comes with built-in worship song lyric databases from the public domain in multiple languages apart from English
- If you want to migrate your existing song base from another church presentation program, you’re out of luck though—you’ll have to recreate your worship song data all over again
- Similar to OpenSong, worship song lyrics can also be stored with chords
- Bible versions are limited as there’s no native ability to import Bibles from third party sources
- However, EasySlides offers 3 English translations and a few more in other languages. Plus, there is a third party tool to convert Bibles from Unbound and XML versions into a format that can be imported and used in EasySlides
- EasySlide shines in media playback—it can play audio and video files including live video backgrounds through feeds from an attached camcorder
- The usual features to edit slide backgrounds, add gradients or usage of custom images are also available
There’s another third party transfer tool to work on one machine and then migrate the presentation including the underlying files to the church computer that will be used for the actual projection.
Extra cool features
- Project lyrics in two different languages at the same time for multi-lingual services
- Generate worship song books to print customized praise and worship song books
- HTML Generator to output all the necessary files to publish worship song lyrics on your church website
- EasySlides is Windows only at the moment
6. Quelea
Quelea’s stated aim is to “incorporate the best features of existing solutions as well as leveraging new, useful technologies that existing solutions don't have—providing it all under a free, open source license.”
Managing worship songs
- In terms of importing existing worship songs from other software, Quelea stands tall with the best of them.
- Worship songs can be imported from just about anywhere—OpenSong, OpenLP, ZionWorx, Sunday Plus, Kingsway Online, EasyWorship, EasySlides and more.
- By supporting Zefania XML Bible formats, Quelea gives us access to import and use a vast list of Bible translations.
- So getting your favorite Bible translation into Quelea shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.
- With Quelea, you can add images and video files as slide backgrounds
- All other regular customization and formatting options are also available
- Quelea helps with the church projection setup providing many test patterns you can use to ensure the screen is calibrated and positioned correctly.
- Quelea can push song lyrics to any mobile device with a browser—in real time—and you can choose the display colors to best suit your viewing needs.
- It also supports a separate stage view, enabling display of worship song chords only to the band onstage.
- Its interface is available in English, German, Spanish, Swedish, Czech, Hungarian, Norwegian, Dutch, Lithuanian and Portuguese
- Quelea is Windows only at the moment.
7. VideoPsalm
Of all the church presentation software I’ve had the pleasure to try out, VideoPsalm is the most exceptional—you’ll find just about any and every feature you might need!
Is it an easy worship software? Maybe not, but once you spend some time to learn it, there’s no looking back—you’ll love it.
Managing worship songs
- Like Quelea, VideoPsalm can import songbooks from several sources—EasySlides, EasyWorship 2009, MediaShout, OpenLP, OpenLyrics format, OpenSong (Chords get imported too), Psalmo and plain text.
- Moreover, the VideoPsalm online library itself provides over 10,000 worship songs!
- Songs can also be stored with chords in ABC or Do-Ré-Mi notation apart from ChordPro compatibility.
- Just like OpenSong, there’s a useful transpose feature here too.
- How does 330+ Bible translations in 100+ languages sound? Yes, that’s the number available!
- Apart from all the regular Bible verse display features, VideoPsalm also supports dual language verse projection.
- VideoPsalm displays video, audio, photo, countdown, alert, PPT files and more. It’s a truly all-in-one worship software that can manage whatever you throw at it.
- Slides can also be edited on-the-fly right in the middle of a presentation.
- Media files can also be found quickly with the built-in search function.
- The slide setup features are vast and comprehensive. VideoPsalm provides granular control of every aspect of your slides and templates.
- Fonts, backgrounds, media, colors etc.—all of it is easily customizable and editable.
- Even during a live presentation, background image/video can be changed on-the-fly.
- Apart from adding images and videos as slide backgrounds, VideoPsalm also facilitates varying the background for each part of a song—the background for verse-1 can be different from that of verse-2 or chorus of bridge
- VideoPsalm is also portable—the application can be run from a USB drive
- Screen resolution is not a dependency at all. You can create the presentation in a 4:3 system and then project it on a 16:9 screen seamlessly
- Portable set-list files to work and project in different systems
- Available in 40+ languages
- Single click live video background is also possible
- VideoPsalm is Windows only at the moment.
Other free church presentation software—honorable mentions
8. Datasoul
It has a flexible template system to preset how the slide content is formatted. It can be used to present slides with image and video backgrounds (including live feeds from an attached video camera).
Alerts, support for any display resolution, launch of other files like PPT, Open Office, remote display over network etc. are other useful features of Datasoul.
Presentations can also be exported as PDF files.
9. Songview
Songview is a free worship song projection software for churches that can handle projection of songs and Bible passages with image or video backgrounds.Songview supports PowerPoint files, addition of guitar chords to songs with stage display for bands, alerts, slide editing during live presentation and more.
Similar to VideoPsalm, Songview can also be installed and run from a USB drive also.
10. EpicWorship
EpicWorship facilitates slide projection with image and video backgrounds (MP4 H.264-encoded only), import of OpenSong Bible formats and playback of audio files (MP3 or AAC).
Like OpenSong, it’s simple and easy to install and use.
11. LyricsPro
Using a schedule interface, LyricsPro can be used to present lyrics, videos, images and PPT slides. Font formatting and setting up image and video backgrounds are also possible. Songs can be imported from SongSelect too.
This can be best used in small group worship or band rehearsal sessions I think.
I will be watching this project to see how it develops in future.
12. Praise Base Presenter
Apart from a simple song editor, it can also import Zefania XML Bibles and display lyrics in two languages.
13. Church Presenter
This is a free plugin for PowerPoint 2007 that adds quite a bit of church friendly muscle to PowerPoint.
The add-in enables using PowerPoint for presentation, while facilitating quick song search by number, theme, alphabetical index, and keyword.
The layout of lyrics and Bible verses can be customized by using editable templates. Also supports export of songs to regular PowerPoint files with embedded fonts. Windows only.
Have I missed anything in
this list? What is your favorite worship presentation software? Do share in the comments.
Image: Environmental Projection
Image: Environmental Projection
