Posted by Rich Birch on in personal productivity, strategy | 7 Reasons Your Church Should Stop Buying Apple Computers and Move to Chromebooks We’re moving away from Apple laptops for our staff team at our church and moving towards Chromebooks. I know this post might only apply to churches with larger staff teams but I wanted to share some of my learnings as we make this transition, Chromebooks are essentially a web browser wrapped in an inexpensive laptop. You turn it on and it opens up directly into the Chrome browser. We realized that our “pastoral type” staff spend most of their time online with email and so why do we need to pay for the rest that an Apple computer does? Our creative team and people responsible for making content will continue to use Macbooks but as we move through new staff and change our computers the majority of our team will end up on Chromebooks in the coming months. I love Apple products. I have spent a lot of money over the years to help Apple build that massive cash reserve. 

They make beautiful and functional products. However, for most of 2013 I’ve been personally been using a Chromebook to see if we could move our team over to this product and I’m loving what I’m finding so far! I wanted to personally push the limits of this solution before rolling it out … because I know there will be some resistance. Here are the reasons we’re making the switch …// The Chromebook that we’re deploying is $250. [Click here to check it out … and buy one!] This was a significant factor in what drove the decision. The “standard issue” Apple product we had been purchasing was $1,115. I’m not an accountant but I’m pretty sure that is four times more expensive than the Chromebook. Is the Mac better? Is it 4 times better? // All of our standard software products we use as a church are accessible through the web. We’re heavy users of the entire suite of Google products … because they are bullet proof and cheap to deploy. (Gmail, Calendar and Drive are the most used use in our community.)

Our core church database system is also accessible through the browser. The majority of our team spends a large portion of their day in a browser … this decision just migrates them there all the time.// We do a far amount of media creation at Liquid. Catch Dogs For Sale In East TexasSome of our team members have some pretty high powered systems for graphics and video. How Much Does It Cost To Fix A Scratch In Car PaintThe irony of it was that our creative people could do new (and better!) things if we gave them more powerful tools but we were overspending on the team members who just needed to do email.Walmart Home Trends Curtains// Our first step into the Chromebook world was about 18 months ago when we started using them in our campuses as “information kiosk laptops”.

We have a 4-5 at each of our campuses for guests to use to get information about the church, for registering first time families in our children’s ministry and as quick place for team members to check email. These “older” Chromebooks didn’t function well enough as a “full time” machine … they were a bit slow, plasticy feeling, and the keyboard is too small. The generation of Chromebooks on the market now have solved these issues and made them ready for prime time.// The battery just keeps on going and going. On the days that I’m working out of the office I never need to hunt for a power outlet. (In fact – I just leave my power cord at home.) This is critically important for our team that is always moving around.// Updating of the Chromebook Operating System is crazy simple. All you have to do is restart. It automagically keeps the system the most up to date. It’s also super secure … there is so little that could wrong. More than just online. // There are thousands of “apps” that run in offline mode as well.

Although you get the best experience when you are connected to a wifi connection … I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much I can get done those odd times that I can’t get online. (Although … you’d be amazing how much free wifi is available if you just look around for it.) You should try it out. Take the Chromebook Challenge … pick one up and use it for a week to see if it would work for your team. I think you’ll be surprised! I’d love to hear your feedback! Please leave a comment.But what about … Although we envision these Chromebooks just being used for email, documents, spreadsheets, our database and a few other web based solutions I’ve been testing the limits. I’ve been doing light photo editing through the browser with Pixlr and found that it does most of what I need. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the cloud based video editing solution WeVideo … For music I’m back to a lot Pandora. I’m bummed that Netflix doesn’t work on Chrome … but I’ve been watching more Jimmy Fallon clips on Hulu as a result.

There are many software options available to make sure Sunday morning is a success. While most of us have a soft spot in our hearts for PowerPoint, it is far from the best option for churches for a number of reasons. With various other software applications used by church techs such as Planning Center Online, Google products, and other church software solutions related to management and workflow, there’s a wide world of worship software options that can find a place in any church budget – from small to mega. We’ve sifted through many of the options out there, taking into account budgets, sizes of churches, training for volunteers and staff, ease of use, and a few special needs that you might encounter. This is not a comprehensive guide, but a helpful article that presents some of the best options out there for churches to use. As with all technology, taking time to weigh all your options and prayerfully consider what will best work for your team and your church is important.

Also note that a lot of other complexities come into play when we are talking about worship software, including CCLI licenses. None of the worship software options address licensing and so you will need to be proactive to make sure you’re using song licenses for charts, lead sheets, and lyrics in your bulletin or on the screen correctly. At the same time, if you use worship planning software like Planning Center Online, know that you are not legally allows to share music with other people unless they own the music as well. This can get your church into very hot water fast, so do not play fast and loose with these rules. Lastly, be careful about borrowing software that you do not own the rights to. Just because your cousin works at a church in a different town does not mean you can borrow his software licence. Be forthright with your staff, save for what you need, and always do the right thing to best represent the Lord whom we all serve. Now let’s look at the different options out there for churches with different budgets:

Smaller church often have smaller budget. They might not have made a large investment into worship software, and might still be using PowerPoint. There are some really wonderful open source solutions available that far exceed what was ever possible in the past. Being a small church with a tighter budget is less of a challenge now than it used to be for sure. OpenSong (Free, PC/Mac) –  software has several little features that no other free software has like Chord Sheets. Linux lovers will swarm this option for sure. OpenLP (Free, PC/Mac) – OpenLP is a free, open-source software application that many users swear by. With a long feature list including display management, screen management, service management, alerts, song features, Bible plugin, images and more, users will not be disappointed. PowerPoint ($4.50 user/month, PC/Mac) – If you already have Office on your computer you have PowerPoint already. If not, you can opt in to the nonprofit version of all Office programs for a low monthly rate.

This should not be the final goal of worship software as it is not designed for worship, but instead designed for classrooms and business presentations. ShareFaith Presenter ($17/month, PC Only) – For existing ShareFaith media members, this presentation software is free for churches. Instead of creating yet another presentation software, ShareFaith decided to re-invent PowerPoint through a powerful worship software plugin. Sharefaith Presenter lets you add text over any video, build custom countdown timers, access the largest worship lyric database, create your own custom worship set and directly insert over 60,000 worship media and videos straight from Sharefaith. You can also directly add Scripture from the built-in NLT and ESV database. EasyWorship ($499, PC/Mac) – ProPresenter ($399 single license, PC/Mac) – ProPresenter is a cross-platform (Mac and Windows) lyric and media presentation package built specifically to make high-quality live productions easy – including worship gatherings, sporting events, conferences, or studio broadcasts.

Highly stable with robust features, this is a great solution. MediaShout ($379-399 single license, PC/Mac) – MediaShout is a feature-rich option with multiple levels of software to meet the needs of medium to mega churches. It offers integrated song libraries, CCLI sync, PCO sync, Quicktime support, and many more features. Site wide licenses are available for churches with multiple computers running the software. It’s hard to pin down what size church has what sized budget. There, I’ve said it. There are great options at every price point. Just because you may have a larger budget, this doesn’t mean you must spend more on your software. Preference, user-interface, intuitiveness, and design can make or break a church tech’s relationship with his or her worship software. EasyWorship ($499, PC/Mac) – Good option, simple, straightforward design. ProPresenter ($399 single license, PC/Mac) – Comes very recommended by many worship leaders. MediaShout ($379-399 single license, PC/Mac) – Another great choice.

Planning Center Online (Varying Monthly Rates, PC/Mac/iOS) – This software does things differently. Long term, this option may actually cost more than any of the other options available. But it also gives you something that none of the others can, Projector and Music Stand (though know that these also are each an extra monthly fee). People that have bought into this simply cannot go back. Proclaim (Varying Monthly and Annual Rates based on church size, PC/Mac) – For churches with pastors that love the Logos Bible Software, you probably already know about Proclaim. It easily integrates and is well worth your time to consider as a companion software to Logos. ProPresenter ($799 campus license, PC/Mac) – This price changes when you begin to look at churches with multiple sites. This would include if you simply stream your service but use the software to stream. Yet, I still highly recommend it. It is assumed at this point that you are putting the needs of your worship experience up front.

Having a healthy-sized budget is vitally important when you reach this size and level of church. Planning Center Online (Varying Monthly Rates, PC/Mac/iOS) – Note that monthly cost of this software option increases based on the size of your church, you might also want to incorporate some of their newer features that provide a smooth user-experience. ProPresenter ($399 single license, $799 site license, PC, Mac) – Some mega churches only have services in one sanctuary, others have multiple. Make sure you have the appropriate license for the right use case. Proclaim (Varying Monthly Rates based on church size, PC/Mac) – For churches with pastors that love the Logos Bible Software, you probably already know about Proclaim. Here are a few other options that we don’t necessarily recommend as the best choices, but they’re out there and worth reviewing if you’re going to do a comprehensive search for church presentation software: ($199-$549 depending on needs, PC Only) – Communication, editing, live-video options, content features, and PCO integration.