Presentation

How to display sermon points on screen

A well-timed point on screen helps people follow the shape of a message, remember it through the week, and take notes that mean something. Done badly, though, on-screen points become a cluttered wall of text that pulls attention away from the preacher. This guide covers how to display sermon points and outlines so they genuinely serve the message — what to show, how to design it, when to change it, and how it works alongside Scripture on screen.

Decide what's worth showing

You don't need to put the whole sermon on screen — you need the load-bearing pieces. Good candidates:

• The main points — the two to four headings the message hangs on.
• A key phrase or "big idea" — the one sentence you want people to leave with.
• Scripture references being taught (more on combining these below).
• Fill-in-the-blank notes, if your church uses a printed or digital outline people complete.
• Definitions, quotes or lists that are hard to follow by ear alone.

Leave stories, tangents and the connective tissue off the screen — those live in the spoken word.

Design points that read instantly

People should grasp a slide in a glance, from the back row. Apply the same discipline as good lower-third design:

• Few words per slide — a heading and maybe a line, not a paragraph.
• Large, high-contrast text — legible from the furthest seat.
• One idea per slide — reveal the next point when you reach it, not all at once.
• Consistent style — the same font, colours and layout across the series looks intentional.
• Generous margins — keep text away from screen edges so nothing is cut off on different displays.

Get the timing right

A point shown too early gives away the turn; shown too late, it's useless. The cleanest approaches:

• Advance on cue — a volunteer changes the slide as the preacher reaches each point. This needs a shared plan (a run sheet or the preacher's outline) so the operator knows what's next.
• Preacher-controlled — some preachers advance their own slides with a clicker, keeping timing perfectly in sync.
• Blank between points — when there's nothing to show, show nothing (a clean background or the camera), so the screen doesn't distract during stories.

Who runs it — and how to set them up to succeed

If a volunteer advances slides, give them the outline in advance and agree clear cues. The single biggest cause of mistimed slides is an operator guessing because they've never seen the outline. A short pre-service run-through of the points prevents most errors. See our tips for presentation volunteers.

Combining points with Scripture

Most sermons move between your points and the Bible passages behind them — and juggling both on screen is where operators struggle most. Manually finding and typing each reference as the preacher jumps around is stressful and error-prone.

This is exactly where automation helps. Let the operator focus on the sermon points — the part that needs a human who knows the outline — and let TajiCast handle the Scripture: it detects each verse the preacher quotes and displays it automatically as a lower-third in OBS, vMix or full-screen. Points and passages both appear, correctly and on time, without one person trying to do both at once.

A quick pre-service checklist

• Slides match the final outline and are in order.
• Text is large, high-contrast and inside safe margins.
• The operator has the outline and knows the cues.
• A blank/clean slide is ready for stories and gaps.
• Scripture display is set to run automatically.

Related: Lower-third design tips · Tips for presentation volunteers