Overhead Slides

You remember that time period as churches moved from Hymns to Contemporary music? The hymnals began to gather dust as we pulled out these brand new overhead projectors and worship slides.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of overhead slides, they are basically tranparent plastic with song words printed on them. You stick them on the overhead projector, which is really a giant flashlight pointed at a blank wall.

The major difference between overhead slides and powerpoint is that the person manning the overhead projector has to bring their A-Game. Much harder than clicking with a mouse, you have to physically move the transparent slide up, down, and around so people can follow along.

Sounds simple right? Well, in an attempt to make people feel stupid the overhead projection company decided to make it harder. The operator has two choices:

1. Face the projector, leave back to the screen.
2. Face the Screen, read overhead slides upside down.


Most people chose option #2. This is comical, because everytime the slide is supposed to go up, it goes down. When its supposed to go left, it goes right, and so on. This is why you could never get a volunteer to run the overheads, and why I believe powerpoint was created so quickly after contemporary music became the trend of the North American church.