So you’ve been handed the tech role at your church. Maybe it was a quiet ask after a service, maybe it was a slightly desperate email — either way, you’re now responsible for getting words on the screen every Sunday. This guide walks you through setting up Church Presenter from scratch, even if you’ve never touched presentation software before.

The whole process takes under an hour the first time.

Step 1: Download and install Church Presenter

Head to churchpresenter.org and download the installer for your operating system. Church Presenter runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux — pick whichever your church computer runs.

  • Windows: run the .exe installer, click through the prompts, and launch from the Start menu.
  • macOS: open the .dmg, drag the app to Applications, and launch it. If macOS warns you about an unrecognized developer, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click “Open Anyway.”
  • Linux: follow the instructions for your distribution on the download page.

Once installed, open the app.

Step 2: The Getting Started wizard

The first time you open Church Presenter, a Getting Started wizard appears automatically. It walks you through the seven things the app needs before you’re ready to go live. You can also reopen it any time from Help → Getting Started.

Don’t skip this — it covers everything. Here’s what each step does.

Language

Pick the language for the app interface. This doesn’t affect your Bible or songs — it’s just the menus and labels.

Theme

Choose a visual theme for the app itself. Dark and Midnight are popular choices for dimly lit tech booths; Light works well in bright rooms. You can change this later in Settings at any time.

Welcome

A brief overview of what’s coming in the next steps: adding Bible translations and song files. Nothing to do here — just read and click Next.

Add Bible translations

Church Presenter displays Bible verses on screen, but it needs the Bible files to do that. Here’s how to set them up:

  1. Click the ⚙ Settings button in the toolbar (or press the keyboard shortcut shown there).
  2. Go to the System tab.
  3. Click Browse… next to Bible Storage Directory and select a folder where you’ll keep your Bible files. Create a new folder called Bibles somewhere easy to find, like your Documents folder.
  4. You’ll need Bible files in .db3 format. If you already have them, put them in that folder. If not:
    • Search online for a Bible XML file in your language (many are freely available from sites like Zefania XML Bible).
    • Once you have the XML file, use the Conversion Tool (Help → Converter) inside Church Presenter to convert it to the .db3 format the app uses.
  5. Go to the Bible tab in Settings and choose a Primary Bible. This is the translation that will display by default when you search for a verse.

Tip: If your church uses more than one language, you can add a Secondary Bible and both will show on screen side by side.

Add song books

Church Presenter can display song lyrics from a folder of song files. The setup is similar to Bibles:

  1. Open Settings → System tab.
  2. Click Browse… next to Songs Storage Directory and point it to the folder where your song files live.
  3. That’s it — the app will load all songs it finds in that folder automatically.

Song files can be in OpenLyrics, SongPro, or ChurchPresenter format. If your previous software exported to any of these, you can import that library directly. If you’re starting from scratch, you can create songs directly inside Church Presenter from the Songs tab.

VLC Media Player

Church Presenter uses VLC to play video and audio in slides. The wizard checks whether VLC is already installed on your computer.

  • If it shows “VLC is installed and ready” — you’re good, click Next.
  • If it shows “VLC was not found” — click the Download button, install VLC, then come back and click Recheck. The status will update.
  • macOS users: make sure you download the right version. If your Mac has Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4), download the Apple Silicon build. If it’s an older Intel Mac, download the Intel build. The wizard will tell you which one you need.
  • Linux users: install VLC through your package manager (sudo apt install vlc on Ubuntu/Debian).

You’re all set

The wizard ends here. Click Get Started and you’ll be in the main app, ready to build your first service schedule.

Step 3: Connect your projector or TV

Before Sunday, plug in your display and check that Church Presenter sees it.

  • Go to Settings → Projection and you should see your screens listed.
  • Assign one as the output. The app will show a live preview on your operator screen and send the clean output to the projector.
  • If you only have one screen (the computer itself), you can still use Church Presenter — just set that screen as output and the audience will see whatever the app sends.

Step 4: Configure how text looks on screen

Before you build your first schedule, spend a few minutes in Settings to make sure fonts, sizes, and colors look right on the projector. What looks fine on your laptop can be hard to read from a pew twenty metres back.

Background color

Open Settings → Background. The Default Background at the top is used whenever Bible or songs have their background set to “Default” — which is the most common case. Click the color swatch and pick black (or whichever solid color your church uses). You can also point it at an image or video loop if you prefer a background visual.

There’s a separate Default Lower Third Background directly below it — that’s the background for when verses or lyrics appear in the lower-third band rather than full screen.

Bible text appearance

In Settings → Bible, the right side has four cards: Primary Bible Text, Primary Bible Reference, Secondary Bible Text, and Secondary Bible Reference. Each card controls the text that goes to the full-screen output and, separately, the lower-third output.

For each, adjust:

  • Color — white on a dark background is the most readable choice at distance
  • Font Type — pick a clean, legible sans-serif; decorative fonts are hard to read projected
  • Font Size — start around 60–80 for verse text, 36–48 for the reference; use the Auto Fit button to have the app calculate the largest size that fits the current verse without clipping
  • Bold / Italic — bold is usually easier to read projected than regular weight

Song lyrics appearance

In Settings → Song, the right card covers lyrics. The same controls apply: font type, font size, color, and bold/italic. The Auto Fit checkbox tells the app to automatically resize lyrics each time a verse changes so the text always fills the available space without overflow — a good option to enable if your songs have verse lengths that vary a lot.

The title (shown above or below lyrics, configurable) has its own separate font and color settings in the left card.

Test it on the projector

Once you’ve made changes, push a test verse to the screen and walk to where the congregation sits. Check that the text is large enough to read comfortably from the back row. Adjust the font size if not — it’s almost always bigger than you’d expect from the operator’s desk.

Step 5: Build your first service schedule

The Schedule panel (usually on the left) is where you put together the order of service. You can add:

  • Bible verses — search by book and verse number
  • Songs — pick from your library
  • Announcements — built-in lower thirds and announcement display
  • Images and videos — drag in any media file
  • Presentations — import a PowerPoint or PDF

Drag items up and down to reorder them. When Sunday arrives, click each item in order and it will go live on the projection screen.

A few tips before your first Sunday

Practice before the service. Run through the whole order with the projector on. Get comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts — advancing slides, clearing the screen, and cutting to black are the three you’ll use most.

Use the confidence monitor. If you have a spare screen or a tablet, Church Presenter can show you what’s coming next while the congregation sees the current slide. Set this up in Settings → Projection.

Schedule autosaves. If the app closes unexpectedly, your service order will be restored when you reopen it. You won’t lose work.

The wizard is always there. If you need to reconfigure anything — add a new Bible translation, change the songs folder, reinstall VLC — open Help → Getting Started and run through the relevant step again.

That’s the full setup. Most volunteers get through it in one sitting, with the font-tuning pass being the step that takes the most back-and-forth. If you get stuck on any step, the wiki has more detail, and the FAQ covers the most common questions.

New to Church Presenter? Read why it’s free and open source, or see what’s coming next.