Why A Mac in Church?

[chaselivingston]

This is a continuation of the post on the blog of the same name. Please discuss your thoughts here.

[jimwalton]

One hurdle that holds many churches back from jumping into the Mac arena is cost. Another is familiarity. Even if you get a Mac and you want to run ProPresenter on it, many church IT people are not familiar with Mac OS and the Mac ways. I think ProPresenter is a tough sell considering the Mac price and the learning curve. Get beyond that and I know ProPresenter is as good as or better than EasyWorship or MediaShout.

[chaselivingston]

Yeah, cost is a major deciding factor, one which my church is struggling with. The learning curve though, is not so much. Mac OS X is probably the most easy to use operating system I've ever gotten my hands on. Everything is very intuitive, and things are where you think they should be. It took me probably a matter of minutes to figure out everything I needed to know to get started on my first Mac.

[paschott]

Cost would be a factor for us. We can get a Windows-based laptop that would meet all of our needs for ~$500. The lowest price Mac equivalent is at least twice that cost. For our purposes, we just don't get enough value out of that extra $500 to justify the cost. It works well for some churches, but wouldn't fit well for us.

I'd tend to agree that the learning curve is not likely to be an issue in most cases. Familiarity could be an issue at times and compatibility could also be an issue if your ChMS software doesn't have a Mac client. (Unlikely in a lot of cases, but still very possible) I'm sure we could look at it later, but we just don't have the resources to support (or purchase) Macs at this time, let alone buy new software for them.

[chaselivingston]

I agree that cost is a major factor, but if we did have the money, I think the extra money would be well worth it. ProPresenter isn't the only advantage to running a Mac. Many of the native apps, such as GarageBand, iMovie, etc would be great for editing different things needed for a worship service.

[paschott]

Agreed to an extent. We have little trouble with Audacity for sound editing and if we needed video, could do very well with one of the $100 programs. We're a pretty small church and don't need a lot of the bells and whistles of the more advanced packages and the cheaper ones keep getting better to provide us pretty much all we really need. Even with that purchase, we'd still be well under the cost of a similar Mac. I can't speak for ProPresenter vs. EasyWorship, but we have pretty basic needs there as well and EasyWorship works well for those. Different churches, different needs. I definitely can see why churches would choose Macs over PC's, but can also see the reverse easily. I tend to look at things from a smaller church perspective where we tend to struggle a little more making ends meet or frequently have smaller budgets for Tech. I know of several larger churches that are all Mac and only running some form of virtualization for the few PC/Windows programs they need to run.

Sounds like comparing some of these packages might be well worth it. Ease of use, cost, functionality, what's included or not included, etc. Sadly, I can't compare too much because I haven't used a lot of the different options out there, but that may be worth pursuing.

[chaselivingston]

That's true, maybe I'll look into that comparison. I agree with you on looking at it from the smaller church standpoint, although I have seen many church plants who start out with a Mac. That's just something they budget for in the beginning because they know they'll get their money's worth out of it. They don't have to invest in anti-virus software, worry about spyware scans, or anything like that.

[Stuart]

We have a MAc in our church though I wouldn't dream of letting it anywhere near doing worship presentation stuff.

Why? Well as most folks have already stated ... it's the cost.

For the price you can run a very good PC presentation app and hardware for less than the cost of just the Mac. And unfortunately I would consider it a complete waste of teh Mac's power and capabilities to be just used for "presentation". Sure, if you have the money then great.

Our use is for a staff member that came from a Mac only design background (print) and now designs the catalogues, etc for teh business arm of the church. In this case it made sense for him to have a mac but I do wish I'd been given more warning. Whilst I've used and repaired Macs for years (I started on an Apple IIe) {ok stop sniggering at the back, I know I'm getting long in the tooth} I've never had much time to integrate them to an already established Active-Directory setup.

Whilst I'v enow looked in to it and could do it second time around it'd just appear to be pettiness on my part to make teh Mac user tow the corporate line - when it needs a re-build (an dthe way he uses it, it will) I'll do it then. But for now he's allowed fairly free reign..... but I make him do his own backups

[chaselivingston]

I think the Mac's power is perfectly suited for presentation. The way it handles media is, in my opinion, much better suited for the media normally used in a worship environment. And honestly, if my church were to purchase a Mac for presentation, it would be used for much more than that, although that would probably be its main purpose.

[Stuart]

I think the Mac's power is perfectly suited for presentation. The way it handles media is, in my opinion, much better suited for the media normally used in a worship environment. And honestly, if my church were to purchase a Mac for presentation, it would be used for much more than that, although that would probably be its main purpose.

You mis-quote or mis-understand me.

I don't disagree - the Mac is perfectly suited for presentation, I just think it's like buying a Rolls Royce to go 4x4ing. It's not the right tool and it isn't the best use of the tool.

Secondly I have to presume to read "in a normal worship environment" when you said "normally used in a worship environment". What is normal? What is a worship environment?

I can see a place for the Mac in day to day usage and I do agree it has power and it has presentation on its side (but then so do PCs), but it can't be considered as the only tool or the only right tool for presentation.

Maybe I'm mis-reading your statements and I'm happy to be slapped down but do understand thatI don't disagree. I switch fluidly between Macs and PCs and have no issue with either and consequently will use both for different tasks or even try to duplicate a task from one to the other....

But there's nothing normal about any worship environment that can cause one to say a Mac is the right or only tool for presentation.