How to Put Sermon Slides on Your Congregation's Phones
Six real methods churches use to share slides, notes, and Scripture on Sunday — with the honest trade-offs of each.
By the thisweek.church Editorial Desk · Updated August 16, 2026 · 8 min read
You can share sermon slides with your congregation's phones several ways: a QR code to a PDF, a shared Google Drive folder, YouVersion Events, a church app, Planning Center's Church Center, or a purpose-built mobile tool. The simplest methods (QR-to-PDF, Drive) require no app but format poorly on phones and can't hold notes or Scripture. App-based methods add notes and Scripture but require a download. Purpose-built tools like preachly.io aim to give you both — phone-formatted slides, Scripture, and notes with no app.
More people follow along on a phone than on the printed handout now, and the slides you spent Saturday designing don't have to stay trapped on the screen at the front of the room. The question isn't whether you can put sermon slides on people's phones — you can, several ways — but which method fits your church without adding friction the average attender or first-time guest won't push through. Here are the real options, from simplest to most capable, and what each one costs you in practice.
1. QR code to a PDF
The most common quick fix: export your slides as a PDF, upload it somewhere public, and put a QR code on the screen that links to it. It's free, fast, and requires no app. The downside is the experience. A slide deck built for a 16:9 projector is hard to read pinched down onto a phone, a PDF can't hold anyone's notes or link out to Scripture, and you have to re-upload and re-share every single week. Fine as a stopgap; frustrating as a habit.
2. A shared Google Drive (or Dropbox) folder
Some churches drop each week's slides into a shared cloud folder and point people there. It's free and familiar, and people can scroll past weeks. But it inherits every problem of the PDF — phone formatting, no notes, no Scripture — and adds a navigation step: people land in a file list and have to find the right document. Sharing settings also trip up guests, who sometimes hit a permission wall or a prompt to sign in with a Google account.
3. YouVersion Events
YouVersion Events, from Life.Church, is free and lets you publish sermon notes, verses, and links inside the YouVersion Bible App. Scripture is the star here — it's the Bible App — and people can follow the pastor's outline and take private, savable notes. The trade-offs are that it's built for notes and verses rather than your actual presentation slides, and attenders need the YouVersion app installed to use it. For a Scripture-centered follow-along at no cost, it's excellent.
4. A church app
A dedicated church app (through a platform like Subsplash, Tithely, or similar) can host slides, notes, media, giving, and more in one branded place. For committed members, it's a persistent home they'll open all week. The cost is friction and money: people must find and download the app — and often create a login — before they see anything, which is a real barrier for guests, and branded-app platforms typically carry a monthly subscription. Great for your core; a high bar for the newcomer.
5. Planning Center's Church Center
If your church runs Planning Center, its free Church Center app now offers sermon notes: fill-in-the-blank outlines and personal note areas people complete, reveal, and email to themselves. It's tightly integrated with the systems your staff already use, which is its real advantage. As with any app, though, people need Church Center installed, so it serves your engaged members more naturally than a walk-in visitor.
6. A purpose-built mobile service tool
The newest category is tools designed specifically for this job — putting the slides, Scripture, and notes on phones without an app. A platform like preachly.io takes your projection slides and reformats them for phones automatically, shows the Scripture (linked to Bible.com) with a note pad and verse highlighting on the page, and shares the whole thing through a QR code, NFC tag, text, or link with nothing to download. The aim is to remove the trade-off the other methods force: readable slides and Scripture and notes, but no app and no login. It's a paid product (with a free tier), and it's opinionated toward the frictionless Sunday moment rather than an all-week app ecosystem.
How to choose
Weigh three things: how the slides will actually read on a phone, whether people need notes and Scripture in the same place, and how much friction a guest will tolerate. Roughly:
- —Just need slides out fast, for free, and don't mind rough formatting? A QR-to-PDF or a shared Drive folder will do.
- —Want Scripture and notes and you're fine asking people to use an app? YouVersion Events (free) or your church app / Church Center.
- —Want phone-formatted slides, Scripture, and notes together with no app or login — especially for guests? A purpose-built tool like preachly.io.
There's no wrong answer, only a fit. The best method is the one your specific congregation — members and newcomers alike — will actually use without being taught how.
We may use AI to assist with research and drafting. Claims and sources are reviewed under our editorial standards.
Frequently asked questions
Can church members see sermon slides on their phones?
Yes. You can share sermon slides to phones with a QR code linking to a PDF, a shared cloud folder, a church app, Planning Center's Church Center, or a purpose-built tool like preachly.io that reformats your slides for phones and shares them by QR code or link with no app required.
How do I share sermon slides with my congregation?
Export your slides and make them reachable from a phone. The simplest way is a QR code to a PDF or a shared Google Drive folder; app-based options (YouVersion Events, church apps, Church Center) add notes and Scripture but require a download; purpose-built tools like preachly.io give you phone-formatted slides, Scripture, and notes without an app.
Can people take sermon notes on their phone?
Yes. YouVersion Events, Church Center, and church apps let people take notes inside the app, while browser-based tools like preachly.io let people read Scripture and take notes — with verse highlighting — on a web page reached by QR code or link, without installing anything.
What's the easiest free way to put sermon slides on phones?
A QR code linking to a PDF of your slides is the easiest free method — but the slides won't reformat for phones and can't hold notes or Scripture. YouVersion Events is a free, more capable option for notes and verses, though it requires the YouVersion Bible App.
Do sermon slides format well on a phone?
Not automatically. Slides designed for a widescreen projector are hard to read shrunk onto a phone, which is a common problem with the PDF and cloud-folder methods. Purpose-built tools like preachly.io address this by reformatting projection slides for phone screens.