For all you preachers and communicators, I did a little experiment this
summer with our church and asked them to evaluate my messages that used
powerpoint and didn't use powerpoint.
A while back, I was preaching at a different church in which I didn't use a powerpoint, and I was approached by a media expert after the service who expressed how much they appreciated that I DIDN'T use powerpoint. This got my attention, as I've been a student of communication skills and heard arguments for both sides of using and not using slides (plus there are highly successful preachers on both sides of the fence).
So for the summer, I preached half my sermons with powerpoint, and half without powerpoint, and then polled the people as to which they liked better. Results? 3/4's liked my messages better WITH powerpoint and 1/4 liked it better without the slides.
This was fun for me to find out.
So my general default will be to stick with using powerpoint, especially when my messages are more teaching based. When I preach extemporaneously or prophetically, I will not use powerpoint.
There you have it. A little data from the field.