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Since the time of Moses, God’s leaders have needed to create messages that spoke His truth and helped His people take action.
The methods of preparing these messages have changed dramatically over the centuries and millennia. However, one thing has remained the same: pastors and leaders have always needed to organize and structure their material.
At various times in history people have used parchment, vellum (animal skin), notebooks, computers, and other tools. One of the biggest challenges pastors face today is that there is a huge variety of options for organizing and writing a sermon.
In fact, on any given week you might have material spread across the notes app on your phone, a printed notebook, random scraps of paper, and two or three computer files.
The result? Your sermon preparation slows to a crawl, you waste a lot of time transitioning back and forth between media, and your sermon writing process becomes something to dread rather than enjoy.
Fortunately, here at Sermonary we understand your needs as a pastor. (After all, Sermonary was created for pastors and by pastors!) You’re pressed for time and have a lot on your plate. On any given week, you’re likely dealing with budgets, staff, countless meetings, hospital calls, a wedding or funeral … not to mention your family life.
You have enough to worry about without feeling stressed about your sermon!
Enter the online sermon editor. We believe writing and preparing sermons for your church should be one of the highlights of pastoral ministry rather than one of its greatest burdens.
That’s why we designed this revolutionary yet simple tool to help you write your sermons faster and more efficiently than ever before. We want to help you fall in love with writing sermons again.
In this resource guide, you’ll learn ten ways that using an online sermon editor such as Sermonary will improve your sermon preparation. Let’s dive in.
We have an embarrassment of riches in the modern world when it comes to sermon prep. You probably have loads of commentaries, Bible study tools, and other preaching resources sitting on your bookshelf.
When you add in the internet, where every conceivable sermon resource is available, it’s enough to make you feel paralyzed. Where do you even begin?
A sermon editor makes the process much easier because you have a clear place to start your sermon. Instead of facing a blank document with no obvious starting point, you just have to click the “Write New” button within Sermonary, and you’re off to the races.
Of course, we can’t write your sermon for you. You’ll still need to do research, study the passage, hit the commentaries, and all the other things you normally do when preparing a sermon. But it’s so much easier when you have a designated space to get things moving. You can even search through our resource library of sermon guides with research done for you, illustration ideas, commentaries for every book of the Bible, and so much more.
Another big challenge in writing a sermon is deciding how to organize it. Our sermon editor takes the guesswork out of this process. The Sermonary sermon template library is your secret weapon to figuring out your sermon structure. If you don’t have a structure in place, it’s much harder to put together a coherent sermon.
You can use several time-tested templates we have available. The following sermon templates are included:
Traditional 3-Point Sermon Template. This is a traditional three-point sermon outline template. Each point includes explanation, illustration, and application blocks.
The ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE Method. Created by Andy Stanley, this sermon outline template uses a simple formula to communicate the text’s big idea in a conversational manner.
Verse-by-Verse Running Commentary. This sermon template is designed to help pastors work verse-by-verse through their text. Included are blocks for illustrations and application.
The Defender’s Outline. Work through this sermon outline when using apologetics to teach or defend a tenet of the Christian faith.
The Children’s Leader. This sermon template, designed for children’s leaders, will help kids understand and apply the teachings of Scripture.
The Youth Pastor. This sermon template is designed to help youth leaders communicate the Bible in a way that’s both creative and applicable for students and teenagers.
The good news is that you aren’t limited to these. You can also create your own custom sermon template. Or, you can use none at all and structure your sermon as you see fit.
Whichever you choose, these sermon outline templates are here to support your preaching and make crafting an amazing sermon easier and faster.
One of the most overlooked aspects of writing is the aesthetics of the tools you are using. If the app or program doesn’t look appealing, or if it looks cluttered or disorganized, it will stifle your creativity.
Even worse, it can distract you from the very thing it’s designed to do—help you write and create content.
You won’t face any of that with Sermonary. We have designed a clean, simple interface so you won’t be distracted. When you can focus on the words, you can save time and enjoy the process even more.
As a pastor, you probably feel like your sermon preparation time is already cut short because of other responsibilities. When you finally sit down to work on your sermon, it can be hard to focus and make the most of your time.
One of the benefits of using our Drag-and-Drop Sermon Editor™ is that you are able to write your message in chunks. Sitting down to face a blank document can feel intimidating … which is why we have eliminated the blank page altogether.
We also know that inspiration and ideas for sermons don’t necessarily arrive on schedule. They can pop up at any time. You can access Sermonary’s online sermon editor from any device with an internet connection and take notes in the Ideas tab to save your thoughts and ideas for later.
This is a big help because you can jot down your thoughts, then copy them into a block and drag and drop them wherever they fit best in your sermon. No more cutting and pasting between sections in a Word document.
Another way the sermon editor saves you time is by letting you create sermon slides for PowerPoint and ProPresenter right within the sermon editor. Or you can preach straight from Podium Mode with a built in countdown timer so you can preach with ease! There are multiple ways the sermon editor helps you save time and be more efficient.
Has this ever happened to you? You sit down to work on your sermon, then realize you have material in several different places. There’s a digital notebook file, a few pages in your journal, a Word document stored somewhere, on a few sticky notes on your desk, and some voice notes on your phone you made a week ago — and it’s difficult for you to remember where you put that one idea that would be perfect for the sermon you’re in the middle of writing.
Our online sermon editor takes the pain out of organizing your material. No more writing notes and ideas in random places, and no more wasting time trying to find them weeks or months later.
You can view and organize all your sermons and drafts, and even put them into series. In addition, you can consolidate all your ideas into the archive and save them for later.
When all your sermon material is accessible and organized in one place, you’ll feel less stressed and save a lot of time.
It also gives peace of mind knowing that all of your sermons are stored in one place.
One of the preaching trends we have seen in recent years is the development of teams. In this arrangement, pastors speak on a rotating schedule so that the congregation gets to hear a variety of voices.
This is not only great for the congregation—it’s great for pastors as well. It is a huge challenge to write 50 sermons a year (assuming you have a couple of weeks for vacation). Preaching teams allows pastors to preach fewer sermons but do so more effectively.
Since these teams usually work together on messages, it’s critical to be able to share sermon notes with a collaborator or group. You can send a link to another Sermonary user so they can view and edit the sermon. Or if you prefer, you can send a link so they can view it in Podium mode.
Either way, Sermonary makes it easy to collect all your material in one place and collaborate on sermons.
Let’s say you are preaching a funeral and forget your notes at home. Normally, this would be a time for panic, right?
But when you use the sermon editor, you can access all of your sermons from anywhere you have internet access. And if you switch between devices, you can pick up right where you left off.
The sermon editor is cloud-based, so you never have to worry about losing access to your sermons. This comes in handy when you are preaching or speaking remotely, such as the aforementioned funeral service, wedding, conference, or another church.
With the sermon editor, you are not limited to just your own material. We have made a wide array of sermon resources available to you right within the app itself.
Whether you are looking for artwork, commentaries, or sermon illustrations, we have you covered with our vast resource library. In particular, our illustration library of articles, videos, current events, and stories will save you hours each week and help you find the perfect illustration to make your sermons clear.
One of our favorite features is Podium Mode, which allows you to preach your sermons from your tablet or smartphone without the need to print anything. Gone are the days of using note cards, paper clips, or trying to format your sermon on half-sheets so it fits in your Bible.
Whether you prefer a transcript or a sermon outline, Podium Mode’s clean and simple design makes preaching your sermons seamless. Sermonary users consistently tell us this is one of their favorite features.
Podium Mode also includes a timer so you never have to guess how long you’ve been preaching. This is a fantastic tool for both rehearsing your sermon as well as preaching in live settings. You’ll never have to look at your watch during a sermon again.
We take preaching seriously, which is why we have put so much time and effort into creating the world’s premier online sermon editor.
However, we shouldn’t miss out on the fun and excitement of preaching. As a pastor, you spend a good chunk of your ministry life preparing and preaching sermons. Shouldn’t there be an element of enjoyment and enthusiasm?
We certainly believe so. When you have answered the call to preach and prepare sermons, you are engaging in one of the world’s most important tasks. But it’s hard to be excited about it when you feel disorganized or confused.
That’s exactly why we created this revolutionary tool: to help you save time and get back to the main reason for preaching in the first place: communicating God’s message. That’s one of the most exciting things on the planet.
Maybe you’re the lead pastor, education director, or campus pastor, or even an intern who is just getting started. No matter what your level of experience or education, the Sermonary sermon editor is a fantastic resource to help you preach more effectively and efficiently.
If you have never used it, give it a shot. Our users rave about the features we’ve talked about here, in addition to several we didn’t have room for. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the energy and organization it brings back into your preaching.
Join Sermonary today! Enjoy writing unlimited sermons, store all of your sermons in one place and write your sermons faster and more efficiently. We know your time is priceless, so let us give you more of it. There is no commitment, and you can cancel at any time. Start your free 30-day trial today!
Sermonary is the premier drag-and-drop sermon builder created by pastors, for pastors.