Has anyone switched from Word to Sermon Editor/Builder?
I've been writing sermons in Microsoft Word for 20 years. It would be hard to switch to Logos for preparing outlines, but the new Sermon Builder in Logos 9 looks interesting. Has anyone made the switch? What are the pros and cons in your experience?
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I have been using the sermon builder since it first came out.
I enjoy it. I like that I can create slides as I go.
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I still write in Word, then Copy/paste into Sermon Editor. This permits me to take advantage of Word’s robust font color/size for my printed preaching notes. The Paste into Sermon Builder provides 1) a Simplified path to creating slides for Proclaim; and 2) a tagged and searchable archive of my sermons in the Logos ecosystem.
Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).
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I was asking a similar question here:
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I assume the generated slides also work without Proclaim (i.e. with plain PowerPoint)?
I've been in the habit of taking research notes, writing the sermon, and creating slides all in Word / PPT.
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David Watson said:
I've been writing sermons in Microsoft Word for 20 years. It would be hard to switch to Logos for preparing outlines, but the new Sermon Builder in Logos 9 looks interesting. Has anyone made the switch? What are the pros and cons in your experience?
I just posted a similar question today. I am trying to figure this out.
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David Watson said:
Has anyone made the switch? What are the pros and cons in your experience?
Like Kenneth, I have been using the Sermon Editor (now Builder) for a long time.
The benefits for me include:
- everything integrated in the Logos environment
- the easy ability to include scripture and to copy articles from resource I have in Logos
- auto generation of hyperlink to scripture verses making it easy for me to access those verses when preaching (I used to have a sermon document on one side of the screen and a Bible open in the other. Tapping the reference in the sermon document updated the Bible to that place. This no longer works in Preach mode as that takes up the full screen)
- being able to have sermons I had preached come up in Passage Guides etc
- good integration with Logos media
- auto-generation of slides and the ability to export to PowerPoint / Proclaim
- automatically syncing with my iPad which I have been using for preaching for years now
Apart from some of the bugs which have been worked out over time I haven't really found any downside to working in this way
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I did this transition when the Sermon Editor first came, although there's not a lot of formatting options it's good enough, the ability to just write the biblical reference hit enter and then it appears and you can switch for another version in a couple of clicks, the way to do the slides it's great, it algo syncs in the cloud so I have my sermons immediately on my tablet, also the way you can add a quote from a resource, I don't see any cons actually I'll encourage any Logos user to make the switch.
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PL said:
I assume the generated slides also work without Proclaim (i.e. with plain PowerPoint)?
Yes, PowerPoint export is supported.
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My own activity here is very similar to David Thomas'.
I make verse by verse notes in Logos.
I then copy the notes into my Word template for sermons (nothing fancy, just reflects my work style).
I edit and work it in Word, then finally copy > paste into Logos sermon editor and adjust the slides, etc.
Now the reason:
I am a relentless maker of backups. I have lost YEARS of work before I became a backup nutjob. Quite frankly I cannot make a backup of Logos documents, so I view them as merely secondary copies of my real documents.
And I backup my documents like an insane lunatic. Because I am one. Losing my past work made me one.
Now: Go make a backup people.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
I've been using it since I got it and don't regret it.
It's not a full fleshed out word document processor, but the good things of this feature far outweight this.0 -
TCBlack said:
I am a relentless maker of backups. I have lost YEARS of work before I became a backup nutjob.
I appreciate that Sermon Documents are backed up to Faithlife servers, but I echo TCBlack - I've lost too much data in the past so I archive my Docx in paper (in 3 ring Binders), local Micro SD, an external HD in a 2nd location, and 2 cloud services. Redundancy is your friend!
Now, to quote a wise man [H]
TCBlack said:Go make a backup people.
Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).
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Graham Criddle said:
- being able to have sermons I had preached come up in Passage Guides etc
Can you elaborate on what comes up in the Passage Guides? Is it stuff that I have manually tagged in the "Sermon info" such as Key Topics and Key Passages?
Thanks!
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Is there a way to NOT have the text of Scripture in the outline itself. What I've always done is have the passage in my outline in bold, and when I'm preaching I turn and read it from my Bible (not off the outline). If I had all my scriptures written out I'd have to get used to a really long outline. [:)]
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David Watson said:
Can you elaborate on what comes up in the Passage Guides?
I just ran a passage guide for the text I preached last Sunday. Under My Content I have links to the Notebook I created for that Sermon, the Clippings File and the Sermon doc. [Disregard the Notebook from Luke 4 - I had errantly placed a Luke 6:1-2 anchor in a note in that notebook]
Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).
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I'm not a pastor so I am more interested in the blogging potential of the tool. Since there is no decent desktop blogging software for the non WP user, I end up writing on Word on my PC and then copying it from my tablet version to paste into a tablet blogging app.
This thread has got me curious. Could I use the Sermon/Homily Builder to save a step here?
WIN 11 i7 9750H, RTX 2060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD | iPad Air 3
Verbum Max0 -
David Watson said:
Can you elaborate on what comes up in the Passage Guides? Is it stuff that I have manually tagged in the "Sermon info" such as Key Topics and Key Passages?
Yes - it is tied to information we provide in the info pane
So, for example, running a Passage Guide on John 6:35-40, I can see (in the Sermons -> Sermon Documents section) that I have five sermons that are tagged with that passage. Clicking those results opens the associated sermon
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David Watson said:
Is there a way to NOT have the text of Scripture in the outline itself.
Sure. If you just enter a scripture reference "in line" the actual text is not included. So, in a sermon I have:
" To understand what this is about we would need to look back at the beginning of the chapter where we find that they had been out of Egypt for about six weeks (Ex 16:1) after living there in slavery for hundreds of years."
If I click / tap Ex 16:1 in the document it will update my Bible to that point and I can read from there.
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David Wanat said:
Could I use the Sermon/Homily Builder to save a step here?
Potentially - it all depends on exactly what you are hoping to achieve.
Can you provide a few more details?
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As a former Wordsearch user, I have used Microsoft Word for prep work for years. WS had a decent processor and Onedrive integration but it was far from smooth.
After taking all the Logos training I could get I have settled into this routine for Lesson prep (I'm typically a verse by verse teacher)
I study through my passage making notes on each verse with the notes tool. I then select all applicable notes (In full disclosure, I am working on integrating clippings as well but I'm not there yet) using Ctrl+Click or similar. This will show an export icon near the top right that will export all of those notes, in order, to Sermon Editor/Builder.
At this point it is already workable to print as a last minute panic lesson, but, I will then use the Editor to Tag specific lines for the handout (which I only started using recently because of its ease in Sermon Builder), arrange headings, and add any personal markup (after printing the handout now that markup is part of the handout).
From here, because I like Onedrive and I have a few teaching quirks, I will then export to Word for a very brief touch up. The Header box at the beginning and the cluttered footer annoy me, so I use Word to delete them.
When I fill in for the Pastor I just prepare the sermon directly in Sermon Editor and export to Word.
The greatest Pro for me is having all of my notes contained in Logos, fully accessible every time I look at that passage again, like a personal study Bible.
Another pro is that the Handout functions were so easy that I started using them and it made my classes feel more interactive.
On the Con side, having to use Word to remove some visuals feels unnecessary, but I would still export to Word for Onedrive so its not that bad.
Also a con, and my biggest complaint, is that typing a reference or pasting a verse directly into Editor, even if its imported from a note, will produce a scripture card that is uneditable AND will only show up on the handout as a reference without text. To work around that you have to add a space, or other text before pasting to keep it from creating the scripture card.0 -
crossposting to another thread on this topic with many of the same users posting both places - https://community.logos.com/forums/t/195475.aspx
Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).
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