Having trouble when it comes to the application part of your sermon? The typical commentaries and sermon prep resources just not giving you practical ways to use this week's passage in real life?
Here's a quick tip: use your counseling and discipleship resources to find ways to apply the text. Here's how:
- Create a collection of counseling and discipleship resources. I call this collection "Sermon Application." The rule I use is:
subject:counsel OR subject:"pastoral care" OR title:"pastoral care" OR (title:grow ANDNOT title:church) OR title:discipleship OR (subject:"christian life" ANDNOT title:sermon ANDNOT title:illustrat) ANDNOT type:commentary
- Add this collection to your My Passage Guide
- Whenever you run your passage guide every reference to that passage in your counseling and discipleship resources will appear.
The rationale behind this is that your counseling and discipleship volumes are going to have the most practical advice for real life problems (counseling) and places to grow (discipleship). These resources cite Bible verses almost exclusively for the purpose of addressing those issues so chances are very high that the search results you get will lead you directly to points of application for your congregation.
Hope this tip helps! God bless!
