Deep in the text.
Ready for
the pulpit.

Begin with what you need to understand.

Enter a passage to examine a particular text. Choose a topic to explore a theme across Scripture. Or pick a Sunday from the Revised Common Lectionary or the 2019 Book of Common Prayer (ACNA), and study one of its readings or all of them together.

Decide what kind of help will serve the passage.

The research agents are specialties: language, history, grammar, theological synthesis, the Church Fathers, and other disciplines. The lenses are interpretive questions: how a passage relates to Christ, the canon, covenant, formation, or the story of redemption.

Choose the combination that fits your purpose. A dense argument may call for close grammatical work. A pastoral theme may benefit from Soul Care and Practical Theology. The grammatical-historical lens remains active throughout.

Choose the form the study takes.

Sermon Essentials is the one-click choice: enter the passage and press a single button. Beside it sit 20 more formats in five groups: study and preparation, devotional, teaching and care, academic, and media. Each one is written for its own purpose, with its own layout and length, so a children’s lesson reads like a children’s lesson and a seminary lecture like a lecture.

Pick any format other than Sermon Essentials and you choose the specialties and lenses yourself. The full list is below the pictures.

Read enough to make your own judgment.

A completed study brings together original-language discussion, context, attributed scholarship, and competing interpretations. Full Exegesis develops the material at length. Sermon Essentials offers an accessible entry into the passage and its preaching possibilities.

The work runs in the background and is saved to your Library. Read it, edit it, export it, or carry it into the next stage of preparation.

The references give you places to check the research. Review important claims, quotations, and citations against your sources before building on them.

Need a way into the sermon? Start with the Coach.

The Sermon Coach turns a large task into ten decisions. Begin with the passage and the pastoral moment. Bring in a completed study, evaluate the big idea, choose the form, and develop the message from there.

At each stage, guidance and draft material give you something concrete to respond to. Choose what serves the passage, rewrite what does not sound like you, and keep your own stage notes as you go.

Already have something to say? Open the Builder.

Write directly in the Sermon Builder or bring a draft over from the Coach. The message is made of movable blocks: Scripture, introduction, big idea, points, illustrations, application, transitions, conclusion, and prayer.

Reorder the blocks as the argument becomes clearer. Type a slash on an empty line to choose the next kind of block. Keep track of word count and estimated preaching time against the target you set.

Keep the source material within reach.

Three side panels open beside the manuscript, and the draft stays open the whole time. Drag a panel’s left edge to widen it; the editor moves over to make room.

• Outputs holds every study you have run. The study this sermon is linked to is pinned first and opened for you. Search by passage or title.
• Notes holds your saved observations. Search by word or #tag.
• Passage looks up any reference in a licensed or public-domain translation, opening on the sermon’s own passage.

Drag it in, copy it, or add it as a block.

Highlight a paragraph of a study, a line of a note, or a few verses, and drag it straight into the block you are writing. Or press Copy, or Add as block to make it a new block of its own. With nothing highlighted, the whole study or note goes. Verses added from Passage become a Scripture block, and the exports and Podium print the passage text with its copyright line for you.

Let the block’s name do some work.

Name a block with the dropdown at its top: Introduction, Big Idea, Scripture Exposition, Point, Illustration, Application, Conclusion, Transition, Prayer, or a name of your own. Two names add a button.

• Illustration: press Suggest illustrations and three come back, drawn from the point directly above: one biblical, one historical, and one from ordinary life, each written in full. Insert the one you want, then make it yours. The best illustration is still the one only you can tell.
• Conclusion: press Suggest conclusions for three ways to land the sermon: a call to action, a bookend that returns to your opening, and a vision of what the text makes possible.

Every block also carries Add to slides, to include it in the PowerPoint, and Speaker notes, plain text that follows the block into Podium and the exports. Read and revise any suggestion before you preach it.

Ask for the edit the sentence needs.

Select a line, paragraph, or point to reveal the editing toolbar. Ask for fewer words, a fuller thought, clearer language, or a different tone. Read the proposal and decide whether to accept it.

Prepare for an ear, not just a page.

A listener cannot stop the sermon to reread a sentence. “For the ear” helps with spoken rhythm. “Plain English” makes technical language easier to follow. “In one sentence” helps uncover the claim people might carry home.

Keep the meaning under review.

“Check against the text” compares the selection with the linked study and offers notes on what supports the claim and where it may stretch the findings. The revision remains yours.

Read the draft against its foundation.

Review Before Sunday links the manuscript to the study behind it. Choose the correct study, then examine where the sermon follows the research, where it claims more than the findings support, and where a useful distinction has disappeared.

Know where to begin revising.

A readiness strip marks areas as Holds, Consider, or Attention. The feedback quotes your manuscript and points to specific places to reconsider.

The review also identifies strengths, offers observations about the message, and finishes with one thing to add and one thing to cut. Revise the draft and run another review when it would be useful.

This is feedback for you to weigh. A general review without a linked study cannot make the same comparison with the research.

See the shape of what you said.

New timelines mark Scripture references, mentions of Christ, questions to the room, and stretches of direct address. Repeated phrases and filler words show patterns across the message. Point at a mark to read the words at that moment.

Read the measures in context.

Pace, length, and filler-word rates provide a starting point for reflection. With a target set, compare the sermon’s length with the slot you planned. These are counts and rates, never a grade.

Consider the substance, too.

The expanded Content review examines the idea as preached, changes from your outline or manuscript, faithfulness to the text, what the message taught about God, how Christ came into view, illustrations, and application.

Link the Builder sermon to compare what was preached with what was written and the study behind it. The complete transcript remains available to search and revisit.

Bring the sermon you have.

Upload audio or video, use a YouTube link with available captions, or paste a transcript. Audio supports the fullest delivery measurements. Captions and transcripts have timing and transcription limits, which the review explains.

Recap analyzes the words and sound you provide. Mention counts do not establish theological depth, and the recording cannot establish listeners’ reactions, eye contact, or gestures.

Take the longer view of your ministry.

Across the canon lays out all 66 biblical books in your Library. Shading shows the concentration of your work. Switch between Preached, Studied, and Planned, and point at a book to see all three counts.

Let the pattern inform the plan.

Notice where your preparation has gathered, revisit a book you have studied, or consider an unfamiliar part of Scripture for a future series. The map makes your recorded work visible across both Testaments.

The categories reflect what is saved in the workspace. “Preached” draws on Builder and Coach sermons, recaps, and past calendar passages; “Studied” uses completed studies; “Planned” uses future calendar passages and series weeks. It is a record to interpret, rather than proof of every sermon actually delivered.

Begin with the thread that holds the weeks together.

Give the series a title, a book or thematic scope, and a big idea. Choose a color and mark its status as Planning, Active, or Done.

Work out the arc before filling every week.

Choose the research specialties and interpretive lenses you want applied. Ask “Draft the arc” for a proposed sequence, or build and order the weeks yourself. Each week can carry a passage, focus, and Sunday.

A completed Series Outline can also provide the starting point. The outline proposes the journey; the Series Planner is the workspace where you develop and schedule it.

Keep the whole journey in view.

Every week sits on one page with its title, passage, focus, and Sunday. Add notes for the week, move weeks up or down as the plan changes, and open a week’s own specialties and lenses when a text calls for different help than the rest of the series.

Give each message its own study.

When a week is ready, “Study this text” produces a full exegesis and preaching outline for that passage. Assign dates individually or schedule the Sundays from a start date, then populate the Preaching Calendar.

Drafting the arc uses one analysis. Studying a week uses two more, for its exegesis and outline. Weeks you do not open for study do not generate those outputs.

Choose the calendar your ministry follows.

Use Lectionary for the Revised Common Lectionary’s first reading, psalm, epistle, and gospel. Use Traditional for your own year of series and messages. Holy days are marked in both, and Traditional offers an optional midweek planning day.

See the year at the right scale.

Use List to read the plan in order, or Month grid to see the dates together. Jump to a date or year instead of searching through the whole schedule.

Put the work where you will need it.

Open a date to record the sermon title, passage, subject, and formatted notes. Color-code series or themes. Signed-in plans save to your account and can be opened on another device.

Add an individual sermon from the Coach or Builder, or populate the schedule from the Series Planner. The calendar becomes the meeting point between the plan and the preparation.

Take the plan to the meeting.

Print it filled in or blank for planning by hand. The lectionary view also offers a downloadable church-year wheel showing the seasons in proportion. Viewing and printing the calendar are free; sign in to save a personal plan.

Notes: keep the useful fragment.

Save the observation, illustration, question, or phrase before it gets lost. Add a title and passage reference, or save a selection directly from a completed study.

Reading a study and a sentence stops you? Highlight it and press Save selection as note. The note keeps the passage it came from, so searching that passage months later brings it back.

Search titles, note bodies, and passages; two words together find notes that contain both. Write a #hashtag anywhere in a note, such as #romans8, #advent, or #illustration, and it becomes a clickable chip. Choose two chips to see only notes that carry both, then add a word to narrow further. Each chip shows how many notes carry it.

In the Builder, open Notes beside the manuscript and copy a line, drag it into the block you are writing, or add the whole note as a new block.

Synthesis: bring several studies into one view.

Select at least two completed studies. “Combine into one study” develops a unified treatment of their shared threads and differences, ready to use as a foundation in the Coach. “Summarize into one” makes a more compact digest.

Three uses come up most. A sermon series: weave your studies of related texts into one arc, so each week builds on the last. Parallel passages: set the Gospel accounts side by side and see where they agree, differ, and illuminate one another. A theme across Scripture: follow one thread, such as grace, covenant, or the kingdom, through every passage you have studied.

Give the synthesis a title, and it is saved to your Library like any study. Open it on its own, or take it straight into the Sermon Coach as the foundation for a message. A generated synthesis uses one analysis. It is a separate tool from the Theological Synthesis specialty used within a single study.

Library: return to the work.

Every study waits as a card showing its passage, format, translation, and date. Open one to read, edit, copy, or export it; a study still being written shows as generating until it is ready.

Sermons gather into folders you name, so a series stays together, and your notes sit beside them. Across the canon, a map of all 66 books shows which you have studied, planned, and preached, so you can see where your ministry has lived and where it has not yet gone.

Research from one season can become the starting point for another.

Prepare the material you actually preach from.

Export the manuscript or outline to Word or PDF. Print a speaker’s card or save one as a PDF. Mark the blocks you want in PowerPoint slides.

For the outline, Quick keeps the block wording; the summary option condenses it into preaching bullets. Built-in Scripture exports support NASB 2020, NKJV, NLT, KJV, ASV, WEB, and BSB.

Carry the manuscript to the pulpit.

Podium mode gives you larger text, a running timer, speaker notes, and light or dark presentation. Set a target time and download an offline copy before you need it.

The manuscript, outline, slides, and Podium view begin with the sermon you have already built.

Learn the skills behind the tools.

The Learning Library contains 35 lessons in Exegesis, Hermeneutics, and Homiletics. Foundations, Developing, and Advanced levels let you start with the essentials or move into more demanding questions.

Take the lesson back to your passage.

Read a worked example, identify the key takeaway, then try a short exercise on the text you are preparing. Subjects include observation, context, genre, word studies, interpretation, structure, illustration, application, and series development.

The library gives you a way to keep developing your judgment while using the rest of the workspace for the ministry in front of you.