Mastering the Tools: Putting it all Together 3.31.2022

    Virtually any intelligent, pious, literate, and industrious Christian can prepare and preach a sermon. The parameters are well known. The context and concept are not mysterious.  A full-time preacher does it at least one time, every single week. The reason I have written so much this month regarding the tools for studying, taking notes, writing, and planning is that a preaching ministry requires enduring creativity. A lifetime of ministry requires stamina. Weekly preaching requires determination and foresight. 

    This Sunday’s sermon will be the most important that you and I preach. It will be the result of a lifetime of preparation. Everything you have ever learned will walk up into the pulpit with you on Sunday, April 3, 2022. When you are finished with that sermon you will file the materials, have a nap, and then continue with the mission. The sermon for 4.10.2022 then assumes its place as the most important sermon you will ever preach.

    I have written so much about this process because, while accidents may happen, planning for them seems pretentious. You could just get up, turn randomly in your Bible, read a text, and say something relevant. Following the same course, Sunday after Sunday will impoverish the understanding of your congregation, demean the ministry, and leave you unsatisfied. My beginning premise is that you and I should want to be good at this. As good as you can be, and as good as I can be. You and I will have different styles flowing from our different personalities, background, training, and interests. But when we sit down to open the sacred text there are some practices, some procedures, some tools which will help us to maximize the talents we have been given by God’s Holy Spirit. 

    How then do we put it all together? What makes a difference. I am by nature a process guy. Let me quickly summarize what this means and then draw this month’s series to a close. 

My process-driven model of preaching implements the following:

• Policy=the definition of successful completion. "It is my policy to prepare and preach a fresh, Biblical, creative, and challenging sermon every week."

• Process=a bird’s eye view of the entire project broken down into abstract statements. (What but not how) "A fresh, biblical, creative, and challenging sermon requires the choice of a text, exegesis of that text, and writing of the sermon."

• Procedure=a step, by step written map and/or checklist for executing the process. (I use a detailed checklist for weekly preaching)

• (best) Practices=tested and tried means for following the procedure in the most effective, efficient means possible. It is a best practice to do exegesis before preparing the sermon. The best practice for sermon composition order. Proposition->Body->Conclusion->Introduction.

    This is merely a more abstract way of describing what I have written this month. The tools of study, note-taking and curation, writing, and planning are tools that help you best use the available time for getting the work done so that when you come to the sacred desk on Sunday morning you are prepared for the Lord of all creation to proclaim thru you the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

    “But why? I’m smart. I’ve studied the Bible for years!” “I know what I’m doing!” Yes, you are. Yes, you have. Yes, you do. That is actually the point. Standing around waiting for lightning to strike does not make you an electrician. Do your best work. Put in the time. Allow for the impact of your preaching to be cumulative and long-term. Every message must be complete within itself but think of how your ministry is magnified as sermon upon sermon, week after week generates a compounding force for growing and educating disciples. 

    A task manager helps you to see each message in the context of a greater whole. That is the essence of all planning. Using your study tools well whether analog or digital means less time groping for information and more time assimilating information. Keeping, curating, reviewing, and contextualizing your notes provides illustrative, definitional, and contextual content for your preaching. Good notetaking is about reading deeply and widely so that you have a broad range of information to use in bridging the Biblical and contemporary contexts. And at some point, you are going to need to write this all down. Now, you could use an etch-a-sketch or crayons. I kid you not that when I was bi-vocational and working second shift I would come home at midnight and outline sermons in side-walk chalk on my front porch. Not exactly a formula for storage and retrieval. 

    It’s not the tool that writes the sermon, but the preacher. We go through various forests every week examining the trees and deciding exactly which one to fell for the construction of the project before us. We need good blueprints for the project. A good chain saw, perhaps an ax to trim branches. It will require tools to haul, trim shape, and construct the project. If we care about the end project, if we have ownership of the blessed work God has called us to do, we will need to master the tools so that, building upon the foundation—which is Christ—our work will survive the test. Preach the Word, my friends.

Mastering the Tools: Software for Organizing and Planning 3.24.2022

    We are called to preach. It can be hard work. It can be heart-rending. It can be rewarding. It can be exhilarating. It is work. Hard work. Preaching requires attention to detail and sensitivity to the emotional impact of words. Preaching well takes time. I’m not just speaking about years of experience, I mean lots of time every day, every week, every month. This month I have been inventorying the tools we use to prepare our sermons. Biblical Studies tools. Note-taking tools Writing tools. How do we find the long uninterrupted time to make the best use of those tools? That is today’s lesson.

    In the 1990s David Allen redefined personal productivity training with his Getting Things Done (GTD) method. I want to preface the rest of today’s essay by summarizing as briefly as I can the vast GTD ecosystem. It comes down to this. You really can only do one thing at a time. Regardless of what anyone says, they may juggle tasks, but only one has their attention at a time. The single most important lesson I took from GTD is that any task, for example studying, taking notes, preparing, and preaching a sermon, needs to be understood as a project, planned out and executed one step, one ticked-off checkbox at a time. You cannot do everything at once. That is no excuse for doing nothing. Plan well, make a good list, and do the first thing on the list. When it is complete do the next thing. After that do the third thing, and so on until you are finished. 

    I will talk about three classes of tools and only drop a few names. I have worked hard to be productive. I have written extensively on the subject and done my best to help others to be productive. You need a big picture organizing tool. I think that the best kind of tool for this is an outliner, you might choose a database or a purpose-built project manager. You need a To-do List manager. You need a calendar. 

• Outliner=Strategic/Logistic The big picture. 50,000 feet.

• To Do=Tactical. Order. Cumulative effect. Doing the right thing the right way.

• Calendar=Tactical/Logistic. When and where  will I do this task. 

    Much of what GTD teaches is an extension of basic common sense. The key idea is what makes the difference. Only one thing at a time. Everyone needs to adapt this insight or any other preferred method of organization to their own situation. One example of the contradictions I have always sensed at the heart of GTD is embodied in the insistence that only “hard landscape” items should go on your calendar. This seems profound. It is unsound. To be blunt, it’s nonsense. Every single thing you do is hard landscape (wait for it, wait for it, wait for it), When you’re doing it. Planning means specifically and unashamedly doing the correct next action. Planning is about sequencing the steps of a project. Scheduling is about deciding when you are going to do it. Execution? Doing it. Finishing. Delivering.  All the tools we have discussed throughout this month, all my ranting and raving about sermon calendars, and processes are pointless if you don’t keep some kind of a list of what you want to get done and a calendar for determining when you are going to do it. 

    I’m going to discuss tools in a moment. Before that, I want to share with you why I evolved some of these systems. All of us have heard the old joke that “preaching is easy, you only work one day a week.” It is not fair and accurate now, nor was it when I was just starting. I got tired of hearing it, so I began to document everything I did. Calendars and notepads have given way to electronic tools, but I have endeavored for more than 30 years to keep an accurate account of my work in ministry. Some of my records are disappeared because of various life transitions. My basic system now has been intact since 2008. I just pulled up today’s date from 2011.  I can see my ministry activities for that day. I was bi-vocational at the time so 8 hours of the day was “work”. I can also see that I did sermon work when I got home from my “day job”. Work hard. Document your work. Review your own performance. Take the initiative to strengthen your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses. 

    And now for tools. I’ve already mentioned Omni Outliner. My big picture planning is done there. Everything I will preach, write, or teach goes here on one big Sermon Calendar Outline. I have separate outlines for the other four areas of ministry: pastoral, planning, professional, and programming. The best to-do list I have ever used is Things by Cultured Code. It is an Apple ecosystem app that requires separate purchases for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. At first, that might seem expensive, but the pace and frequency of updates are extraordinary. The desktop version is at 3.15.14. The 3.15 update was released in September. That is 14 sub-updates in six months. The updates go far beyond bug-fixes as new features are debuted all the time. They use their own sync system, and it is flawless. I have used Things since 2012 and consider it, outside of Bible programs, the most important application on my devices. 

    Now your calendar. I would recommend three. I use them all in one combination or another. They each have strengths that I would miss if I went with a more streamlined approach. BusyCal is the heir to a venerable Macintosh calendaring heritage. I like it because I can use color-coded tags to give visual structure to my day. Fantastical is the new kid on the block. It came out of the blocks as a menu-bar calendar with the extra power of natural language parsing. It has evolved new views and some additional power. I use it because it is the fastest way to get new information into my calendar while working on my phone. I still use WeekCalendar for its very good agenda view. I began using this app in 2009 on an iPod touch. It has the best custom color/tag system, but its Mac App is a poor Catalyst implementation that lacks the power of the other two options. 

    A final word about planning. On Sunday morning I plan my week. I copy my task for next Sunday’s message onto my calendar, slotting in 30 minutes Sunday afternoon or evening. I then schedule from 9-12 noon and then from 12.42-3.00 on Monday to complete the sermon. Because I have planned far in advance and have already done a lot of preliminary work I'm never starting with a blank page. I will not do anything else Monday until my sermon is finished. Next, I use a weekly calendar view and slot in all my preaching/teaching/writing/study needs. We learn from Acts 6 that our primary task is the Word and prayer. So I make it my primary task in practice as well as theory. Next, I flesh out my week fitting in pastoral, planning, professional, and programming tasks in that order. You can only have one #1 task, one primary area of concentration. For the preacher that task is preaching. There will be emergencies. They should be taken on a case-by-case basis. "Something may come up" is not a plan. Your job is to be the best preacher preaching the best Biblically sound messages you can preach. Everything I have said and will ever say to you about preaching is based on this central assertion. No “yeah buts…” or “Bob, you just don’t understand” …or “my circumstances/expectations/environment are completely different.” I am too polite to drag out a hackneyed Tauro-scatological apothegm here, but it applies.  If you cannot or will not put your preaching first, please get out of the ministry.

Mastering the Tools: Software for Writing 3.17.2022

    Do not preach First Drafts. I do not know if anything I write will help you to become a better preacher. I think I have something to offer and that is why I write this blog. This phrase distills a lot of what I have learned over the last 40 years. There are many other aspects of ministry we could discuss but there are some things you will only truly learn through experience. Not preaching first drafts means slowing down. This is not a race. There is a deadline but that is not an excuse for hurrying. Start early, work more slowly, dig clean. I learned the last one when I was in high school working for a landscaper. You save time by being as clean as possible when you dig a hole. You can dig fast and still make little progress if you must keep going back to clean things up. This is not a contradiction. Multiple drafts are not just about cleaning things up. Multiple passes through your material allow you to edit, re-phrase, add, cut, amend, rearrange, and reconsider what you write. Preaching first drafts means that you may be producing good deliverables (sermon), but not your very best. 

    Using professional tools to write, edit, proof, reorganize, review, and finalize your sermon makes this process easier and will make your writing sharper. I want to discuss the tools as we go through a process for structuring, drafting, editing, revising, reviewing, and completing a sermon. Just to give you an idea of how this works for me in the real world each blog I write takes four distinct steps each one of these steps, is a draft even if I don’t change a thing. The first draft of blog, second draft of blog, review/edit blog post, publish the weekly blog post. Moving from tool to tool ensures that you are using the right tool for each part of the job and that you are looking at what needs attention as you move through the process.

Outline

    It all begins with a big idea and a structural outline. After all the background information is reviewed and the exegetical hard lifting is complete you should have a central big idea (proposition) that reduces your sermon from the text into one pithy statement. Now you need to think about structure. 

    In studying your text, you likely created an exegetical outline. This becomes the initial framework for your sermon. Currently, I am using A program called Aqua minds NoteTaker for this process. Because of ongoing improvements to iPad OS and the advent of Apple’s promised universal control feature I am about ready to move back to Omni Outliner so that I can leverage my iPad when I’m working at home. You can use Microsoft OneNote though the outlining tools have gotten weaker over time. I have several other outline processors on my Macintosh which are, unfortunately, not available to PC users. 

The key is to get the skeleton of the message fixed so that you can begin to fatten it up. Outline processors or the outline facility of your word processor allow you to work on structure without becoming encumbered with extraneous details or niceties of expression. There is a time for refinement, that time is after you have a solid, skeletal structure on which to build. After you have a good outline the next step--get up from your chair, get a cup of coffee, walk around, and then move on to the next step. 

First Draft

    I do my first draft in my outline program. After I have a good structural base, I try and flesh out the points so that they are parallel and support the central idea of the message. When I have the language of the body in order, I turn my attention to the conclusion. 

    I want people to anticipate the intellectual, emotional, and volitional thrust of the message—what I want them to know, how I want them to feel, and what I want them to do. Moving directly to the conclusion after the body ensures that I am thinking about closure throughout the composition process. 

Finally, I write the introduction. This is based on the premise that it is easier to “get into” material when you know where you are going and where you want to end up. 

As I said, I do all of this in my outline processor. If you use Microsoft Word, or Apple Pages I would recommend that you remain in the outline mode or the draft mode. You don’t want to be distracted by typography or the accumulated cruft of software features at this point. You should be entirely focused on content. When you are done with your first draft, save your work and take a break.

Second Draft

    I mentioned Logos Bible Software last week. At this point, I cut/paste my full sermon text into the Logos Sermon Writer (LSW). If you don’t have it, you can do the same thing using a variety of tools (Word Processor, Slide Program), but it will take a little longer. Working in LSW allows me to do three things as I write my second draft: create my pulpit document, create a handout for our bulletin, and create my slide deck for our media team--all in one pass. It does not change the process, but it does streamline the prep time for deliverables. 

    Once I have my material in LSW I go through the whole thing, again. I edit for content. I look for things that read well but may not sound good to the ear. As I make my slides, I am earmarking things to emphasize. This part of the process helps me to determine whether my supporting material really supports the message or just sounds clever. A lot gets cut at this point. Some gets added. 

Final Edit

    Right now, I use MS Word to do my final edit. I have at least four other word processors on my machine, but I use Word because it is ubiquitous. That means that there are valuable extensions (Grammarly) that only work in Word. I rarely compose in Word. I use it to edit and to finalize copy, particularly when that copy is going to someone else, Word’s file extension being the industry standard. 

    So, I shoot my material from the LSW to Word. And I go through the whole manuscript again. I run both Microsoft Editor (which is surprisingly good) and Grammarly. I run both programs because there appears to be a slight difference in grammatical philosophy behind them and between them, no infelicity of language slips through.  It is amazing how many mistakes you find even after you’ve read the same material several times. It is here that I send a copy to my wife to proof-read. Generally, nothing gets cut in the final edit, but a lot of typos, misspellings, and grammatical issues get corrected. 

    This process builds into the system, pauses, and changes in tools to reflect changes in perspective and purpose. Even as I go through this whole process on a typical Monday, the simple act of completing a step, pausing, moving on to the next, pausing again, ensures that I’m not rushing through a step without thinking and praying about the final product. God’s people deserve the best preaching I can produce. 

Publish 

I declare myself finished when I have:

• A document for the pulpit.

• A handout for the congregation.

• Slides for the media team. 

    When I am done and shut things down, I have gone through the sermon at least four times. Sometimes the second draft looks just exactly like the first draft. That’s fine. Next week the second draft may be entirely different. The process is the same though the labor subtly changes week by week depending on the text to be preached. 

    Professional tools applied according to a regular plan will help you become the best preacher you can be. Some need more study per sermon than others. Others look at a text and see an outline without even thinking. Some have perfect grammar but unimaginative prose. We are all different. I cannot help you with your gifts or your temperament, but I am committed to helping you with the tools.  

Mastering the Tools: Software for Taking Notes 3.10.2022

    Last week I discussed professional-grade Biblical Studies software. You may recall from that discussion a familiar refrain; professionals use professional tools. This remains true throughout the process of preparing to preach and in every other area of ministry.  

    Every job has work product and deliverables. Work product is a largely invisible but indispensable part of the process. The deliverable, for us, is the public proclamation of the Word of God—the sermon. No one sees all the hard work that goes into preparing a sermon. No one sees your process for gathering, organizing, and gleaning the best fruit of study and reading—but it all flows into that final, deliverable—due on Sunday morning. 

    This week we will discuss the tools for taking notes. Again, you may choose to use analog tools or digital. I will address the latter, though the tools we have and how they are used, still reflect their origins in the “real world.” As you work in your study you need three kinds of note-taking tools to fulfill three interdependent but separate functions. 

• You need a tool for taking and organizing notes.

• You need a tool for filing cuttings, clippings, quotations, and data. 

• You need a tool for structuring and organizing your thoughts.

The first is analogous to a notebook. The second is analogous to a file cabinet. The third is like taking a fresh piece of paper and outlining your thoughts. Let us examine each of these in turn.

Taking Notes

    You should always carry a notebook or index stack of index cards with you for quick notes,  and learn to use the tools on your phone. Really you should do both. People who are interested in learning are always taking notes, clipping quotes, sharing data with their friends and associates, reading, re-reading, filing, cross-referencing, and finding uses for what they gather.

    In addition to the digital tools, I will recommend shortly, I always carry with me a Field Notes brand pocket memorandum book. The brand catchphrase encapsulates the need for note-taking. “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” The key to good memory habits and the retention of information is making it stick now. So, today’s study, today's reading, today's work must be accounted for today, if it is to be of value tomorrow. 

    Let me briefly discuss a couple of digital tools. We will talk about Evernote again shortly. It has been a recommended tool for ministry professionals for many years. As a note-taking tool, I find it clumsy. I would recommend two tools that are better for quickly capturing bits and pieces of information. First, the native notes app on your phone (presuming you are on iPhone, sorry Android folk) is very capable. It syncs seamlessly with your Mac and or iPad. It can function both as a quick scratchpad and as a full-featured note-taking/keeping tool. Another valuable tool is Drafts, by Agile Tortoise. Every time you open this universal app it defaults to a fresh page. The program is specifically designed for quickly capturing textual information with the explicit understanding that it will be sorted, filed, and developed in other applications. If I write on my phone, it almost always starts in Drafts and then gets quickly transferred to a more robust program for additional development. 

    First, we take notes, then we organize them and deploy them in our ongoing work. That brings us to the next sort of tool. 

Filing

    I have boxes of old files in the basement of the Parsonage on the Hill. In my office, I have a nearly full filing cabinet and several plastic file organizers. This year's working files are in my desk filing drawer. Nearly every day I thank God that I no longer accumulate paper and physically organize it. I went fully Apple vertical in 2012. I have not taken paper to the pulpit since I got my first iPad. Every shred of work I have done since 2012 is available on my computer, iPad, and iPhone anywhere and at all times. The choice of tools makes this system not only feasible but functional. 

    There are different kinds of filing systems. People my age learned to use a card catalog for finding library books. Many older ministers had thousands of note cards of statistics, quotations, jokes, and other ephemera. And there is the long-term storage of our own personal notes. The boxes of files in storage remind us of the reality of our own work product. Now we only think about  it when we check our hard drive capacity, delete what is un-needed, and keep several current back-ups.

    There are several file-style programs. Evernote, Keep It, and (for you PC folk) OneNote allow us to replicate card or folder-based file systems on our computers. 

    I don’t type much into Evernote. I do, however, throw quotations, articles, weblinks, statistics, and other “might-need” stuff into it every day. Since Evernote has had some problems over the last couple of years I invested in Keep It, in the event it becomes necessary to move on from Evernote. As of this moment, I have 7646 items in Evernote. Articles. Webpages. Poetry. Stuff I might want to quote from in the future. Stories of all kinds, things which interest me, things that may be useful at some unforeseen time.  My general practice is to store things in Evernote, just like that old-fashioned file cabinet. When I use something from my "file", in a sermon, article, lesson, blog, or book, I time and date stamp it, record other significant details, then copy/paste it into my outliner for development. By dating it I know when it was used and can follow up on the information should it be something vulnerable to becoming outdated (such as statistics).

    You can do the same thing in OneNote. You can do the same thing in Apple Notes. There are dozens of other programs that do the same thing, I can just recommend what I have used and understand. You can even replicate this kind of functionality in Excel if you really want to.  If at all possible, you will want to use a tool that is available on all of your devices and which saves things in formats that can be readily exchanged or exported to other formats so that they do not become inaccessible in the future. You don’t want to lose anything. 

Outlining

    We preachers learn our outlining habits very early. I went through a period 25 years ago where I was using Mind Maps as a substitute. It just never took. I think in outlines. The first great age of outlining apps has passed but there are still several options. For those of you on the PC platform, sorry. Right now, I am using an outline processor called NoteTaker, by Aquaminds. It allows me to structure information into large outlines of outlines. My entire sermon calendar for 2022 is one big outline, each sermon has its own page with an outline section for the process of study and an outline section for the first draft of each message. 

    The other power-outliner is Omni Outliner. It is a program with a rich history that should last far into the future. I use Omni Outliner whenever I start a new writing project. It allows me to write without regard for final order and move things around. 

    I think it is essential to separate the process of gathering, curating, and organizing information from the process of writing and creating our end product. Each of these steps from taking notes, filing those notes, and beginning the process of bringing structure to what you have gathered helps you to constantly review what you are learning. You will develop less than you file. You will not file everything you note, clip, or save. This process of constantly winnowing through the information you gather is at the heart of critical inquiry. 

Conclusions

    My primary reason for moving to the Mac platform in 2012 was an application called (I kid you not) Circus Ponies Notebook. The company went under in 2016 and I went into a brief period of mourning. CP Notebook was what they call skeuomorphic—something in the digital world mimicking its analog counterpart. CP Notebook was designed like a three-ring binder…with sections, subsections, and pages for taking notes. It had excellent organizing and searching capabilities, so I was able to organize and file information like an old-fashioned file cabinet. And the whole thing was based upon outlines. Every notebook was an outline. The sections of the notebook were outlines. The pages—outlines. Oh, how I love outlines! And these outlines could scale. Every single document for a year's worth of preaching could be tucked into this one huge outline. The program organized my information, indexed it (including Greek and Hebrew words), and allowed me to move my notes from gathering and curating to sifting and incorporating in my own sermon prep cycles. And now, the company and the application are dead. The information I had accumulated is still accessible, but it takes more time to access. I use a sibling product that replicates 90% of the value of the CP Notebook. I’m effective with my system right now. I’m never fully content.  I’ve learned to always keep my options open. 

       This might seem way down in the weeds dull. And it is until you’ve been in ministry for 20 years and confront a filled filing cabinet while trying to find something you used at some forgotten time, In some forgotten place, somewhere in the past. Taking good notes and keeping them readily filed, using the best tools available makes planning and writing sermons much more satisfying and allows you to spend more time on the study and writing part of the job. We will talk about writing next week.

Mastering the Tools: Software for Study 3.3.2022

    Last week one of my schools announced changes to how its educational experience will be structured. My undergraduate college is in its last academic term before being “merged” with another school. We are entering a precarious period for vocational ministry. One apparent thing is that some elements of old-fashioned Bible College or Seminary curricula will need to be taught and (hopefully) learned at the local level. I’ve been writing this blog for more than a year now. For 2022 I decided to focus on topics relating to vocational (professional) ministry. At this point, that decision looks like the right one. If you benefit from what I write, please leave comments. If you read this because you are my friend or if it just crosses your desk, please pass it on to a pastor you love, a young person who needs to think of ministry as a career, or anyone looking for a mid-life change who needs to be in the pulpit. Now on to the content. 

    One of the mantras that I relentlessly chant to those I counsel about ministry is this: Professionals use professional tools. In the 21st century that is going to mean computerized tools for studying, reading, writing, editing, taking notes, and even the final deliverables of ministry: finished sermons, lessons, presentations, and so forth. This week we begin a month-long series discussing some of those tools: tools for study, tools for taking notes, tools for writing, tools for organizing and executing ministry responsibilities. 

    A further preliminary caveat. Much of what I say is based on my experience using software applications (apps). Actuality, you could take my advice and execute it in a purely analog (paper-based) fashion. Having used digital tools for 35 years I have evolved my methods during that time to leverage the modern tools available to everyone. I still have a notebook I write in every day. Every suit coat, blazer, or sports coat I wear has a golf pencil in the outside right pocket. I have a crank pencil sharpener behind my desk. I have a (neglected) collection of fountain pens. When I first acquired a computer and could see advanced computational tools for Biblical studies on the horizon, I promised myself to never use a computer to do something I can’t do “by hand.” I’ve kept that promise and can still take out any of my physical Greek New Testaments, transcribe a passage, translate it, exegete it, do a sentence flow, and then preach from it. Using computerized tools not only saves time it allows me to focus on the “executed” aspects of the process rather than the clerical. 

    One more caveat. When I say “professional” I’m not talking about pay, and the temptation to just be a hireling. I assume that you are called and gifted for ministry and that we are talking about equipment. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Before coming to my current ministry with Grayville First Christian Church I spent many years in Bi-vocational ministry. My last “real” job during that time was as an “analyst” for a small financial company owned by my brother. I was process manager, worked in compliance, was the number two person in a one-person Human Resource department, and spent a massive amount of time tracking and trying to prevent fraud. I used several tools to accomplish the task. Of course, there were the normal business tools for writing documents, crunching numbers, and communicating, beyond that there were specific, domain-oriented tools that I needed to do my job. Every day when tracking down incidents of fraud I used a tool that cost the company $900.00 a year per seat. I was able to make fraud-related connections because I had the right tool for the job. Professionals use professional tools. I don’t care if it is digital or analog. Master your tools and learn to use them. In the 21st century, for most people, the best, most cost-effective use of time, talent, and treasure will result in the acquisition and mastery of digital tools. This week we look at the domain-specific tools for Bible Study.

    It took almost 8 years from the time that I began to use a computer to write till the time that I began to use computerized tools to exegete scripture. I have used a wide assortment of these tools. Some are expensive. Some are open-sourced and largely free. Some require a moderate investment to properly equip you for study. Professionals use professional tools. The church just finished having the floors of The Parsonage on the Hill refinished. It took the gentleman who did the work most of the morning to unload his tools. Professional sander, vacuum, spraying equipment, even a heavy-duty cord to plug into the 220 outlet for the dryer. Professionals use professional tools. I am naturally cheap. I save money wherever I can. I have previewed virtually every cheap, shareware, open-source, value-ware, Bible Study program out there. When all is said and done there are not that many professional-level tools that provide you analytical focus for reading and exegeting the original language texts of scripture and which incorporate currently authoritative reference materials. I use three such tools and recommend them as professional-grade tools which will enhance your ministry from a beginner’s standpoint on through a seasoned ministry veteran. Much of my analysis is framed around the program’s felicity with the original language texts, apparatus, and lexica necessary for detailed study. 

 Olive Tree Bible Study

    I’ve used forms of this program since I had a palm-compatible device. It has original language texts, basic search capacities, and some lexical tools. It lacks some of the analytical tools we will discuss shortly. Virtually every week I use this program for one purpose. I open several English translations, and the Latin and French translations and read my text for the coming message. I like to do this Sunday afternoon and get a feel for the plot or strategy of the passage. I have a few scannable commentaries, Halley’s Bible handbook, very basic dictionaries, and some other things that I picked up because they were free or very cheap. That’s about it. I keep the program and my resources current, but it is a one-trick pony in my toolbox. 

    Bible Study is a capable program, but I want the best available versions of the original texts and a variety of ways to analyze them. When I really focus on a passage, Bible Study begins to wheeze like a mower struggling with tall grass. For someone who does not have great Greek/Hebrew, this is a good place to start. If you are studying the original languages and find that you need a sounder analytical platform, then you will make that discovery on your own and be able to make the transition to one of the more capable programs whilst still leveraging what you know and fruitfully using the program.

Logos

    I have used Logos in various versions since the mid-aughts. I know how it works, have a large library, and am, for the most part, able to do serious study on any book of the Bible without ever leaving the program. 

    Logos is slow. It can be agonizing. It has attempted to be all things to all platforms and does not really look like it belongs on any of them. The biggest strength of the program is the publishing side of things. Like many, I turn to Logos like I am turning to a well-resourced theological library. This is not always easy. Many of the packages the company offers are filled with plagiarism pills and public-domain filler that is nice but not necessary for ministry professionals. 

    Over the last 4 years, Logos has tried to position itself as a one-stop-shop for preparing sermons and lessons. Some of the tools are good, though the value of the automated tools is generally overblown. 

    I would recommend that a person get into Logos as early in their ministry as possible, work according to a specific plan of acquisition, use specials and free resource offers wisely, tie your purchases to your yearly preaching plan. 

Accordance

    Finally, there is Accordance. I have not used Accordance as long as either Logos or Bible Study. The value of Accordance comes down to one word: Speed. Accordance performs complex searches instantly. If time is money, then this program has been worth every dime I paid for every module and resource. The original texts are roughly the same as those in Logos, so I can get generally the same information for both programs. While I use Logos as a library with commentaries and other secondary and tertiary literature, I approach Accordance as the reference section of an academic library. I have tried to load up on specialist dictionaries and lexical tools. I have a few commentaries which came up in sales while preparing for specific sermon series. I am careful not to double up and to maximize sales and specials within narrowly specified needs. 

    As they say, your mileage may vary but as far as tools specifically designed for Biblical studies that is my tool kit. I test drive, try, even flirt with other tools but this is the combination of power and accessibility I need for my work. Each has apps for my Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Each contributes to my workflow in such a way that when I sit down to think through a thorny issue, prepare a lesson for Christian Service Camp, or write next Sunday’s sermon I know which tool to use when. 

    A few final thoughts for those who are contemplating the cost of all this. My use of these tools spans more than twenty years. Some programs have come and gone and are sadly lamented. GRAMcord (which stands for grammatical concordance) started this rodeo and is largely out of the game. BibleWorks was a reliable application for a quarter-century. I have been fortunate that my investments have largely worked out. I got pretty good value out of GRAMcord for windows which, when I purchased it in 1999 was largely an MS-DOS program crammed into the Windows environment. It worked. Sort of. I still love and use my books. I’ve always been a book guy. More than anything else I am a preacher. I want to be the best I can be every Sunday. The only important sermon is the next one. I’m always working. Always reading with an eye to quotation and illustration. Always thinking about how to get the most of every hour of every day. How to say clearly and succinctly what I need to say. I will talk about all those issues in the coming weeks. Thinking about those issues is largely possible because the most important tools in my toolbox are ready for action.