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.