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Sermon Builder


Andrew Patterson

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In my opinion, the two chief advantages "The Competitor" has over Accordance are 1) their larger library corpus and 2) their sermon building/managing tools. The former is a matter of provenance of permission, always going back and forth, but the latter is an actual feature. For the most part, Accordance reigns supreme in features. At least, in Bible study itself. However, I fully believe it would be well worth the time and cost to develop a competing set of features for ministers. I really like the look of You-Know-Who's "Sermon Builder" and "Sermon Manager" features. 

 

Accordance's "Paper" feature is ok, but nothing incredible. It's clunky and awkward to use and is hardly streamlined, whereas The Great Adversary automatically adds in verses and creates a presentation for you. Metadata can be manually entered, which can in turn display in the "Sermon Manager".

 

I only have Accordance, and I don't plan on leaving, but these are some features I find myself mildly envying. Long term goals, ya know?

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To this I want to add my amen! Accordance has been my “ go to” for some time now. The sermon builder feature is absolutely invaluable to me as a pastor who must compile sermon after sermon. Any thing that saves time especially in preparation is important to me. Currently I use BOTH products. My use of the competitor centers around the sermon builder. For Accordance to seriously consider something similar would be wonderful. Additionally, serious changes to the syncing of notes and highlights would also be wonderful (I am aware that this is in work).

 

Bob

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I initially used stacks but as i have migrated to mainly iOS for my preparation, i have had to find a different work around.
 

I would like to add to the above that if there is some sort of sermon builder, it is designed to have full compatibility so that it works on both the full fat os devices and the semi skimmed mobile devices from day one if possible.

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I use my iPad for message prep and pulpit delivery utilizing sermon builder.

 

Bob

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I would love to see a more robust Papers, hopefully in 14

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I admit that as an ex-BibleWorks user, I frankly don't know what "Sermon Builder" is, but I wanted to mention that I agree 100% with @Andrew Patterson in his assessment of Papers as "clunky." I like the concept of Papers, but the way I am forced to work in those little boxes makes it impossible to use. It seems to require a certain writing style, which likely works for some, but is not how I function. It has not been an issue as Tools serves my needs, but I agree it would be good if Papers could be a little smoother. I can't even figure out how to select all in Papers as it just selects all the contents of one of the little boxes.

Kristin

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Someone mentioned to me earlier today that they recalled an eventual goal of Accordance being to develop a full-fledged word processor. I don't recall having seen or heard this myself, but even as much progress as that might be, I think the focus should remain on utility for the sermon-writer (including organization!), not mere writing. That said, IMHO, a word processor (esp. with a powerful outlining tool) would be a nice improvement over the current Papers.

 

Of course, I'm quite confident that whatever the Accordance development team does, the focus will remain on practicality and utility for the minister and Bible student.

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I like Paper and consider it light years ahead of Logos’s Sermon builder in the sense that with Accordance’s Paper you can present from the screen, add pictures that zoom in an out, and rearrange the outline way easier than in Logos. The copy and paste is a little clunky in Paper, but other than that is great and you can show a picture without having to use power point to do it and even drag and drop pictures to your outline along with stacks or notes AND links to other resources which Logos can’t do.

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5 minutes ago, Andrew Patterson said:

Someone mentioned to me earlier today that they recalled an eventual goal of Accordance being to develop a full-fledged word processor.

 

full-fledged word processor would be too much. However, there has been much internal discussion about how Accordance's built-in editing tools can be improved to much greater capability than what is currently available.

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That makes much more sense. I assume that, like a great number of Accordance functionality issues, we can expect to see improvement accompanying further transition to Unicode?

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2 minutes ago, Andrew Patterson said:

That makes much more sense. I assume that, like a great number of Accordance functionality issues, we can expect to see improvement accompanying further transition to Unicode?

 

I'm not a developer, but that would be my guess.

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Personally, I think those kind of tools are helpful when you're just starting out. At that time I used QuickVerse (remember that?) and Wordsearch. The latter had a great tool called LessonMaker.

 

These days give me a stack and I'll bring my own word processor. But I do get the utility of this feature :)

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I don't mean to throw cold-water on the topic but, speaking for myself, I love the fact that Accordance focuses on one thing and does it well—Bible Study. Honestly, I do not use Accordance's stacks nor paper and I haven't been terribly impressed by the videos I've seen of "Sermon Builder." 

 

I have other tools that do sermon management, word processing, note organization, sermon writing, etc. very well. I need Accordance for one reason: Bible Study. And it does that one thing extremely well!

 

 

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I, too, would like to see "paper" seriously updated. Just getting rid of those little boxes you have to type in and adding spell check, would be great enhancements. 

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I for one have actually found those little boxes useful...

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  • 7 months later...

This makes me wonder....will Pastors who rely on the competitor for Sermon preparation, be forced to keep using it while relying on Accordance's amazing features for everything else?

 

Has the time come to own the competitor just for the sake of sermon preparation?

image.png.14a45315ca77711aed06217ee847fd92.png

Or is there something on the horizon???????

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  • 2 weeks later...

Improving Papers to add additional sermon/lesson building capabilities would be an enhancement and actually place Accordance ahead of their competitor (since they haven’t brought over the lesson making tools they acquired). Accordance doesn’t need to be a full-fledged word processor (Mellel does a fine enough job). Adding the ability to better create sermons and lessons inside Accordance and search their content would be useful though for sure.

 

Side note: I already own Mellel, but it would be fun if Mellel offered a slight discount program off their app for Accordance users to get more Accordance users buying it. 

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1 hour ago, Nathan Parker said:

 

Side note: I already own Mellel, but it would be fun if Mellel offered a slight discount program off their app for Accordance users to get more Accordance users buying it.

 

 

Perhaps Accordance could make that suggestion to Mellel. Are you listening, Rick? 😀

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2 hours ago, Nathan Parker said:

Improving Papers to add additional sermon/lesson building capabilities would be an enhancement

Having not used sermon builder in other programs i am wondering if starting from scratch, what people would like to see as a sermon builder. When i used the full fat version, i used stacks as i liked copying bits i found into it and then i could put in headings for my structure as the flow of the sermon came and move my jottings round (and didnt explore papers).

 

now i am virtually 100% semi skinned so i just copy bits into ios notes, and then open my notes on a mbp, open word with my service liturgy and do all the editing in word, save as pdf and airdrop it back onto my ipad so i have the liturgy, hymns/songs, collect, intercessions and sermon notes in sequence in one file in forScore on the ipad. If there is no organist so im also leading the singing from guitar i will break the pdf into sections so i have my scores where we are singing and the whole service is then assisted by my airturn. 
 

i miss AmiPro and am not desperately convinced by msword so mellel is looking attractive.

i would like something in accordance on ios that would make getting my notes into one place easier but accept that it will still require a word processor of some description.

 

but im interested to know how others build their sermons as we all have congregations with different expectations so what would you require in a sermon builder?

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1 hour ago, ukfraser said:

sermon notes in sequence in one file in forScore

I also use forScore for guitar, but never thought to add notes there :)

 

On 1/18/2022 at 1:53 PM, OSchrock said:

Accordance focuses on one thing and does it well—Bible Study

I too have this as my primary purpose. However, having a quality Notes capability would be handy to make quick comments. Unfortunately, I rarely use Notes in Accordance because it is so clunky and awkward to use.

 

 

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I owned the competitor before I owned Accordance.  Just about the only time I use it, is when I preach a sermon. I have been using it since it was first a feature in 2014 or so. Here are some features that make me keep coming back to it.

  1. It has fields that helps you keep a record of what, when and where you preach. It just builds and grows over time, and of course is searchable. 
  2. You can create a series template, like I did recently for Revelation across 12 weeks, one on a Wednesday, one on a Sunday morning. All in the same file.
  3. When you have "Heading" set for a title, it creates a powerpoint slide on the side.  You can also delete any quickly and efficiently.
  4. You can export the sermon to a powerpoint and edit further.  Then of course upload it to shared google drive when you are speaking at different churches
  5. You type in a Scripture and hit enter it inserts it below your points.  Amazing. You can indent Scriptures and edit within them. 
  6. The competitor immediately syncs it across your phone, tablet and desktop
  7. It has a "preach" feature that enlarges the text and inserts a timer that can be adjusted up or down
  8. You can also use it for lessons, and export handouts, even fill in the blank as one pastor asked me to do for a series I did for him.  I was amazed. Choose what to make a fill in the blank, export, email to the church to print. 
  9. It can also be renamed, and added to over the years.  
  10. For me, it's become a rich experience where I can put many things into the sermon file, and then search, update and export them any time I want. 

I tried Papers in Accordance but there was no comparison.  So I'll stay with the competitor on this feature for the foreseeable future. 

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I have came across applications that did not build their own editor, but instead found it more expedient and ultimately cost effective to host a third party offering, leaving the development and maintenance to them. Sometimes your better focusing on what your core product is and leveraging from others to offer your customers the best of both worlds. Rather than a feature I don't use, I'd rather pay more for such an outcome where I get the best of both worlds.

 

I'd be interested how many of us use third party tools like Scrivener or Word because Notes doesn't work for us. Why not redistribute that expense if Accordance hosted another product.

 

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I have used Word, Scrivener, and now use Papers. My sermons are tend to be simply outlines, so I don't require much. I loved Scrivener, but Papers is more convenient for me. Of course, I do all the work with Accordance on my MacBook then the Papers with Dropbox to my Accordance in my iPad.

 

The thing that would make my life simpler is being able to create bullets in the text boxes of Papers.

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I am hoping the next preview of Accordance 14 is a web application of Accordance.  

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This “Dropbox” thing for Paper and other stuff has got to go.  Cloud service to sync is better. That’s the only thing I don’t like.

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