Sermon Builder is a sermon creation tool that lets you build a sermon manuscript, a slide presentation, handouts, and discussion questions simultaneously. Focus on your sermon content and build out everything you need for your services at the same time.
Sermon Builder works closely with Sermon Manager, though they are not the same. Sermon Manager organizes all your sermon documents while Sermon Builder creates specific sermons.
Note
Note: Available in Logos Pro subscriptions and higher, as well as in the former Silver Feature Set and above.
Desktop/Web
If you have a specific question about a feature in the Sermon Builder, skip ahead to the relevant section. If you're brand new to the Sermon Builder, we recommend scanning the whole article to familiarize yourself with all the features included in this tool.
Skip ahead to:
There are a few ways to open a new sermon document in the Sermon Builder:
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Click the Write a Sermon button in the Get Started Wizard. In addition to creating a new blank sermon document like the other methods, this will open a layout with some of the key resources you need to start researching and writing your sermon.
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Open a new sermon document from the Documents Menu.
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Open the
Sermon Builder from the
Tools Menu.
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Open a new sermon document from the Sermon Manager.
The Sermon Builder is a feature-rich tool that houses everything you need to build your sermon, from shortcuts for adding content to adjusters for fine-tuning your presentation. Knowing what features are available and where they are located will help you be able to build your sermon efficiently. The various features are organized into the Document Toolbar and the Formatting Toolbar.
The left-hand side of the Document Toolbar contains five tabs that allow you to choose how your content is displayed, as well as access to the Sidebar Menu.
Clicking the Sidebar Menu icon in the Document Toolbar opens a panel with your sermon outline. Click a heading to go to its position in the sermon document.
Clicking the Info icon opens the Info Panel, which contains five tabs.
The Sermon Info tab holds important details about your sermon. The more metadata you add, the easier it will be for you to find at a later date. If you publish your sermons using Logos Sermons, this metadata will help others discover your sermon and know what it’s about.
Many of the input fields are preloaded with consistent naming conventions, like the topics and reference fields. This helps you stay consistent and avoid duplicate tags.
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Series: Provide a series title to add the sermon to a series. Matching existing series show below as you type.
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Number: Shows where this particular sermon appears in a series
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Topics: Begin typing to show predefined biblical topics and themes. Select one from the list to add it to your sermon details. You can add multiple topics.
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Passages: Add a biblical passage by typing and choosing the passage from the list below. You can add multiple passages.
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Tags: Provides the ability to add your own tags to your sermons
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Description: Provide a couple of sentences describing the sermon’s content.
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Target Duration: An indication of how long the sermon is intended to be
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Private Note: Unlike the other sermon metadata, your private notes will not publish to Logos Sermons, but are visible to you when viewing the sermon in Logos.
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Links: Links to external URLs you might want to reference
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Speaker: By default, your name shows for any sermons you create. To change the speaker, provide a new name in the input field.
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Occasion: Add a date, venue (like a specific church or conference), and time (e.g., 10:00am Service).
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Audience: Provide audience segments like General Adult, Kids, Youth Group, Conference, or Other.
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Liturgy: Where applicable, add a liturgical day, season, and year.
Note
Note: To create a template for use in the Sermon Manager, select Template at the top of the Sermon Info pane. Learn more about the Sermon Manager.
From the Sermon Notebook tab, you can add notes into your sermon document.
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To create a note, click New note to open the notes tool and add a personal note to your sermon. A notebook with the same name as your sermon will be created automatically.
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To add note content directly to your sermon from a previously-created note, open a notebook to view its notes. The note must be located in a named notebook.
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Click the insert icon
to insert content from your selected note into the sermon document. Click the edit icon
to open the note for editing.
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Learn more about the Notes tool in Logos.
Find a previously saved version of your sermon in the Version History tab. Select a version from the list to revert to that previously saved version.
Use the Popular Quotes tab to find quotes related to your sermon or passage. Enter your topic or passage. Logos will pull together all the related quotes for you to choose from. Drag the quote you want into your manuscript. Sermon Builder will bring it in as a block quote and make a dynamic slide.
The Sermon Assistant tab (also accessible in the Document Toolbar) provides help in generating outlines, illustrations, questions or applications for your sermon. For more details, see How to Simplify Sermon Prep Using AI Tools.
Most of your time will be spent in the Edit tab. In this mode, you can build your sermon outline, add content from a variety of sources, and make changes to automatically-generated slides.
Start writing your sermon by creating your outline, using the dropdown menu in the Formatting Toolbar to choose text types (Headings 1, 2, 3, Normal, Illustration, etc.). While building your manuscript, you can generate slides, a handout, and a question document simultaneously (these functions are described in detail later in this article).
Add biblical passages to your sermon by typing out the reference and pressing Alt+Enter (Windows) or Cmd+Enter (Mac). Logos will add the passage block in your Top Bible translation and create a slide with the passage preloaded on it. You can also add the reference in-line without a slide by pressing the Tab key after your reference. To create a line break, press Enter.
Opening the passage block's More Actions Menuallows you to adjust how the passage appears on your slides. Choose between Block Paragraphs (displays one paragraph per slide), One Verse Per Slide, or Fully Formatted (divides passage evenly among multiple slides), as well as whether verse numbers and red letters show. You can also click the version abbreviation next to the reference to change which version the passage appears in. Logos will default to your chosen formatting options next time you create a passage block.
Note
Note: The Sermon Builder has fewer passage block formatting options than the Copy Bible Verses tool.
Learn more about adding sermon content from various sources in these sections of this article:
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Notebook
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Quotes
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Sermon Assistant
Logos automatically generates slides from elements of your outline, but you can edit these slides to appear exactly how you want them.
To change the styling or the wording for any generated slide, click or right-click the slide and choose Edit.
To change the text displayed on the slide, make changes in the panels at the top and on the left and view your changes live on the slide itself.
Note
Note: The top panel will only appear once you have selected some text to edit.
Note
Note: You can add animations and other presentation features after exporting your sermon to presentation software like Proclaim or Powerpoint.
To change the styling of your slide, click Find Media and filter and search to locate an appropriate background. Select it and choose Update Media.
Depending on the sermon block you select to edit, Logos media will prefilter the available slide types to match your content. Generally speaking, to enable automated slide creation, do not change this prefiltered slide type.
Note
Did you know? You can apply your background Style to all slides in your sermon by right-clicking the altered slide and choosing Apply this Style to all slides. You cannot currently apply a custom background to all slides, and some backgrounds do not allow this action.
For user-created media or to use a slide type that doesn’t work with your current sermon block type, you can manually create slides.
To add a new background image:
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Copy and paste the background image into your Sermon.
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Right click, Edit.
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Add your header as “body text,” and adjust font face, size, and color as desired.
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Click Update Media.
To reuse your custom image on another slide:
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On any existing slide, right click, Edit.
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Click Find Media.
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Change “in Logos Media” to “User Media.”
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Select your image.
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Add text and click Update Media as above.
View your handout. To select which text appears in the handout, navigate to the Edit tab, highlight your desired text, and select the Handout button in the Formatting Toolbar. To create blanks for your listeners to fill in, highlight your desired text (also in the Edit tab) and select "Fill-in" in the menu that appears. Back in the Handout tab, you can choose whether the answers are shown or hidden using the Hide answers button. You can print this document from the Export menu.
View your questions document. To create questions for this document, ensure you are in the Edit tab and type a question or insert generated questions from the Sermon Assistant. Highlight the question and select the Questions button in the Formatting Toolbar. You can print this document from the Export menu.
The rest of the major features of Sermon Builder are located in the right-hand side of the Document Toolbar.
Click the Sermon Assistant icon (also accessible in the Info panel) for help in generating outlines, illustrations, questions or applications for your sermon. For more details, see How to Simplify Sermon Prep Using AI Tools.
Click the Share button to make your sermon document public or share it with a Faithlife group.
Click the Preach icon to enter preaching mode. This opens your sermon in a web browser and includes a text-only view of your sermon, the current time, a timer, an optional slide view, and local formatting options to make delivering your sermon easy and distraction-free.
Click the Export button to view Export options:
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Send to Proclaim
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Post to Logos Sermons
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Export to PowerPoint
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Print/Export
Note
Note: Printing is only available on Desktop.
The Print icon is a shortcut to printing, copying, or saving your sermon document to your device.
In the More Actions menu (which you can open using the three vertical dots icon), you can find options for adjusting how the Sermon Builder panel displays on your screen, for sharing your Sermon Document, for showing or hiding your slides in the Edit tab, and for access to support resources.
The formatting toolbar offers a variety of options and works similarly to other word processing software.
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Format Styles: Choose a text Style from the dropdown menu.
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Normal: Use this Style for the text of your sermon. Normal text will not automatically appear in slides, handouts, or questions.
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Heading (1, 2, 3, 4, 5): Logos will generate slides from each of your headings, as well as include them in your handouts and question documents.
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Blockquote: Set block quotations apart from the rest of your manuscript text.
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Illustration: Set your illustration apart from the rest of your manuscript text.
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Prompt: Set prompts apart from the rest of your manuscript text. Prompts will not be included when you Export the transcript of your sermon.
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Formatting Styles: Call special attention to any text in your sermon manuscript. Click the styling dropdown to add font, color, and background color styling to the selected text. Save any selection as a new Style to use it in the future.
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Text Styling: Style any text with standard formatting options like bold, italics, or underline. You can also create bulleted or numbered lists or change the indentation of any selected text.
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Fill-in: Select any text and choose Fill-in from the formatting toolbar to generate a fill-in-the-blank style for the text in your printable handouts.
Note
Note: The text also needs to be marked with Include in Handout or Include in Questions.
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Include in Handout
: Include text in the handout document by highlighting it and clicking the Handout button. Text included in the Handout document is indicated by a blue background. Selecting this option does not change the appearance of the text when you Export it. Deselecting this option will remove the text from your Handout.
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Include in Questions
: Include text in the Question document by highlighting it and clicking the Question button. Text included in the Question document is indicated by a green background. Selecting this option does not change the appearance of the text when you Export it. Deselecting this option will remove the text from your Question document.
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Add Slides from Selected Text
: Click to create a slide from any selected text in your sermon document.
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Add Slides from Selected References
: If you’ve added a reference within a paragraph, Logos can generate a Bible slide for that reference if you select the paragraph and click this button.
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Undo/Redo: Undo to remove the last content change or redo to add a removed content change back into your document.
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Clear formatting: Clear styling on any selected text with the clear formatting button.
All the sermons you have previously built in the Sermon Builder are housed in the Sermon Manager. Open the Sermon Manager from the Tools menu and find the sermon you want to edit or delete in the center panel. If you have an extensive collection of sermons, you can use the search bar and/or the filters to find the one you're looking for.
Double-clicking the sermon automatically opens it in the Sermon Builder, where you can make any desired edits.
Right-clicking the sermon opens a menu from which you can choose to delete it. You can also single-click the sermon title, scroll to the bottom of its info panel on the right, and click Delete.
If you would like to recover a sermon that you have deleted, open the Filters panel on the left, scroll to the bottom, and select Trash. This will open documents.logos.com. Hover over a sermon to reveal the Undelete option.
Tablet
Sermon Builder provides the ability to create and modify sermons on iPads and Android tablets. Sermon Documents can be viewed, but not modified, on mobile phones.
Skip ahead to:
There are two main ways to open a new sermon document in the Sermon Builder:
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Open the Sermons tab from the Notes & Documents section of the Study tab and then tap the
icon to create the new sermon.
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Open a new Sermon Document from the Sermon Manager Tool.
Note
Note: To open a previously created sermon from the Sermons tab, filter or search the Sermons tab to locate your desired sermon.
The Sermon Builder is a feature-rich tool that houses everything you need to build your sermon, from shortcuts for adding content to adjusters for fine-tuning your presentation. Knowing what features are available and where they are located will help you be able to build your sermon efficiently. The various features are organized into the Document Toolbar and the Formatting Toolbar .
The left-hand side of the Document Toolbar contains five tabs that allow you to choose how your content is displayed, as well as access to the Sidebar Menu.
Note
Note: Currently only the Edit and Slides views are available on Android tablets.
Tapping the Sidebar Menu icon in the Document Toolbar opens a panel with your sermon outline. Tap a heading to go to its position in the sermon document.
Most of your time will be spent in the Edit tab. In this mode, you can build your sermon outline, add content from a variety of sources, and make changes to automatically-generated slides.
Start writing your sermon by creating your outline, using the dropdown menu in the Formatting Toolbar to choose text types (Headings 1, 2, 3, Normal, Illustration, etc.). While building your manuscript, you can generate slides, a handout, and a question document simultaneously (these functions are described in detail later in this article).
Add biblical passages to your sermon by typing out the reference and pressing Cmd+Enter. Logos will add the passage block in your Top Bible translation and create a slide with the passage preloaded on it. You can also add the reference in-line without a slide by pressing the Tab key after your reference. To create a line break, press Enter.
Opening the passage block's More Actions Menu(the icon appears when you hover over the passage block) allows you to adjust how the passage appears on your slides. Choose between Block Paragraphs (displays one paragraph per slide), One Verse Per Slide, or Fully Formatted (divides passage evenly among multiple slides), as well as whether verse numbers and red letters show. You can also click the version abbreviation next to the reference to change which version the passage appears in. Logos will default to your chosen formatting options next time you create a passage block.
Logos automatically generates slides from elements of your outline, and you can tap a slide to either delete it or apply its style to other slides.
Note
Note: If you use Proclaim, you can add animations and other presentation features after exporting your sermon to it.
View your handout. To select which text appears in the handout, navigate to the Edit tab, highlight your desired text, and select the Handout button in the Formatting Toolbar. To create blanks for your listeners to fill in, highlight your desired text (also in the Edit tab) and select "Fill-in" in the menu that appears. Back in the Handout tab, you can choose whether the answers are shown or hidden.
View your questions document. To create questions for this document, ensure your are in the Edit tab and type a question or insert generated questions from the Sermon Assistant. Highlight the question and select the Questions button in the Formatting Toolbar.
The rest of the major features of Sermon Builder are located in the right-hand side of the Document Toolbar.
Tap the Sermon Assistant icon (also accessible in the Info panel) for help in generating outlines, illustrations, questions or applications for your sermon. For more details, see How to Simplify Sermon Prep Using AI Tools.
Tap the Preach icon to enter a preaching mode that includes a text-only view of your sermon, the current time, a timer, an optional slide view, and local formatting options to make delivering your sermon easy and distraction-free.
Tapping the Info icon opens the Info Panel, which contains three tabs:
Sermon Info
The Sermon Info tab holds important details about your sermon. The more metadata you add, the easier it will be for you to find at a later date. If you publish your sermons using Logos Sermons, this metadata will help others discover your sermon and know what it’s about.
Many of the input fields are preloaded with consistent naming conventions, like the topics and reference fields. This helps you stay consistent and avoid duplicate tags.
-
Series: Provide a series title to add the sermon to a series. Matching existing series show below as you type.
-
Number: Shows where this particular sermon appears in a series
-
Topics: Begin typing to show predefined biblical topics and themes. Select one from the list to add it to your sermon details. You can add multiple topics.
-
Passages: Add a biblical passage by typing and choosing the passage from the list below. You can add multiple passages.
-
Tags: Provides the ability to add your own tags to your sermons
-
Description: Provide a couple of sentences describing the sermon’s content.
-
Target Duration: An indication of how long the sermon is intended to be
-
Private Note: Unlike the other sermon metadata, your private notes will not publish to Logos Sermons, but are visible to you when viewing the sermon in Logos.
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Links: Links to external URLs you might want to reference
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Speaker: By default, your name shows for any sermons you create. To change the speaker, provide a new name in the input field.
-
Occasion: Add a date, venue (like a specific church or conference), and time (e.g., 10:00am Service).
-
Audience: Provide audience segments like General Adult, Kids, Youth Group, Conference, or Other.
-
Liturgy: Where applicable, add a liturgical day, season, and year.
Note
Note: To create a template for use in the Sermon Manager, select Template at the top of the Sermon Info pane. Learn more about the Sermon Manager.
Popular Quotes
Use the Popular Quotes tab to find quotes related to your sermon or passage. Enter your topic or passage. Logos will pull together all the related quotes for you to choose from. Tap Add to sermon or drag the quote you want into your manuscript. Sermon Builder will bring it in as a block quote and make a dynamic slide.
Sermon Assistant
The Sermon Assistant tab (also accessible in the Document Toolbar) provides help in generating outlines, illustrations, questions or applications for your sermon. For more details, see How to Simplify Sermon Prep Using AI Tools.
In the More Actions Menu (which you can open using the three vertical dots icon) you can find options for adjusting how the Sermon Builder panel displays on your screen or for showing or hiding your slides in the Edit tab. Selecting the show / hide options changes the text that appears in the menu.
The formatting toolbar offers a variety of options and works similarly to other word processing software.
-
Format Styles: Choose a text Style from the dropdown menu.
-
Normal: Use this Style for the text of your sermon. Normal text will not automatically appear in slides, handouts, or questions.
-
Heading (1, 2, 3, 4, 5): Logos will generate slides from each of your headings, as well as include them in your handouts and question documents.
-
Blockquote: Set block quotations apart from the rest of your manuscript text.
-
Illustration: Set your illustration apart from the rest of your manuscript text.
-
Prompt: Set prompts apart from the rest of your manuscript text. Prompts will not be included when you Export the transcript of your sermon.
-
-
Formatting Styles: Call special attention to any text in your sermon manuscript. Click the styling dropdown to add font, color, and background color styling to the selected text. Save any selection as a new Style to use it in the future.
-
Text Styling: Style any text with standard formatting options like bold, italics, or underline. You can also create bulleted or numbered lists or change the indentation of any selected text.
-
Fill-in: Select any text and choose Fill-in from the formatting toolbar to generate a fill-in-the-blank style for the text in your printable handouts.
Note
Note: The text also needs to be marked with Include in Handout or Include in Questions.
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Include in Handout
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Include in Questions
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Add Slides from Selected Text
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Add Slides from Selected References
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Undo/Redo: Undo to remove the last content change or redo to add a removed content change back into your document.
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Clear formatting: Clear styling on any selected text with the clear formatting button.
All the sermons you have previously built in the Sermon Builder are housed in the Sermon Manager. Open the Sermon Manager from the Tools menu and find the sermon you want to edit or delete in the center panel. If you have an extensive collection of sermons, you can use the search bar and/or the filters to find the one you're looking for.
Tapping a sermon automatically opens it in the Sermon Builder, where you can make any desired edits.
Tap and hold a sermon to open a menu from which you can choose to delete it. You can also single-click the sermon title, scroll to the bottom of its info panel on the right, and select Delete.
If you would like to recover a sermon that you have deleted, open the Filters panel on the left, scroll to the bottom, and select Trash. This will open documents.logos.com. Hover over a sermon to reveal the Undelete option.