What can I do with Homily Assistant?

Homily Assistant provides context-aware illustrations, applications, and discussion questions as you create your homily in Homily Builder. Because this feature is enhanced by AI, generating responses in Homily Assistant uses AI credits connected to your account.

Note: Available in Verbum Pro and Verbum Max subscriptions.

Note: Homily Assistant leverages artificial intelligence in a controlled setting for idea generation. The accuracy and usefulness of generated results should always be examined and adapted to your audience and personal experience.

Skip ahead to:

• Show the Homily Assistant pane
• Choose a Homily Assistant mode
• Add results to your homily
• Edit prompt or settings

 

Show the Homily Assistant pane.

While viewing any homily in Homily Builder, select the Homily Assistant tab in the Info Panel.

Note: If you don’t see the info panel, click the info panel button first to reveal it.

Choose a Homily Assistant mode.

Homily Assistant has four modes:

• Outlines: idea generation for homily outlines for biblical passages or themes
• Illustrations: idea generation for illustrating specific biblical truth in your prompt
• Applications: idea generation for applying specific biblical truth in your prompt
• Questions: idea generation for group discussion questions based on your actual homily content

 

All generated responses are based on your prompt (illustrations) or the actual text of your homily (questions) and provide customizable options to adjust the responses to fit your specific needs.

 

Outlines Mode

Outlines mode takes passages and/or themes and generates starter outline ideas.

1. Select Outlines in the Sermon Assistant tab.

2. Add a passage and/or theme and select outline points.

   You need to provide either a passage or a theme (or you can include both). You can multiple passages. By default, the tool returns an automated number of points. You can choose a specific number (1–7) with the Number of Outline Points dropdown.

   Note: If your homily metadata includes Bible passages, outlines will populate the Sermon Passage(s) input with those passages (although you can remove them if desired).

3. Select audience options.

   Select at least one option for audience to adjust the generated results.

4. Click Generate.
   Outline generation requires an extended time, so it may take several seconds to return an outline.
5. Copy, insert, or generate an outline.
   The tool returns a full outline based on your selections in a popup. Click Copy to add the outline to your system clipboard or Insert to add the entire outline to your homily document. You can generate multiple outlines with the Generate Another button.
   
   Each outline will show in a tab across the top of the popup.

 

Illustrations Mode

Illustration mode takes your custom prompt and selected settings to generate starter illustration ideas.

1. Select Illustrations in the Homily Assistant tab.

2. Add an idea in the input field.

   For best results, describe the concept you want to illustrate in 150 characters or less.

   

3. Select tone, type, and audience options. Select a tone and at least one option for type and audience to adjust the generated results.

4. Click Generate.

 

Applications Mode

Application mode takes your custom prompt and selected settings to generate starter application ideas.

1. Select Applications in the Sermon Assistant tab.

2. Add an idea in the input field.

   For best results, describe the concept you want to application in 150 characters or less.

   

3. Select situation and audience options. Select at least one situation and audience to adjust the generated results.

4. Click Generate.

 

Questions Mode

Questions mode generates starter discussion question ideas from your homily’s existing text.

Note: Because question mode requires existing homily text, if you do not have yet have sufficient text in your homily, Homily Assistant will provide messaging asking you to first provide more context.

1. Select Questions in the Homily Assistant tab.

2. Select type and audience options. Select at least one option for each setting to adjust the generated results.

   
3. Click Generate.

Note: Because generating context-aware homily questions requires sending your homily text to an artificial intelligence model, if your homily text is lengthy Verbum may truncate your homily text to minimize the amount of credits used for each request.

Add results to your homily

Each generated result can be added directly to your homily at your current cursor location (click Insert), copied (click Copy), or dragged into your homily. You can also remove a result by clicking the delete icon that appears on hover.

 

To generate additional results, click Generate More.

If you’ve generated questions, consider styling the question as a prompt using the dropdown menu or add the question to a handout and/or questions document.

Note: Learn more about styling homily text and creating handouts or questions when building your homily.

Edit prompt or settings

To edit an existing prompt or choose another mode after Verbum returns results, scroll to the top and edit the prompt settings. Click Clear Results to remove all results from the sidebar.