Use the Sermon Starter Guide to gather helpful information for preparing a sermon or Bible study on a topic or a biblical passage. This article shows you how to access the guide, choose the passage or topic to study, and understand the key information presented in the results.
Accessing the Sermon Starter Guide
The standard way to generate a Sermon Starter Guide is from the Guides menu. But it can also be generated from other Guides and Tools, such as Factbook.
To generate a Sermon Starter Guide from the Guides menu:
- Click
Guides > Sermon Starter Guide.
- Enter a topic or biblical passage into the Preaching Theme box and select the required option from the dropdown.
Using the Sermon Starter Guide
Scroll down the Sermon Starter Guide sections until you find ones that are relevant to your study.
You can add additional guide sections by clicking Add at the top right of the Guide and selecting the sections you’d like to appear. The sections and information available depend on your Verbum package and purchased resources.
Below is a brief description of commonly used sections. However, you can find a full description of how each section works by hovering over one and then hovering over the that appears on the right side. Clicking the
opens the Verbum Help document.
Theme
The Theme section lists preaching themes that have been tagged to that passage (at the pericope level). You can launch a new Sermon Starter Guide for any of these themes by clicking it.
Commentaries
This section (which appears only in a passage-based Sermon Starter Guide) displays commentaries in your library with articles on the passage you’re studying. Click one to open the commentary to the relevant article.
Outlines
The Outlines section links to resources that provide outlines of the guide’s key passage. These outlines are collected from commentaries, dictionaries, and other resources in your library. Again, you can click one to open the resource to the relevant location.
Parallel Passages
The Parallel Passages section lists passages that cover the same material as the passage or theme you entered. The results display the name of the resource and verses it is parallel to. There are also results showing allusions to and quotations from other biblical passages.
Figurative Language
The Figurative Language section (which appears only in a passage-based Sermon Starter Guide) displays Figurative Language present in your passage. It also provides the option to search for other occurrences of the same type of language.
Thematic Outlines
The Thematic Outlines section lists point-by-point outlines that detail various approaches to the guide’s key theme or passage as a subject. Outlines can be exported to Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Proclaim, and other available software. This section becomes very helpful when seeking to present a systematic development of a theme.
Illustrations
The Illustrations section lists sermon illustrations that match the guide’s key reference or topic. Words appearing in a larger font - in both the Tags and Cloud views - indicate that they occur more frequently.
Sermons
The Sermons section lists sermons in your library that have been labeled with the guide’s key reference or topic.
Sermon Outlines
The Sermon Outlines section lists resources with sermon outlines that have been tagged with the guide’s key passage. This is not to be confused with the Outlines section above which focuses more on the outline of the passage being studied. Click the link to open the resource to the location of the outlines from where you can copy the outline to a new sermon document.
Additional Resources
Verbum Help: Sermon Starter Guide