Organize Your Sermon Prep with This Easy-to-Use Tool

If you’re a pastor, you know that avoiding those Saturday night cramming sessions takes planning and working ahead—but if you’re like some of the pastors I mentor, it can be tough staying organized. Fortunately Logos has a great tool baked right in to help you organize your notes and research, and even set up a sermon calendar for the year! In this post I’ll show you how to organize your work in folders using the Favorites tool.

First, let’s take a look at how to create nested folders in Favorites:

Choose Tools | Favorites which opens the “electronic filing cabinet” (A)
Click New Folder on the Favorites panel (B)
Name the folder Sermons (C)

Press the Enter key to save the name
Click New Folder again (D)
Name the folder January (E)

Press the Enter key to save the name
Drag the January folder dropping it on top of the Sermon folder, thereby creating a folder within a folder (F)

Click New Folder again (G)
Name the folder Sermon 1 (H)

Drag the Sermon 1 folder dropping it on top of the January folder, thereby creating three layers of folders (I)

Repeat the above steps for the months of the year and weeks in the month resulting in a preaching calendar (J)

Next, let’s add a note and a resource link to the folder:

Choose Documents | Notes
Name the new file January Sermon 1 or the name or topic of the sermon (K)

Press the Enter key to save the name
Drag the tab of the Notes document and drop it on top of the January Sermon 1 Favorites folder (L)

In a new panel, open a resource, Guide, Search, Factbook, etc. to locate some specific information for the January Sermon 1 sermon (M)
Drag the tab of the open panel and drop it on top of the January Sermon 1 Favorites folder (N)

As you can see, as you create note files and conduct research for each message, and simply drag and drop the tab of the panel to the appropriate Favorites folder to create a link back to that specific panel. That way all of your notes and resources are conveniently organized, and you’ll be working smarter, not harder.

When you need to revisit a notes file or resource in your Favorites:

Choose Tools | Favorites
Click a folder to expand it (O)
Click a specific favorite to return to that exact link (P)

In addition to creating a preaching calendar, try creating folders for the books of the Bible or topical folders (Marriage, Finances, Missions, etc.) and then drop tabs into the folders for future reference.

Also keep in mind that all your Favorites are automatically saved on the Faithlife servers and synchronized to your various devices!

For more detailed information about Favorites please check out the Logos 6 Training Manual Volumes 1 & 2 Bundle or attend upcoming Camp Logos in Baltimore, MD or Phoenix, AZ.

Morris Proctor is a certified trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris, who has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, provides many training materials.