Sermon Notes Customer Orientation

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Sermon Notes Customer Orientation

Hello Subscribers,

PreachingToday.com is a great site, and I guarantee you now that you will love it. Since it is so much bigger than Sermon Notes, there's something of a learning curve to deal with, and this memo will give you a head start in navigating it. This tutorial will deal with one section of Preaching Today—the Sermon Builders section. There are three others you can explore on your own when you're ready. Here's what you first need to know.

1. LOGGING IN
Log-in to PreachingToday.com by going to the PreachingToday.com homepage.

In the top right-hand corner, enter your e-mail address and password. Your e-mail and password will be the same that we have on file at Sermon Notes. Remember, passwords are case sensitive—lowercase and uppercase letters must match.

Click here if you don't know which e-mail address you have on file with us, or if you have forgotten your password.

When you're logged in, you will see "Welcome Your Name" at the top of the page.

2. THE SERMON BUILDER SECTION
When you get to the PreachingToday.com home page click in the Sermon Builders tab.

This page is home to six sections: Outlines, Sermons, Series Builders, Series, Ideas, and Title Suggestions.

OUTLINES: Fully developed sermon outlines (as opposed to full manuscripts).

SERMONS: Complete manuscripts of sermons. Most, not all, sermon outlines have corresponding manuscripts.

SERIES BUILDERS: Help for building a sermon series on certain Bible books or topics.

SERIES: Fully developed sermon series. Most of them are from SermonNotes.com, but there are some new ones, and PreachingToday.com will continue to add more.

IDEAS: A quick glance at what other preachers are preaching—the series title, the text, the Big Idea.

TITLE SUGGESTIONS: A collection of 2,000 sermon titles, with 20,000 more coming in 2006.

To find just the sermons and other content from SermonNotes.com, click on the Sermon Notes logo in the upper right of the Sermon Builders section homepage.

3. SEARCHING
Whereas Sermon Notes was basically navigated through various lists and indexes; PreachingToday.com is navigated primarily through the search function. You will need to familiarize with it and get used to using it often when you visit the site.

Always begin your search in the section you want to work in—i.e. Sermon Builder, Illustrations, Media, etc. There are four different search options:

TOPIC: For example, type the word "leadership" in the search box. Make sure TOPIC is in bold above the search bar, then hit enter. This will take you to a page listing all the Sermon Builder content (i.e. Sermons, Series, Ideas, etc.) whose overall theme falls under this topic. To the right you will see Sermon Title Suggestions for leadership sermons, a list of Illustrations with a leadership theme, plus Media links (to images and audio files) and Preaching Skills resources.

Typical topics include Grace, Mercy, Sin, Truth, Salvation, Ministry, etc. To see a list of all topics click *Browse Sermon Builders* in the top right hand corner of the search box. This will take you to a browse page where you can click the All Topics link.

BIBLE REFERENCE: Make sure BIBLE REFERENCE is in bold above the search bar. Enter a book name (Colossians), a book and chapter number (Colossians 4) or a complete text (Colossians 4:5) and you'll get matches accordingly.

WORD OR PHRASE: This searches the entire text of each sermon, outline, illustration, and article on the entire PreachingToday.com site.

Single Word—To search for a single word, type the word in the search field, make sure WORD OR PHRASE is bold and press enter.

Multiple words—If, for example, you're trying to find the sermon that includes the story about the church staff going fishing together and one of them walks on water, you can search for --pastor fishing water river--. You'll get 8 matches, you can look at the results and find the one you're looking for.

Exact Phrase—If you're trying to find a sermon that mentions the song Give Them All to Jesus, type the words "Give them all to Jesus" (with quotation marks) in the search box, make sure WORD OR PHRASE is bold, and hit enter.

AUTHOR/SPEAKER: This searches the author or speaker of the sermon, outline, series, etc.

4. LECTIONARY
In the right hand column about half way down the page there is the current week's lectionary listing. If you click on any of the verses in that box it will automatically perform a search on that verse for all illustrations that are tied to that scripture reference. In the right hand column it will bring up other matches for Outlines, Sermons, Series Builders, Series, etc.

To view a listing of the entire lectionary you can click on the word LECTIONARY above the box or in the top right hand corner of the search box.

5. NAVIGATING
As stated earlier, Preaching Today is navigated primarily through the search function. You need to familiarize with it and get used to using it often when you visit the site. But it is possible to browse each area of the site.

When you visit PT.com, once you are in the Sermon Builders section, you will see the 2 most recent outlines and 2 most recent sermon manuscripts that have been added. Scrolling down, you will see the most recent Series Builders and so on down the page.

To browse the complete content in any of these areas, click on the area title (e.g., "Sermons: or "Outlines" in the white text above each area). Clicking sermons, for example, will allow you to browse page by page through all the sermons on the site. Again, to browse the Sermon Notes content, click on the Sermon Notes logo in the upper right of the Sermon Builders section homepage and then click the area titles.

6. PRICING
PreachingToday.com has two pricing options:

Monthly Membership: $9.95
Yearly Membership: $69.95

You will not be charged $69.95 until you finish the amount of time left on your current Sermon Notes membership. You will be notified by e-mail 30 days prior to your renewal date.

Note for Quarterly Members: Your membership will automatically change to a Yearly Membership on PreachingToday.com and you will not be charged $69.95 until you finish the amount of time left on your current Sermon Notes Membership. If the monthly membership is more affordable for you, feel free to contact our Customer Care to downgrade to a monthly membership before your membership is renewed.

7. FINAL NOTE
If you printed all the content of the Sermon Notes web site, it would take about 5,000 pages. If you printed all the content of PreachingToday.com it would take about 20,000 pages. There's an enormous amount of content, and the editors have done an excellent job of indexing, coding, and organizing the content so that it is easy to get to. But since there is SO MUCH there, it will take you a few days to get used to moving around. (Within just a few days I felt like I had mastered the site.) But if you're really struggling, for the next month, you can continue to visit Sermon Notes at http://www.sermonnotes.net.

If you want to learn more about PreachingToday.com you can read their Frequently Asked Question section, by clicking here or by clicking the Help & Info tab. Their customer care team is also very willing to help you with questions you may have. You may contact them through the website or by phone: (877) 247-4787. The customer care team is available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. CST.

I hope that you enjoy this new resource we've made available to you. There are some differences at PreachingToday.com, I know, and some of them will take some getting used to. But the additional content and the more powerful search function will make the time you spend in sermon preparation more effective than ever.

- Steve May