Preparation Briefs, Funerals and Weddings in the Pulpit

The Pulpit is the part of the Anselm Project for people who teach a passage. Until this week only I could use it. Now the preparation brief is open to every account, and the funeral and wedding tools are open to pastors. Here is what to expect from each.

The preparation brief

You give it a passage range, like Matthew 5:1-10, and it returns a document in ten sections.

Half of it comes straight from the Anselm Project Bible and its study index: the passage with every place the manuscripts disagree, the sections before and after it, the other tellings of the same scene verse by verse, what the passage quotes and what quotes it, and the words it depends on with every other verse that uses them.

The other half is written for you from that evidence. The Readings quotes the commentators in the library on the passage, word for word, with citations. The library holds Chrysostom and Augustine, Luther and Calvin, Wesley and Clarke, and more, and I am still adding to it. The Shape describes how the passage moves. The Decisions lists the places where you have to make a call and gives the evidence on each side. On Matthew 1:18-25, for example, it asks whether you explain "God with us" through the rescue from sins in verse 21 or through the child in verse 23, and how you relate Isaiah's "the young woman is pregnant, and she will call" to Matthew's "the virgin will be with child, and they will call."

Every sentence in the written sections carries a citation to the evidence. A sentence without one is removed before you see the brief, and so is any sentence that names a source the brief does not hold. What you read is what the evidence supports.

Topical briefs

A topical brief adds a section of texts on the topic: the passages across the Bible that a sermon on it has to deal with, printed in full from the Anselm Project Bible, and taken up in The Shape and The Decisions. For "God with us" anchored in Matthew 1:18-25, the brief printed Genesis 28, Exodus 25, Isaiah 7 and 8, John 1, Matthew 28, Colossians 2 and Revelation 21.

Your sermon

Once you have a sermon or lesson draft, paste it into the brief page and run the checks. The scholarship check reports the claims in your draft that the evidence does not support. The argument check reports on the structure. Supporting material lists what is in the brief that your draft did not use, with citations, for a sermon that needs more under it. For example, if you mentioned other messianic movements during the first but didn't name any of them, the engien will point out a few you could use. The discussion guide writes small group questions from your sermon, printable or as a Word file.

Funerals

The funeral tool takes what you know about the person and the family and the passage you chose, and writes a short homily, liturgical prayers, music suggestions from your hymnal (if you entered it), and the committal. Each piece has a box for corrections and a rerun, and each one prints as a handout or downloads as a Word file.

For the sake of convenience, the funeral engine also will take obituaries, emails, etc., and parse them into the appropriate areas for your own records in the system and take that information into account when designing the service.

Premarital counseling and the wedding

Most of the wedding tool is the counseling. Each partner fills in an intake form on their own, in confidence. Then there are six sessions: their story and God's design, communication and conflict, roles and spiritual leadership, family of origin and forgiveness, money and work, and sexuality and the covenant. Before each session the tool writes you a guide for this couple from their intake answers, your notes, and what came up in the sessions before: how to open, what to cover, what to press on, what to handle with care. It never has you repeat one partner's private answer to the other.

I am also open to how to make this module better. This is patterned largely after my own methods, and would love input into this process.

When the counseling is done, the same tool writes the greeting, the homily, the prayers and the ceremony. Every guide and every piece prints or downloads as a Word file.

Cost

A brief costs one credit. A funeral or a wedding costs two, with the first run of every piece included. Running any piece again costs one.

Limits

The brief does not write sermons. It does not suggest a thesis, an outline, a title, an application or an illustration, and it does not say what a congregation needs to hear.

Part of the hesitance that I know the larger Christian world has come to worry about with A.I. is generated sermons. Ghost writers nothing new, but I will write about that shortly when it comes to preaching.

It does not cite anything that is not in its evidence. If a commentator you expected is missing from The Readings, the library does not have that commentator on that passage.

Access

The brief needs an account. Sign in, open the Pulpit, and enter a passage.

The funeral and wedding tools are turned on per account for pastors. If you are a pastor and want them, write to me on the support page with the church you serve.