How to Access a Circle of Mentors in Sermon Prep
Imagine having a row of theological giants and trusted mentors sitting in your study, ready to look over your sermon manuscript and give you tailored feedback. Yesterday, I met with someone who is exploring how to use AI prompting to access theological works online to provide deep analysis and help for sermon prep. It got me thinking about how we can leverage Preach360 to bridge the gap between deep theological study and the weekly rhythm of sermon preparation. If you want to sharpen your message and dig deeper into the text, you don't have to start from scratch. You can invite your favorite historical or contemporary mentors into your study. For example, when you're wrestling with the Problem movement of your sermon, you want to dig down into the heart of human resistance to the Principle. One of the most prolific authors on the nature of the human heart and the sinfulness of sin is the Puritan John Owen. Instead of just wishing you had time to comb through his collected works this week, you can bring his perspective directly into Preach360. Try asking it a prompt like this: "Based on John Owen's collected works in this area of understanding the sinfulness of sin, how would he analyze my manuscript so far? In this text, what suggestions would he have for how I can more accurately and helpfully identify resistance in this sermon?" I actually ran my own sermon from last week through the John Owen perspective in the Problem section, and it was absolutely unbelievably helpful. I’ll be doing that from now on, no doubt. Customizing Your Study Circle The beauty of this approach is that you aren't limited to one voice. You can curate a virtual circle of mentors depending on which movement of the sermon you are developing: - For counseling the heart in the Response, you might ask for an analysis from someone like Larry Crabb to help expose underlying brokenness and motivational roots. - In the Gospel movement, you might ask how Tim Keller would approach unfolding the beauty of the cross and the finished work of Jesus from your specific text.