Currently, on my blog, I am working
my way through a backlog of questions. Today’s post is an attempt to answer a
question related to filing. Go ahead, yawn. I don’t mind. <grin> This one
happens to be aimed at preachers anyway, and younger ones at that. So go have a
cup of coffee, scroll mindlessly through Facebook, and check in again with me
next week for more scintillating content. <still grinning>
Let me frame this as a series of
questions.
“Pastor Brennan, do I really need a
filing system in the age of AI and the internet?”
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Yes. Filing content wisely is what
seems like an extraneous bother at first, but when you do it consistently, you
build a library of resources always at your fingertips. Fast forward a decade
or two in ministry, and your filing system begins to save you hours of work
while at the same time making the content you produce richer than ever. So,
yeah, having a filing system that works for you is important. And since in the
process of filing it you took mental ownership of the information, it carries
much more weight than just asking an AI for a random answer.
“Do I have to use the filing system
you are about to explain?”
No. But you have to use one.
Consistently.
“Good. Because I probably won’t use
yours. But just in case, what sorts of things do you file?”
Essentially, I file thought-provoking
ideas/concepts I want to remember, as well as mental study/work I’ve done. For
example, I read 50 books a year for a variety of reasons, but I want to cull
the best of the content and retain it for future reference. So I make notations
in the margin as I read. When I’m finished, I write an overall review of the
book more for my own use in the future than anything. I post that online on
Goodreads, so it is instantly available to me whenever I search for a
particular book. Additionally, I work my way back through the book page by
page, and select the best thoughts. These are the ones I use for my Quote List.
The Quote List is important to some
of the people who receive it, but I’m really the one who gets the most out of
it. After reading the book, annotating it, and selecting the best portions for
quotes, I then type them out one at a time and send them daily to an email list
of about 650 preachers. I then digitally archive that quote searchable
primarily by subject, but also book and author. I have done this for, I don’t
know, twenty-five years? A long time. My quote files – which are the curated
best bits of every book I have read for several decades – currently contain
thousands and thousands of quotes on just about every subject you can think of.
If I need support for a point I am making, or I want to be reminded of things I
have considered on the subject in the past, it is as easy as pulling up the
file. Not to mention that every time I run that quote/thought across my mind, I
deepen my mental grasp of it. I retain more each time I interact with it.
“Ok, but that’s not me. I don’t have
a Quote List, or whatever you call it.”
Understood. You can still do the
exact same thing, minus the email at the end. Make notes in all the books you
read. Figure out a system to digitally archive those notes in a way that is
searchable. In fact, anymore, you don’t even have to type them out as dinosaurs
like me do. Ask an AI for a list of digital highlighters, and take your pick.
They will do it for you.
“All right. That’s books sorted.
What’s next?”
Your sermons. You should keep every
single one you write, whether in outline or in manuscript form. Every single
one. I am grateful that a pastor told me that when I was still a teenager. As
of this writing, I have preached/taught almost 6,000 times. I still have
practically every one of those outlines.
“What, throw them in a drawer or
something?”
No. Archive them digitally so they
are searchable.
Here is how I do it. I write every
outline in Microsoft Word. I write it either as part of a larger document (for
a series), or as a standalone document. I save it by date and service. For
example, on Sunday morning, March 25, 2012, I preached a standalone message
entitled, “How Long Halt Ye Between Two Opinions?” from I Kings 18.21. I wrote
the outline and saved it as sam032512. That got put into a folder on Dropbox
labeled, “SAM 2012.” That, in turn, was placed into a folder labeled “2012
Sermons”, and that within the folder “Archived Sermon Notes.” At the same time,
I created a record of that sermon on an Excel spreadsheet. On that spreadsheet,
titled “Sunday Morning Sermon Record”, I have a box for the number that sermon
was, 3083, the date, 3/25/12, the title, the main idea condensed into a word,
in this case, consecration, and the text.
Moving forward, let's say I am
studying I Kings, and I come across this passage, and I say to myself, “Hmmm… I
think I recall preaching a sermon on this passage.” I can pull up my Excel
spreadsheet and search for the reference, or the main thought, or the title,
and find exactly where/when I preached it. With that information, I can click
through a few folders and, behold, there is my previous sermon from I Kings
18.21. I may be preaching a different thought now, but the work I did on
understanding the context will still apply, and now I don’t have to do that
work over again. Voila, I have just saved 30 minutes.
Being organized allows you to build
knowledge momentum. Perhaps depth is a better word here. It allows you to bring
to bear the best of decades' worth of study on any one particular message or
lesson. In the process, it not only saves you time but it enriches your hearers
in ways they instinctively feel, whether they understand how you did it or not.
It’s not that you’re smarter than anyone else or that you studied more. No, you
just determined to be organized, and the payoff from that, though long in arriving,
comes through like exponentially increasing 401k returns.
In addition to deepening your own
grasp of a subject, saving you time, and enriching your hearers, this also lets
you help other preachers. If I had a dime for every time a preacher has asked
me if I have any notes on fill-in-the-blank subject, I would be a millionaire.
The answer is almost always, “Yes, I do. Let me track that down, and I’ll get
it to you.” In fact, I did so much of that that I finally created a Dropbox
folder specifically for it and shared it with all my Patreon supporters. I
don’t have to answer those emails/texts as often, and my supporters have
immediate, organized access to what is currently 1,460 messages extending over
78 different sermon series. That saves them time, makes their preaching richer,
and edifies their people more. And all it took was a little consistent
organization.
“Bruh. I am a sophomore in college. I
have three messages. This is overkill.”
No, it isn’t. It is applied wisdom.
Start now. Indeed, there will never be a better or easier time for you to
start. No, you do not have to do it as I do, but in some form, archive your
messages digitally and organize them so they are searchable. Your future self
will thank me a thousand times.
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| Elsa Lisle demonstrating the card catologue at Penn State University library, c 1950 |
So that’s my system for filing
information from books I read and sermon/lesson content I produce. You may
think of additional ways you can apply this. Good. You may think of better ways
to apply this. Also, good. Regardless of how you do it or what you use, develop
a system that works for you. Ideas and concepts and thoughts and work should
not be fleetingly applied to the moment; they should be curated for the benefit
of people you will come across in the future.
You can give someone a drink at the
moment, or you can dig a well that will continue to produce good water for
those in need for a long time.
Which one will your ministry be?
