Product
Sermon Outline Helper
For the bivocational pastor, the lay preacher, the seminary intern, and the small-church minister who has a text, a Sunday deadline, and less than three hours to prep. Paste the passage reference and your translation of the text, your one-sentence Big Idea, the tradition you preach in (evangelical, mainline, reformed, pentecostal, catholic), the congregation context (small rural, urban plant, family service, funeral, midweek bible study), the length you are targeting (15, 20, or 30 minutes), and any pastor notes, and get back a structured study aid: 4 to 6 exegetical observations anchored to specific verse ranges, a 3-point-or-narrative-arc skeleton where each point is a one-line META move (not a delivery line) with one application question per point, exactly 2 cross-reference passages cited by name only (Book chapter:verse, never verse text quoted), exactly 3 illustration seeds capped at 20 words each and labeled by kind (contemporary, historical, everyday, analogy), and a 3-to-5 sentence closing prayer draft calibrated to the tradition. Never a manuscript. Never a verse quote. Never a full illustration. The tool refuses to expand any of those and receipts every refusal into safety_flags so the pastor can audit what was smoothed. The pastor is the preacher. This is the study aid.
About this tool
What does sermon outline helper do?
For the bivocational pastor, the lay preacher, the seminary intern, and the small-church minister who has a text, a Sunday deadline, and less than three hours to prep. Paste the passage reference and your translation of the text, your one-sentence Big Idea, the tradition you preach in (evangelical, mainline, reformed, pentecostal, catholic), the congregation context (small rural, urban plant, family service, funeral, midweek bible study), the length you are targeting (15, 20, or 30 minutes), and any pastor notes, and get back a structured study aid: 4 to 6 exegetical observations anchored to specific verse ranges, a 3-point-or-narrative-arc skeleton where each point is a one-line META move (not a delivery line) with one application question per point, exactly 2 cross-reference passages cited by name only (Book chapter:verse, never verse text quoted), exactly 3 illustration seeds capped at 20 words each and labeled by kind (contemporary, historical, everyday, analogy), and a 3-to-5 sentence closing prayer draft calibrated to the tradition. Never a manuscript. Never a verse quote. Never a full illustration. The tool refuses to expand any of those and receipts every refusal into safety_flags so the pastor can audit what was smoothed. The pastor is the preacher. This is the study aid.
How does Sermon Outline Helper work?
You paste seven inputs: the passage reference (Luke 15:11-32, Romans 8:28-39), the passage text from your own translation (source of truth for observations, never quoted back), your one-sentence Big Idea, the tradition dial (evangelical, mainline, reformed, pentecostal, catholic), the congregation context (small_rural, urban_plant, family_service, funeral, midweek_bible_study), a length target (15_min, 20_min, 30_min), and optional pastor notes. One structured pass returns a study aid: 4 to 6 exegetical observations anchored verse by verse, a three-point skeleton with one-line META moves (never delivery copy) and one application question per point, exactly two cross-references cited by name only, exactly three illustration seeds capped at 20 words, and a tradition-calibrated closing prayer draft. Every guardrail firing (verse-quote refusal, illustration-expansion refusal, manuscript refusal, delivery-prose strip) is receipted in safety_flags so you can audit before pasting.
Is this a sermon writer or a study aid?
A study aid, and the framing is a hard rule. The system prompt refuses to emit a delivery-ready manuscript, refuses to expand illustration seeds into full illustrations, refuses to quote verse text back at you, and rewrites any first-person delivery prose that slips in back into META prompts. The header on every outline reads STUDY AID for your passage, this is not a sermon, you are the preacher. The skeleton points are one-line META moves (name the tension between v.3 and v.7, turn the camera on the elder brother, land the Big Idea by v.32) not sentences you speak from the pulpit. Application questions are interrogatives directed at the congregation. Illustration seeds are one-line prompts, one direction each, no dialogue, no scene beats. You do the writing, we do the scaffolding.
Will it quote verses back at me, or make up chapter and verse ranges that do not exist?
No. The cite-name-only guard refuses to quote verse text from either the primary passage or any cross-reference; the pastor opens their own Bible. Every cross-reference is formatted as Book chapter:verse or Book chapter:verse-verse with a one-line relevance note that never quotes verses on either side. The anchor_note on every observation and every skeleton point references a specific verse range from within your own passage_reference (v.11-12, v.20, v.28-32) so you can spot check that the observation actually lives where the tool says it does. Any attempt by the model to quote a verse fires safety_flags with kind verse_quote_refused, receipted in the results panel so the audit trail is visible.
How does the tradition dial affect the output?
The tradition dial (evangelical, mainline, reformed, pentecostal, catholic) calibrates three things: the exegetical stance in the observations, the framing of the application questions, and the register of the closing prayer draft. Evangelical leans Christ-centered and altar-call adjacent, mainline leans ecumenical and social-justice welcome, reformed leans covenantal and doctrinal precision, pentecostal leans Spirit-emphasized and testimony-friendly, catholic leans sacramental and lectionary-aware. The tool does not pick a side across traditions; it picks the side you told it to pick and stays there for the whole outline. If the tradition input does not match one of the five values, the tool substitutes the closest match and flags the substitution in study_aid_note so you see it before you preach.
How does the congregation context change the outline?
The congregation context (small_rural, urban_plant, family_service, funeral, midweek_bible_study) sets the register for the whole outline. small_rural uses shared-vocabulary phrasing and concrete examples. urban_plant assumes lower biblical literacy and pushes vocabulary lower. family_service keeps observations short and concrete and picks illustration seeds a child can visualize. funeral goes gentle, hope-centered, and short, and the closing prayer draft leans pastoral. midweek_bible_study goes Q-driven, deeper exegesis, longer application discussion, and the skeleton moves lean more toward text-turning than pulpit-landing. The observations and skeleton stay grounded in your passage regardless; only the register moves.
Which tier should I pick, Quick or Deep?
Quick (15 tokens, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite) fixes at 4 observations, a 3-sentence closing prayer, and one safety_flags receipt per refusal type. It is the right pick when you have a text you know well and just need scaffolding. Deep (40 tokens, Gemini 3.5 Flash) returns 4 to 6 observations calibrated to your length_target (4 for 15_min, 5 for 20_min, 6 for 30_min), a 4 or 5 sentence closing prayer calibrated to the tradition, and one receipt per guard firing so every rewrite is visible. Deep is the right pick for a first-time text, a funeral or family service where the register has to land right, or a midweek study where you want the full exegetical surface to work with.
Does it work for narrative texts, poetry, and epistles, or only expository preaching?
It works across genres. For narrative texts (Luke 15, Ruth 1, Acts 9) the observations lean toward character, scene turns, and structural moves, and the skeleton can shift to a narrative-arc pattern of setup, tension, resolution. For poetry (Psalms, Song of Songs) the observations lean toward parallelism, refrain, and image, and the skeleton picks up the poem's own turns. For epistles (Romans, Hebrews, 1 John) the observations lean toward logical connectors, indicative-and-imperative structure, and pastoral situation, and the skeleton follows the argument. For prophetic and apocalyptic texts (Isaiah, Revelation) the observations name genre markers and refuse to spiritualize past the historical situation. The output stays anchored to the text you pasted, not a genre template.
How much does it cost, and do I need a subscription?
There is no subscription. You spend produde tokens per outline: 15 tokens for a Quick pass, 40 tokens for a Deep pass. Tokens are a prepaid platform credit you buy once and spend across any produde tool, so a bivocational pastor pays per Sunday instead of a monthly SaaS bill during weeks when the study time was not there. If a run fails at any stage (network error, model refusal, safety guard triggered), the full token cost is refunded to your wallet automatically, so a partial pipeline error never costs you tokens on an outline you did not receive.
What does it cost?
From 15 tokens. Pick a tier on the form above. Produde tokens are a prepaid platform credit; buy them once and spend on any tool.
Do I pay if a run doesn't complete?
No. You only pay for results. If a run can't finish, its full token cost stays in your wallet automatically.
Is my data stored?
Your input and the run output are saved to your account so you can browse history. They are not sold, shared with advertisers, or used to train shared models. See privacy for details.