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Pastor’s Study is a comprehensive pastoral help software package available from rclsoftware. You can download a evaluation version on their website. When I say comprehensive, I mean you can keep track of just about anything having to do with your ministry in this software package.
First, you can keep track of your sermons. As an itenerant minister this is probably the most useful to me. You can enter the title of the message, the scripture that you used in the sermon as well as any number of other texts. You can add subjects to aid in your retrieval. You can even add a link to the text file that contains the scripture as well as the outline. Also, you can keep track of the locations that you preached the sermon including the date and the pastor of the church. You can also define and create reports to present this data in a readable form. Preachers can also maintiain their illustrations in the tool. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time finding the pieces of paper that I put illustrations on so putting them into a searchable list like this would be very helpful.
Also there is a Contact database. You can keep track of all your contacts and actually import them from Microsoft Access. Each contact includes notes as well as committees that the individual is on as well as the skills of that particular member. A pastor could conceivably have all of the information about that particular member before the call to refresh particulars in his or her mind. In addition, there is a button where you can immediately add the person to your counseling list or your visitation list.
Speaking of visitation and Counseling lists, you can keep track of all your visitations and your counseling through the tool. The counseling portion is password protected so you can safely include a lot of your notes on the particular counselling sessions. In addition there is a password protected journal, prayer list, and finances. The minister can keep track of his or her goals in the tool as well. Finally, the minister can keep track of all of his or her books in the library module. The library module can actually automatically fill in book information when you enter in the ISBN of the book.
The tool’s sermon tracking has definitely improved since the last time I looked at the lool and it is very valuable to see what you are preaching over the long haul through a tool like this. For example, you can see if you emphasize some themes and not others or use some texts and not others. The tool seems to improve over time and I commend the authors. I would encourage all ministers to download the software and see if it is of use to you.
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