How Pastor Tanner Turned Logos into a Visual Sermon Prep Assistant (Without Becoming a Tech Guy)
What his Canvas mind maps, custom Passage Guide collections, and Read Aloud rhythm can teach the rest of us about calm, focused sermon prep.
If you’ve ever sat down to prep Sunday’s message, opened Logos, and felt your brain tighten instead of relax, you’re not alone.
You love preaching, you care deeply about your people, but the combination of a digital library, sermon deadlines, and church responsibilities can feel like more weight than help.
In my interview with Pastor Tanner Thetford, I met a brother who has quietly turned Logos into something much simpler: a visual “research assistant” that helps him preach clearly without chaining him to a manuscript or drowning him in tabs.
His workflow isn’t flashy, and it certainly wasn’t built overnight—but it’s deeply human, sustainable, and surprisingly accessible for normal pastors with normal weeks.
My prayer is that as you read this, some of the intimidation you feel around Logos will melt, and you’ll start to think, “Maybe I really can poke a few buttons, try something new, and not break anything.”
Meet Pastor Tanner: A Pastor First, a Logos Power User Second
When Tanner started his MDiv at RTS Orlando, he had to make a decision: invest in more physical shelves or build a digital library. He chose Logos—not because he loves tech, but because he believed it would be the best long-term tool for his preaching and pastoring.
Over the last decade plus, Logos has become woven into his weekly life:
He’s been using Logos for roughly 10–12 years, starting as a seminary student and continuing as a local church pastor.
He preaches and teaches regularly, leaning on Logos for sermon prep, lessons, and his own ongoing study.
He views Logos not as a fancy e‑reader, but as a research assistant that helps him find the “perfect quote” or paragraph when he needs it.
If you’ve ever felt guilty for “not using enough of Logos,” notice what Tanner does: he doesn’t try to use everything.
He leans on a few core tools—Canvas, Passage Guide with collections, and Read Aloud—and lets those do a lot of the heavy lifting.
From Manuscript to Mind Map: How Canvas Changed His Preaching
Tanner’s journey in sermon delivery might sound familiar:
First, he wrote full manuscripts for his sermons and brought them into the pulpit.
Then he found that reading a manuscript felt stiff and disconnected, so he moved to simple bullet-point outlines.
Eventually, he realized that long linear outlines made it easy to lose his place in the moment, especially when he had a string of points on a page.
The turning point came when he took a class on mind mapping for public speaking—a way of organizing a talk spatially rather than linearly.
He started experimenting with Logos’ Canvas tool and discovered that it could function like a sermon-specific mind map, built right on top of the passage he was preaching.
Today, Tanner:
Builds a spatial outline in Canvas: intro in one corner, main points around the page in a clockwise pattern, conclusion back near the top.
Uses color-coding to cue his brain: one color for explanation, another for illustration, another for application, and even a color to remind him when to advance slides.
Prints the Canvas as an 8.5x11 landscape page (often with a second page just for quotations) and brings that into the pulpit instead of a manuscript.
This isn’t necessarily how the developers originally envisioned the Canvas tool, but it’s exactly the kind of creative, pastoral use it’s made for—letting you capture, organize, and share your thoughts visually as you study.
Try Tanner’s Canvas Approach in Logos (Step-by-Step)
You don’t have to rebuild your entire sermon prep process to benefit from Canvas.
Here’s a gentle, practical way to begin using it like Tanner—especially if you’re a visual thinker.
Open a new Canvas document.
In Logos, go to your docs or documents menu and create a new Canvas file.
Optionally insert your preaching passage so it’s on the Canvas, or simply create empty shapes for your outline.
Lay out your sermon in four “corners.”
Upper right: your introduction and opening tension.
Lower right: main point 1 and supporting material.
Lower left: main point 2.
Upper left: main point 3 and conclusion.
Establish a simple color key you can stick with.
Choose one color for explanation (your basic exposition).
Another for illustrations or stories.
Another for application.
Another (like teal) for slide-advance cues.
Pull in content from your week’s study.
Throughout the week, use the Notes tool to collect quotes, insights, and potential illustrations tied to your passage.
Closer to Sunday, distill those notes into your Canvas outline—only the pieces you actually intend to say.
Print your Canvas for the pulpit.
Export or print your Canvas on a single landscape sheet.
If you need extended quotations, put them on a second page and mark them as “Quote 1,” “Quote 2,” etc., in the Canvas so you know when to glance down.
If you want an official walkthrough of Canvas itself, the Logos Help Center has a helpful overview of how to use the Canvas tool to visually engage with the biblical text.
But remember: the goal here isn’t to impress anyone with your Canvas skills.
The goal is to free your head and heart to shepherd people, while your outline quietly supports you from the side of the pulpit.
Tuning the Passage Guide: Collections That Match Your Intent
The next pillar in Tanner’s workflow is the way he customizes his Passage Guide.
Instead of letting Logos open every commentary he owns, he lets his intent drive which resources show up first.
He does this by:
Building collections for different kinds of resources:
A collection of Bible translations.
A collection of study Bibles.
A collection of single-volume or whole-Bible commentaries.
Adding those collections to his Passage Guide as separate sections so that, when he runs the guide, he can decide how deep to go.
Then he asks a simple question: “What level of depth do I need right now?”
If he’s preaching a short, dense passage and wants to do a deep dive, he may skip study Bibles and whole-Bible commentaries and go straight to his more detailed sets and exegetical tools.
If he’s handling a larger chunk of Scripture and needs to get his arms around the broad themes, he may start with those single-volume commentaries and study Bibles that summarize the passage at a higher level.
You can build a similar setup:
Create collections.
Use the Collections tool in Logos to gather your favorite study Bibles or single-volume commentaries into a named collection (e.g., “Single-Volume Commentaries”).
Customize your Passage Guide.
Open the Passage Guide from the Guides / Workflows menu, then use the Add button to insert your collections as distinct sections.
Arrange them in the order you want to check them (e.g., “Single-Volume Commentaries” above “All Commentaries”).
Let your intent drive your clicks.
Before you start opening books, ask, “Am I surveying or diving deep?”
Then stay within the collection that matches that intent as long as you can.
If you need a refresher on customizing the Passage Guide, the Logos Help Center has clear step-by-step articles and videos that walk you through it.
Again, the goal is not to use everything Logos can do.
The goal is to make it easier to get to the right level of help for this week’s sermon.
A Research Assistant, Not Just an E‑Reader
One of Tanner’s most helpful mindset shifts is how he thinks about his Logos library itself.
He doesn’t expect to read every book cover to cover.
Instead, he thinks of Logos as:
A research assistant that can search across a very large library to surface key quotes, insights, and connections he would never find on his own.
A long-term investment in the ministry of the Word—something that can serve him for decades and even be passed on to others after him.
Because Logos can index and search so many resources at once, adding more high-quality books to your library actually increases the odds that Logos will surface “hidden gems” you didn’t even know you owned.
If you’ve felt guilty about not “finishing” all your Logos books, hear this clearly:
You are not behind.
You are building a workshop of tools, not a stack of guilt-inducing reading assignments.
If you want a curated starting point that reflects this approach, you can explore the Pastor Tanner Study Bundle here.
Read Aloud: Staying Present with the Text When Your Mind Wanders
If sermon prep or heavy reading often leaves you distracted—eyes on the page but mind somewhere else—Tanner’s use of Read Aloud may be a lifeline.
Here’s what he does:
He opens a book or Bible in Logos on his desktop.
He opens the same resource in the Logos mobile app on his phone, puts in headphones, and starts Read Aloud.
While the app reads to him, he follows visually on the desktop and highlights and takes notes as he goes.
By engaging both his ears and his eyes, he finds that:
He stays on task and doesn’t drift as easily.
After 20 focused minutes, he’s tired in a good way—because his brain has genuinely been working with the text instead of skating across it.
If you’d like to try this yourself, Logos’ Help Center has a “How do I listen to my books?” article that explains how to start and control Read Aloud on desktop and mobile.
You can adjust speed, choose between system and human narrators when available, and make it work for your own attention and learning style.
The point is not to “consume more content,” but to stay present with the Word and with key texts that are shaping your preaching.
You Won’t Break Logos: A Pastor’s Invitation to Experiment
Listening to Tanner, one theme kept surfacing: all of this evolved over time.
The Canvas colors, the decision to add slide cues, the collections in his Passage Guide, the way he pairs Read Aloud with on-screen highlighting—none of that arrived fully formed.
Instead, he did what many of us are afraid to do with Logos:
He poked buttons and discovered that nothing broke.
He paid attention to what helped him stay more present with the text and his people, not what made him feel more “advanced.”
He allowed his workflow to change as his ministry changed, instead of assuming it needed to be perfect from day one.
If you feel overwhelmed, consider a gentle, three-part experiment over the next month:
Pick one piece of Canvas to try—maybe just color-coding explanation, illustration, and application—and print it for one sermon.
Add one collection to your Passage Guide and consciously decide each week whether you’re surveying or diving deep.
Block one 20–30 minute slot where you let Read Aloud carry the audio while you follow visually and highlight on screen.
And if you’d like more structured guidance, Logos’ guided study tools (Workflows, Guides, and Help Center articles) are there to walk with you one step at a time.
You do not have to master Logos to be faithful.
You simply need a small set of trusted habits that help you bring the Word to your people with clarity, warmth, and confidence.
(This article is inspired by my interview with Pastor Tanner Thetford about his Logos sermon prep workflow. Links included may be affiliate links and help to support this Substack at no additional cost to you.)