# Shared fidelity and style standard

Use this standard whenever reconstructing, translating, condensing, publishing, or visually adapting a sermon.

## Source authority

Treat supplied transcripts, notes, files, and user-approved sermon records as the evidence base. When sources overlap, combine them without duplicating material. Prefer the clearest source-supported wording; do not silently resolve meaningful contradictions. If a gap prevents faithful completion, state the narrow gap and request only what is needed.

Distinguish three levels of support:

1. **Explicit:** directly stated in the source; preserve it accurately.
2. **Clearly implied:** grammar and connective prose may make the meaning readable, but may not add a new claim.
3. **Unsupported:** omit it or label the uncertainty; never invent it.

Do not add doctrine, interpretation, biography, names, events, motives, testimonies, prayers, Scripture references, or quotations that are absent or not clearly implied. Do not “correct” the preacher's theology. A suspected factual or Scripture-reference error may be flagged briefly and neutrally rather than silently rewritten.

## Theological and pastoral fidelity

Preserve the preacher's theological intent, emphases, humility, emotional register, and degree of certainty. Keep distinctions, qualifications, and tensions that matter to the message. Do not intensify tentative language into certainty or soften a clear claim merely to improve style.

This is faithful chronicling, not theological critique, sermon preparation, apologetics, or doctrinal synthesis. If the user explicitly asks for analysis or critique, handle that as a separate task and do not present it as part of the sermon record.

## Voice

Write with pastoral warmth: thoughtful, grounded, reflective, sincere, and readable to someone who was not present. Avoid corporate, academic, promotional, theatrical, or self-consciously literary prose. Avoid generic AI phrasing, clichés, mechanical transitions, and double dashes used to expand a thought. Vary sentence rhythm naturally.

For reconstructed records, normally use third-person attribution such as “The pastor reflected” or a known speaker's title/name. Do not overuse attribution when context is already clear. Avoid contractions unless they occur inside a preserved quotation or the user requests a more conversational house style.

## Quotations and Scripture

Preserve genuine direct quotations when the source supports exact wording. When transcript accuracy is uncertain, paraphrase or mark the wording as approximate instead of creating polished quotation marks. Never manufacture a memorable quote for publication or a visual.

Retain Scripture references and the sermon’s use of them. Do not supply missing verse text from memory as though it came from the preacher. If a requested output needs an exact Bible quotation and no translation/version is specified, ask for the preferred version or use only the source wording.

## Editorial restraint

Expansion means making fragmented speech readable by restoring grammar, antecedents, transitions, and source-supported context. It does not authorize new theological explanation, emotional detail, examples, conclusions, or applications. Compression may remove repetition but must retain the message's central reasoning, qualifications, Scripture basis, and pastoral appeal.