How to Produce the Bi‑Weekly Focus Family Prestudy Pamphlet
Everything you need to take a pamphlet from a blank Google Doc to a folded stack on the seats, written for leaders doing it for the first time.
September 2026
Find a time
The PDF Editor
It runs in your browser. Nothing to install, and your PDF never leaves your computer.
A loading screen counts up to 100%. After the first time it opens much faster.
1Open a PDF
- Press + Open at the top left, or drop the file anywhere on the editor.
- Each file opens as a tab.
2Make the booklet
- Open the final pamphlet. Press the printer icon at the top right.
- Under Page Sizing & Handling choose Booklet, Both sides, and Binding Left.
- Check the preview, press Print, and save as PDF.
- Open that file, rotate page 2 by 180 (procedure 3), and save it as the
- Flippedfile.
Step 10 has the reasons and the figures.
3Rotate or delete pages
- Press Edit, then Organize pages. Click a page.
- Use the rotate arrows (twice for 180) or the bin.
- Press Save pages, then save (procedure 7).
4Add text or an image
- Press Edit. Under Add content choose Text or Image, then follow the prompts.
5Combine PDFs
- Press All tools, then Combine files.
- Add the files in order, run it, and save.
6Convert a file
- PDF to another format: open it, press Convert, and pick Word, PowerPoint, PNG, HTML, RTF or plain text.
- To PDF: All tools, then Create a PDF. A code file (
.c,.py) must be renamed to end in.txtfirst.
7Save
- Press the save icon at the top right (next to the printer), or
Ctrl+S(Cmd+Son a Mac).
8Make a QR code
For the back page: paste a link and the code draws as you type. Copy it straight into the Google Doc, or save it as an image.
The code appears here.
The Discord button on the editor's home screen is its maker's, not KCM's. Ignore it.
Questions people ask first
The seven cautions are in here too, each one again in the step where it applies.
A new Focus Family Leader, probably appointed within the last few weeks, with a first pamphlet due sooner than feels comfortable. You already use Google Docs and Discord without thinking about it. You have most likely never opened Adobe Acrobat's print settings, used Bible Hub's research tools, or run a campus print kiosk. Everything here assumes exactly that starting point.
No. None of this requires it. If some part is not your strength, split it with your co-leader and take the other half. And ask when you get stuck, at any point and about anything. A question on Sunday beats a jammed printer on Monday morning, and no one here will think less of you for asking.
A four-page folded booklet, roughly eighty copies, in the room before your members arrive. Page 1 is the cover with your logistics, Pages 2 and 3 are the historical background and the reflection questions, and Page 4 carries general ministry info and space for notes. The layout is fixed and the page count cannot change, which is the single most important constraint in this guide.
Accuracy, because the pamphlet goes out under the ministry's name. Warmth, because the reflection questions are the point. Reliability, because a late pamphlet does not exist. And talking early with your team, because it is how the work gets finished and how you learn to trust each other.
Step 1
Layout is fragile, so watch the page count as you draft. If your text pushes the Google Doc past four pages, the booklet fold breaks completely. There is no partial failure here; the imposition simply stops working.
Step 2
Treat the automated logistics email as read-only. It carries other groups' room bookings and contact information. Copy your own group's data and leave the rest alone. If you ever need help with the script behind it, describe the problem instead of pasting its settings block, which holds folder identifiers and a personal email address.
Step 4
We lean on the NIV, and sometimes the ESV. If a passage reads better in a different translation, get the advisors' approval first. This pamphlet is for new Christians and Christians alike, and we should respect the advisors' decision.
Step 8
Do not skip peer review to save time. The pamphlet goes out under the ministry's name, not just yours, and unapproved background text or images can misrepresent KCM's position on a passage.
Step 9
Respect the Saturday feedback deadline. Missing it squeezes your printing window and raises the odds you are troubleshooting a jammed printer the morning of Focus Family. If you are stuck on anything, ask your co-leader or your advisor early rather than working around it quietly. Nobody here minds the question.
Step 11
Print one copy and fold it before you print the rest. Check the ink and the print quality, then fold the sheet and open it like a book. Pages 2 and 3 should face you the same way the cover did. The mistake that catches people is skipping the page 2 rotation in Step 10 (or Flip on Short Edge, if you use Adobe Acrobat), which prints the inner pages upside down. The Instructions page has a figure of what the two sides have to look like.
Step 12
Do not commit the full run until the test copy passes. Eighty sheets is a lot of paper to throw away over a setting you could have caught on one.
Welcome to the Prestudy Pamphlet
| TO | Incoming Focus Family Leaders |
| FROM | Andrew Liu, Focus Family Leader |
| DATE | August 2026 |
| SUBJECT | How to produce the bi-weekly Prestudy Pamphlet |
Welcome to one of the quieter jobs in Focus Family leadership. On behalf of the Focus Family team, thank you for taking this role on.
The Prestudy Pamphlet is the four-page folded booklet you hand out at each Focus Family. The cover carries your group's meeting details, the inside spread holds the historical background and the reflection questions, and the back has general ministry information and space for notes. Producing it is part of your role from this semester on.
This guide is that process written down, start to finish. Until now it has been passed along informally from whoever produced the last one, so this is an attempt to put it somewhere everyone can find it.
A few practical things. Everything here is the current process, not the ideal one, so if you find a better way, say so and I or someone will update the guide. None of it requires you to be technical. If some part is not your strength, split it with your co-leader and take the other half. And please ask when you get stuck, at any point and about anything. I would much rather answer a question on Sunday than help you troubleshoot a jammed printer on Monday morning, and no one here will think less of you for asking.
I hope that you enjoy it more than you expect to 😊
Best regards,
Good luck,
Who This Guide Is For
Who you are
You are a new Focus Family Leader. You were probably appointed within the last few weeks, and your first pamphlet is due sooner than feels comfortable. You already use Google Docs and Discord without thinking about it. You have most likely never opened Adobe Acrobat's print settings, used Bible Hub's research tools, or run a campus print kiosk, and you are not a developer. None of that is a problem. Everything in this guide was written assuming exactly that starting point.
Who I am
I am Andrew, and this is my fourth semester producing these pamphlets. For most of that time I have also been the leader making sure everyone else got theirs made, chasing drafts, checking approvals, and catching the layout problems before they reached a printer. And I have usually been the one folding them, which is how I learned most of what is in here. Almost every warning in this guide exists because I ran into it myself, and a few of them more than once.
What you are producing
A four-page folded booklet, roughly eighty copies, in the room before your members arrive. Page 1 is the cover with your logistics, Pages 2 and 3 are the historical background and the reflection questions, and Page 4 carries general ministry info and space for notes. The layout is fixed and the page count cannot change, which is the single most important constraint in this whole document.
What actually matters here
| What to protect | Why |
|---|---|
| Accuracy | The pamphlet goes out under the ministry's name, not just yours. Background pulled from a devotional instead of a historical source quietly misrepresents how KCM reads a passage. |
| Warmth | The reflection questions are the actual point of the pamphlet. What we are after is that people leave feeling seen and heard, and that the word of God reaches people who may never have encountered it. That is what love looks like in Scripture, and questions written from there do more work than clever ones. |
| Reliability | A pamphlet that is late is a pamphlet that does not exist. The deadline recurs every cycle and is tied to a booked room. |
| Talking early | Communicating with your team early is not only how the pamphlet gets finished. Communication is lubrication. It is part of how you get close to the people you serve alongside and how you learn to trust each other, and the more honestly and thoughtfully you say things, the less gets lost between you. |
Instructions
Introduction
What follows is the complete path from a blank template to a stack of folded, print-ready booklets, organized into four phases: (1) Drafting, (2) Research, (3) Peer Review, and (4) Production. Follow it in order the first few times. Once the rhythm is familiar you will move through it without thinking about each click, but until then this document is your reference.
Nothing here requires a programming background. Appendix A explains the one piece of automation you will run into, and you are never expected to run or edit any of it.
What You Need Access To
Confirm you have all four of these before your first cycle. KCM leadership provisions every one of them, not you. If any are missing, sort it out with your Focus Family advisor early, because none of them can be fixed quickly on a deadline.
- Shared KCM Google Drive, through your KCM Workspace account. The master calendar and the pamphlet template both live here.
- KCM Discord server, by invite from your Focus Family advisor.
- Focus Family Team Chat, added by an existing leader once you are in the server.
- Adobe Acrobat, free through the university. See the note before Step 10 if you have never installed it.
Materials
Grouped by the phase where you first need it, so you can gather things in working order.
| Item | Detail and why you need it |
|---|---|
| Phase 1 · Drafting | |
| Computer and browser | Any current browser with internet access. Chrome is recommended for consistent Docs behavior. |
| KCM Google Drive access | To the shared "Focus Family Pamphlets" folder and the KCM master calendar. |
| Apps Script logistics email (optional) | An automated summary of the next two weeks. Useful as a cross-check, not as your only source. See Appendix A. |
| Phase 2 · Research | |
| Bible Hub | Free at biblehub.com. An optional free account removes ads. Nothing in this guide needs one. |
| Bible Project and GotQuestions | Free, no account. Book overviews and plain-language answers to specific questions. See Step 5. |
| Your chosen translation | Usually ESV or NIV. Selectable from Bible Hub's translation bar (Figure 4). |
| Phase 3 · Peer review | |
| Discord | Desktop or web client, with membership in the KCM server and the Focus Family Team Chat. |
| Phase 4 · Production | |
| The PDF editor | Built into this guide (Step 10). Works on a Mac or Windows laptop in Chrome, Edge or Safari, nothing to install. |
| Adobe Acrobat (optional) | Free through the university, if you prefer it for Step 10. Windows is easier, because Flip on Short Edge sits in printer Properties there. On macOS it lives somewhere else (Figure 6). |
| A print station | A campus printer such as Varsity or Domain, or a PrintWithMe kiosk. Either works. The file you upload is the same. |
| Smartphone | For scanning the printed QR code off paper during the test-copy check in Step 11. |
Procedure
Layout is fragile, so watch the page count as you draft. If your text pushes the doc past four pages, the booklet fold breaks completely.
- Open the shared KCM Google Drive and find the most recent pamphlet file.
- Duplicate it instead of editing it directly, so the master stays intact for the next cycle.
- Rename your copy for your Focus Family and semester, following the naming pattern already in the folder:
Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Draft. - Confirm the copy still matches the layout in Figure 3 before you add anything.
The same pamphlet as a PDF with fill-in boxes for everything that changes each week: the Focus Family number, semester, the three meeting times and rooms, the passage, background, questions, theme and upcoming events. Who we are, Church, and the QR codes are already filled in.
- Open it in the PDF editor and click any highlighted box to type in it.
- Add the cover image with Edit a PDF → Image, then clear the "Cover image goes here" box.
- Save your copy as
Season FF #NN Pamphlet - Draft, then print it as a booklet in Step 10.
Open the template in the PDF editor ↗ Download pamphlet-template.pdf
- Open the KCM master calendar from the shared KCM Drive. Learn where this lives. It is the source of truth for every room booking in the ministry, and you will need it again.
- Find your Focus Family's room, date, and time. Do not work from memory, and do not assume this cycle matches the last one. Rooms move.
- Enter that data exactly as written onto Page 1 (title and logistics) and Page 4 (general info).
- Cross-check against the automated logistics email if you have it. The two should agree. If they do not, trust the calendar and tell KCM's technical team.
Treat the automated logistics email as read-only. It carries other groups' room bookings and contact information. Copy your own group's data and leave the rest alone.
The template ships with its tables and text boxes locked so longer text cannot quietly push the document onto a fifth page. Check the locks before you start writing.
- Check that every table and text box has fixed cell dimensions.
- Confirm the file is currently exactly four pages.
- Do not expand the margins or resize a locked box. Either one breaks the fold at print time.
Pick a translation your group can follow. We lean on the ESV and NIV, because Focus Families regularly include new Christians and people who are not Christians at all, and both read cleanly out loud. This is not a rule. If your passage reads better in something else, use it, and say which translation on the pamphlet.
- Go to Bible Hub and enter your assigned passage.
- Open the Study tab. Start with SUM (Summary) and OUT (Outline) to see where your passage sits in the book, then open BBB (Book by Book) for the author, the original audience, and the setting.
- Note the author, the audience, and the rough date of writing. This is the foundation of your background section on Page 2.
- Cross-check any authorship or dating claim against one other source before you write it down. Step 5 covers where.
Bible Hub is where you start, not where you stop. Two other sites do most of the remaining work, and both are free with no account.
| Site | What it is good for |
|---|---|
| Bible Project bibleproject.com |
Book-level overviews. Their guides walk through a book's structure, themes, and how it fits the wider story, with a short video for each. Best when you need to explain why your passage sits where it does. |
| GotQuestions gotquestions.org |
Plain-language answers to one specific question. Search the exact thing your group will get stuck on and you get a page-long answer with the verses cited. |
- Read the Bible Project guide for your book first, for the shape of the whole thing.
- Search GotQuestions for the one or two questions your passage obviously raises. Write those down before you research them; they are usually the same questions your group will ask.
- Back on Bible Hub, open Interlin for any word whose meaning is easy to miss in English, and the Comment tab filtered for historical and cultural commentary rather than devotional.
- Set the translation bar before you copy any verse text. Bible Hub's default reading text on a chapter page is the Berean Standard Bible, so verses copied without changing that will not match the translation your pamphlet says it is using.
- Draft your findings onto Page 2, in your own words.
By now you and your co-leader probably have a running list from the end of your leaders' prestudy. This step narrows it to the questions that will actually open up conversation.
Test each candidate against these four, in order:
- Grounded. Does it point at something specific in the passage, not just its general theme?
- Deep enough. Does it push past the first answer someone would give?
- Personally applicable. Can someone answer it from their own week, not just in theory?
- Readable in one pass. Can you read it aloud once without anyone asking you to repeat it?
That one names something specific in the text, asks for real reflection, and does not need re-reading.
- Pick a cover image with your co-leader. It should fit the passage rather than illustrate one verse from it.
- Label the passage on the cover as the range you are studying, for example 1 Corinthians 13:1–13, so a phrase pulled from anywhere in it is not read as a citation of one verse.
- Confirm the document is still exactly four pages now that your content and image are in. This is the moment the page count breaks, and it is much cheaper to catch here than after approval.
Do not skip peer review to save time. The pamphlet goes out under the ministry's name, not just yours, and unapproved background text or images can misrepresent KCM's position on a passage.
- In the KCM Discord server, open the Focus Family Team Chat.
- Send your background text and your proposed cover image as two separate messages, so reviewers can approve them independently.
- Ask for approval in a way that says exactly what you want confirmed. Something like this works:
Word it however you like. The point is that reviewers know what they are confirming and how to confirm it. Specific requests get faster answers than "thoughts?", which will sit unanswered for two days.
- Once your text and image have thumbs-up approval, export the Google Doc as a PDF and post it to the same chat for a final layout check.
- Make any requested changes in the Google Doc.
- Re-export after those changes. This is the file you will print, and it is not the file you uploaded for review.
- Name it
Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Finaland confirm it opens at exactly four pages. - Get final approval no later than the Saturday before your Focus Family meets.
Respect the Saturday feedback deadline. Missing it squeezes your printing window. If you are stuck on anything, ask your co-leader or advisor early rather than working around it quietly. Nobody here minds the question.
This step turns your four pages into the two-sided print file. It runs in the PDF editor built into this guide, so it works the same on a Mac or a Windows laptop with nothing to install, and your PDF never leaves your computer. You are not printing yet.
- Open the PDF editor (buttons below) and open
Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Finalfrom Step 9 with Open. - Press the printer icon at the top right. Under Page Sizing & Handling choose Booklet, then set Booklet subset to Both sides and Binding to Left. Leave Paper on US Letter.
- Check the preview before you go on. Sheet 1 shows the back page (the QR codes) on the left and the cover on the right. Sheet 2 shows the background on the left and the questions on the right.
- Press Print. In the browser's print window choose Save as PDF as the destination (in Safari: PDF, then Save as PDF) and save it as
Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Booklet. - Open that new file in the editor, go to Organize pages, rotate page 2 by 180 degrees, and save it as
Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Flipped. That file is what you take to the print station.
Skipping the rotation in sub-step 5 is the mistake that catches people. The print station turns each sheet over along its long edge, so without it the inside pages print upside down relative to the cover, and you will not notice until you fold a copy. Figure 2 shows why. After the rotation, page 2 of your file looks upside down on screen. That is correct.
Open it here or as a full page. Besides the booklet, it can add text and images, highlight, draw, and rotate or reorder pages.
A loading screen counts up to 100% while the editor downloads; after the first time it opens much faster.
- Flipped. That setting does the same job as the rotation in sub-step 5, so skip it. Figures 5 and 6 show Acrobat on Windows and on a Mac. Students get Acrobat at no cost through the university's license: sign in with your university email at get.adobe.com/reader before you pay for anything.
Take Spring FF #06 Pamphlet - Flipped to a campus print station such as Varsity or Domain, or upload it to a PrintWithMe kiosk. Both work the same way for our purposes: upload the file, pick black and white, set the copy count, and release the job at the printer.
- Print exactly one copy.
- Fold it by hand down the center.
- Open it like a book. Pages 2 and 3 should face you the same direction the cover did.
- Check the page order against Figure 3, then the margins and the ink quality.
- Scan the printed QR code with your phone off the paper, not off your screen, so you know the ink has not distorted it.
Do not commit the full run until the test copy passes. Eighty sheets is a lot of paper to throw away over a setting you could have caught on one.
- Once the test copy passes, print the remaining 79 copies, for a run of 80.
- Post the unimposed PDF from Step 9 to the Focus Family Team Chat as a backup for anyone who cannot attend.
- Fold every copy yourself before handing them to the other leaders.
- Place the folded pamphlets on seats in your booked room before members arrive.
Fold them with company. Put on a video or bring a friend. Eighty folds goes fast when you are not just sitting there doing it in silence.
Do not push folding onto the other leaders. If you are the one printing, hand over a folded stack. You do not know how much time they have before the study, and a rushed fold looks crooked and inconsistent across the room.
Sticky notes are worth trying. Leave a few in the note space on Page 4. Members who would rather not speak up can write a question down and pass it in, and you can pick those up and answer them with the group. It also gives you an easy way to split people into smaller groups.
Troubleshooting: the fold came out wrong
If your test copy folds with Pages 2 and 3 upside down relative to the cover, the flip edge was wrong. Reprinting with the opposite setting is the cleanest fix. If you need a faster recovery, rotate the inside sheet instead: in the PDF editor, open your - Flipped file, go to Organize pages, rotate page 2 by 180 degrees and save under a new name. In Acrobat, use the Pages panel:
- Open the Pages panel from the right-hand rail.
- Select the two inner pages using their checkboxes.
- Use the rotate control to turn them 180 degrees.
- Save under a new filename.
- Print one test copy again before committing to the run.
Treat this as recovery, not routine. Getting Step 10 right the first time is faster and leaves you with a cleaner file.
The Automated Logistics Email
Step 2 mentions an automated email. A Google Apps Script reads the KCM master calendar spreadsheet each Sunday afternoon, picks out the rows for Focus Families, leader meetings, and public events, and sends a digest of what is coming up. It looks two weeks ahead, so your Focus Family usually appears one cycle before you need it.
The scheduling is the whole of it:
ScriptApp.newTrigger('sendWeeklyDigest')
.timeBased()
.onWeekDay(ScriptApp.WeekDay.SUNDAY)
.atHour(15)
.create();
Right now the digest only reaches one inbox, which is most of why it has not helped anyone else yet. Adding the other Focus Family Leaders to the recipient list is a one-line change, and posting it to the Focus Family Team Chat instead would put it where we already are. If either sounds useful, raise it with the technical team.
Sources and Useful Links
Researching your passage
| Site | What it is |
|---|---|
| Bible Hub biblehub.com | Translations side by side, interlinear Greek and Hebrew, commentary, and the Study tabs used in Step 4. |
| Bible Project bibleproject.com | Book-level guides covering structure, themes, and how a book fits the wider story, each with a short video. |
| GotQuestions gotquestions.org | Plain-language answers to one specific question at a time, with the verses cited. Search the thing your group will get stuck on. |
| The Gospel Coalition thegospelcoalition.org | Longer articles on specific questions. Worth reading alongside another source rather than on its own. |
Each of these covers the whole Bible, so search your own passage rather than following someone else's link.
Tools
| Site | What it is |
|---|---|
| Adobe Reader get.adobe.com/reader | Free download. Check whether the university license already covers Acrobat before paying for anything. |
| Adobe: print booklets helpx.adobe.com | Adobe's own instructions for the Booklet setting used in Step 10. |
| PrintWithMe printwithme.com | Kiosk instructions, if you are printing somewhere other than a campus station. |
| Discord: beginner's guide support.discord.com | Channels, reactions, and threads, if Discord is new to you. |
Read or Download the PDF
The same guide, laid out for print. Use this if you want to keep a copy or hand one to your co-leader.
A Finished Pamphlet
Spring Focus Family #6, on 1 Corinthians 13, produced with the process in this guide, shown before and after Step 10. Before is the four pages in reading order: the cover, the two middle pages, and the back page with the QR codes. After is the imposed print file: each sheet carries two pages side by side, the outer sheet with the back and front covers, the inner one with the background and the reflection questions. Print the after file double sided on the short edge and fold it once.