Which first? Series or Catagories?

I ran into this mind twister when I first started using Joomla!.

I have Sundays with two sessions (1st session and 2nd session)and I have a Wednesday night class.

Pastor teaches 90% of all the classes. Several people fill the pulpit when he is on overseas teaching trips.

Occasionally there are guest speakers speaking on subjects outside of normal classes.

I started by using Sundays and Wednesdays as Categories, but when I put (1st session topic) Fellowship, (2nd session topic) Encouraging One Another and (Wednesday topic) Dispensations as Series.
It didn't seem to set up right when I attempted to make a menu for Category or Series lists.

So I flip-flopped what I set up as Categories and Series. It still didn't work out right when setting up a menu for lists of either type. Also I couldn't give Pastor as owner of 3 different Series, or Categories (it always defaulted all to the last one I picked).

I'm totally confused. So before I transfer my joomla 2.5 version (in its own folder on website) to the root of joomla 1.5 website, I'd like to get this sorted.

speaking of confusion, I hope that all I just typed didn't appear as confusion.

In your case I would probably create categories for the different type of events. Something like "Sunday 1st", "Sunday 2nd" and "Wednesday". These are then assigned to the corresponding sermons.
After that you can create menu items to show sermon lists for each category.

The speaker I would put in his own category. You can even use "Uncategorized" for this. You will likely not use this category to filter anything. Make your pastor the default speaker for convenience. Then for new sermons this will be the default speaker.

You only need series if the sermons are grouped together thematically. So if "Fellowship" is a series of sermons over multiple Sundays, you create a series for this. If all sermons are it's own topic, you can use a generic series "General Topics" and make this the default series. For the series you can use the same categories as for the sermons, or use different ones. It depends how you want to filter, if at all. If you want to have a list of series from Wednesday service, you need a category for this. If you rather have a list of all series held in your church, you can use "Uncategorized" or create an own category for the series.

So basically: Categories are for filtering lists (sermons, series, speakers). Series are for grouping sermons together thematically.

The default speaker/series function is just for convenience. You can still select whatever you want, it's just what is selected by default.
The speakers for the series are automatically populated based on the speaker for the sermons in this series.

Hope that answered some questions. If something is still unclear, just ask. And enjoy Christmas

Thomas, your suggestions set me straight.
I first created Categories using Pastor, Sunday 1st session, Sunday 2nd session, Wednesday Night Specials.

Then created Series, "Fellowship", "Encouraging One Another" and Wednesdays "Dispensational Transitions" and "Uncategorized"

Then I created Pastor plus 3 other speakers. That way I can do a category menu link that will give a menu for all 3 class periods.

Thank you sir for the start up information. I've made the Joomla 2.5 upgrade and the site is open.

Sure do appreciate it. And Yes! Christmas was merry, as always.

Jim

P.S. There is one question, I'm assuming what one primarily "archives" would be "Series"?

In my church we have all sermons published since we started recording. But I also think that series are more interesting than single themed sermons.