August 18, 2011

How to Add Sermon Podcasting to Your Church Website

8 Comments · Posted by MattSlocum in Church Website Tutorials

I am sure I don’t have to prove to you the importance of publishing your sermon audio on your church website. From spreading the truth of God’s Word around the world to allowing your members to hear your messages on a weekly basis, uploading sermon audio is something every church should consider doing.

Add Your Sermons

In the left hand column of your Sharefaith website Dashboard is a new control panel group called “Sermons”. This group allows you to view/edit current sermons, upload sermon MP3 files, and manage sermon tags (which can be used to help categorized messages)

Note: Only MP3 files will upload. If your audio is in another format, please read this tutorial on converting your file to an MP3.

Log into your website dashboard
Under Sermons, click Add Sermon.
Enter the Sermon Title in the field provided.
Click “Select audio file”
Click “Select Files”
Locate and select the MP3 file and click “Open” (wait for the site to finish uploading the file)
Update the “Title” (if applicable)
Click “File URL”
Click “Insert Into Post”
Check “Allow sermon audio downloads” if you would like to allow listeners to download this MP3 file to their computer. (Even if this is not checked, visitors can listen to the message on their computer.)
Choose the Sermon Date
Select the Preacher. To add a new preacher, select “Create New Preacher” from the drop down menu and follow the prompts.

(Note: To delete a Preacher, delete any Sermon with that preachers name associated with the post.)
Select the Series. To add a new series, select “Create New Series” from the drop down menu.
“Notes” is optional. Any sermon notes will display beneath the audio player on the sermon page.
“Excerpt” is optional. If left blank a short excerpt from the Notes option will automatically display on the Sermon archive page. If an Excerpt is added, then your site will use it instead of the automatically generated excerpt.

Adding the Sermons to Your Website

All navigation on your Sharefaith website is structured through Pages; so for a sermon list to be visible it must be inserted through a Page. To add this page:

Create a page where you want your sermons to appear.
Type the word [sfsermons] (include square brackets) where the sermon list should appear.
Once the page is published, your sermon page will look something like the following:

No tags

8 comments

Randy · August 30, 2011 at 9:10 pm

the “sermon” feature is not showing up on the control panel…just wanted to check to see if I have to add that manually or is it supposed to show up automatically?

Thanks!
- Author comment by MattSlocum · August 30, 2011 at 9:16 pm
  
  Randy,
  It looks like you are running an old version of our website template. You need to insert your email into the SF Theme Options control panel. If you are still struggling, here is a tutorial that should help. http://www.sharefaith.com/blog/2011/02/enable-automatic-website-updates/
- Gena O. · September 7, 2011 at 3:14 pm
  
  Does this one work with streaming on iPhone? I know the current player does not because it is Flash based. I know you can insert a link instead as a work around.
  - Author comment by MattSlocum · September 7, 2011 at 5:08 pm
    
    The embedded player is still flash based. By default, the “Allow sermon audio downloads” checkbox is checked. This allows an iphone/ipad user to download and listen to the sermon. Also, if a user subscribes to the podcast on the computer that you sync to, then the sermons will be downloaded automatically to your iDevice. There are also apps that allow you to subscribe and download to podcast feeds without a computer.
Mark · September 4, 2011 at 6:38 pm

I entered all of August’s sermons and they all display on the sermon page. However, I just added the first September sermon, published it, but it does not appear on the sermon page. Do I have to create a separate page for each month?

Thanks!
- Author comment by MattSlocum · September 7, 2011 at 5:01 pm
  
  Mark,
  You don’t have to make a new page for each month. It should automatically show up at the top. I just looked at your site and it looks like you are you using a 3rd party service for podcasting. Give us a call and we can help you straiten things out.
Edgardo Reyes · October 16, 2011 at 2:00 pm

My church is contemplating joining Sharefaith and I have a question regarding audio sermons. It mentions podcasting. Are pod castings created automatically when an audio sermon is uploaded or do we need to create our own podcasts?
God bless you,

Edgardo
- Author comment by Bob · October 17, 2011 at 9:43 pm
  
  Our Sermon Audio tool allows you start a podcast from within your Sharefaith website. When you do this, you’ll be able to add a page to your site that has a Podcast subscribe button/link.
  
  All the user has to do is click “Subscribe to Sermon Podcast” and they can manage them from within a podcast player like iTunes.
  
  If you would like to submit your podcast to iTunes so that users can subscribe from there instead of just on your site, you can follow Apples guidelines.