By Jonathan Howe
Online sermons have become ubiquitous with churches. What used to be an added bonus for members of large churches has now become standard in churches of any size. Thanks to technology improvements and the rise of the iPod and smartphones, sermon podcasts are now a commonplace.
However, there is one small issue with online sermons—there is typically nothing to accompany them online. Most churches simply upload sermon audio to their site, feed it to iTunes, and move on. While not everyone may want or need anything more than the audio, here are four tips to get more out of your online sermons:
- Create a new post on your site for each sermon post. With WordPress and other blog-based sites, you can easily create a new post for each sermon. You can then organize sermon series into categories to help group them together. Creating a new post for each sermon instead of listing them all on one page helps for a variety of reasons. First, you can share the sermon individually on social media sites. Second, you can attach a featured image of your sermon artwork to help it get noticed when shared on Facebook or Twitter. Finally, you have room for sermon notes to go with each sermon, which brings us to…
- Upload sermon notes for each sermon. Almost every pastor has some kind of notes for each sermon. Maybe it’s a manuscript; maybe it’s just a bare bones outline. Either way, consider posting the pastor’s notes with each sermon. Simply upload a PDF of the notes and provide a link to download them. This allows listeners the opportunity to have something to reference if a sermon is particularly meaningful or insightful to them.
- Include the text reference in the title. For example, a Christmas sermon title might look like “The Birth of a King — Luke 2:1-20.” This is important not only because it provides a reference for listeners in their podcast app or online, but it also helps with search engine optimization. Now, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) might not be a major concern for you, but every little bit helps. Having a high SEO score could make the difference to someone choosing your church in a list of search results. Higher scores are listed closer to the top of the page. So a high SEO score means people could potentially see your church before others.
- Identify the speaker in the post. Churches who have multiple teaching pastors or campuses should clearly identify whose sermon audio is online. Even churches with one pastor should list this information. There might be a guest preacher instead of the pastor. Providing the speaker’s name just helps clear up any confusion that may arise because preachers rarely introduce themselves at the beginning of a sermon. The average listener may not know who’s speaking if they aren’t identified in the post.
These may seem like simple points for online sermon audio, but check your church’s online sermon feed. Does it have all four of these? Would you add anything to this list?
Really helpful, Jonathan. Thanks.
Thanks, Chuck.
Thanks! I’ll be making some tweaks. I might add, if you video your sermon, ive found it helpful to create a separate, brief clip (about a minute) of the sermon for sharing on social media with a link to the full sermon. Not sure if the same principle would apply with audio on social media.
Oh, that would be good for video. Not sure I’d do that with audio. Not sure I’ve ever seen that, actually. Hmm….
If you host your audio with Buzzsprout, you can pull out a 30-60 sec clip for this purpose. We haven’t used it yet, but I’ve seen it with podcasts from other industries!
We use Buzzsprout and I just tried the visual audio clip for the first time! It worked great! Thanks for sharing Alli!
Trey,
While not as “simple” this idea impacts me the most!
If it helps anyone that uses WordPress, we have used the http://seriesengine.com/ plugin with success over the years. We have modified it some, but this is what it looks like http://www.connectbcc.org/sermons/?enmse=1&enmse_sid=117
Jonathan, great stuff! Great point on allowing the sermons to be shared on social media too. I would say to also make sure there are very visible social media links in your sermons area that would allow someone to share a particular sermon on facebook or twitter easily. With the average person having hundreds or friends/followers on social media this will, of course, put a ton of eyeballs on that sermon leading them back to that church.
This is exactly why our company develops on WordPress and why we consult churches to do these very things you are mentioning. Great post again!
Jonathan, your excellent points go well with your advice elsewhere to make sure your church has a good website. There are plenty of website providers that make it easy to do all the things you mention (post to social media, put sermons in series, ID speakers, etc.) that make it worthwhile to pay something rather than do it poorly for free. We use Church Plant Media and have all our sermons well organized on our website with the ability to attach notes, etc.
Awesome, Fred.
Just wondering if anyone has any experience with adding a talks PowerPoint to sit alongside it on a website? I manage the process of uploading our church’s talks to our website via SoundCloud. I always listen through the recordings, and quite often the preacher will reference a slide in their presentation.
What I want to know if others have done this, and what benefits have you seen in doing so.
Kind Regards
Kevin
That’s fine, but could be converted to a basic outline. Problem with PPT files is that formatting moves around from computer to computer and doesn’t always render the best. I would stay with text only.
Although I don’t preach from a manuscript, I write a full manuscript for my preparation. I turn that into a blog post and then add the audio as a podcast on the same post.
Bingo. That’s what I’m talking about.