How To Add A Sermon To Your Church Website

Sermons are a great way to give visitors an up-close view of who you are. ChurchSpring has three options for loading a sermon onto your Flourish or Grow plan site -- audio, YouTube/Facebook, or Vimeo! To embed a video sermon on your ChurchSpring website, follow these steps:

• Log in to your ChurchSpring site.
• Click on “Sermons” in the navigation bar.
• Click the “Add A Sermon” button on the left.
• A large gray box will open below the button. It will ask you to choose what kind of file you want to open: Audio, YouTube (also for Facebook), or Vimeo. Click the option you want.

AUDIO

• To add an audio file, click the "Browse" button, and choose the file from your computer. Make sure that the file name does not contain periods (except for the file extension-- such as .mp3). If you use any punctuation, you will need to only use an underscore _ . Follow the prompts and save.
• Please note the following about uploading an audio file:
  • An MP3 upload has a max of 100MB. 
  • To compress your MP3 file to 100MB or less, a bitrate of 64kbps would be the absolute lowest bitrate, but 128kbps is ideal. 
  • Our system will not accept file names with spaces or special characters.

VIDEO

• To add a video, click the button of your platform of choice - YouTube (or Facebook) or Vimeo. You will need to locate the embed code for that particular video. 

There are several ways to access the embed code of a video, but here are a few suggestions.

YouTube

• To find your YouTube embed code, simply right-click on your YouTube video while it is playing.

• Clicking on "Copy Embed Code" will allow you to go directly to your website and paste into the Video Embed Code box by right-clicking and selecting "Paste" or using the keyboard function (Ctrl+v for PC users; Cmd+v for Mac users).

Facebook

• Open your Facebook video so that it is full screen.
• In the upper right-hand area, click the "Share" button, and then "Embed."

• Once you click "Embed", your embed code will appear with a blue "Copy Code" button. Click "Copy Code," go to your website, and paste into the Video Embed Code box by right-clicking and selecting "Paste" or using the keyboard function (Ctrl+v for PC users; Cmd+v for Mac users).

Vimeo

• Once you are logged in to your Vimeo site, find your video in your recent video listings. Once you open the video, click on the link icon in the footer of that video, and select "Copy Embed Code." You should see a confirmation that says "Embed Code Copied to Clipboard." 

• Paste into the Video Embed Code box on your website by right-clicking and selecting "Paste" or using the keyboard function (Ctrl+v for PC users; Cmd+v for Mac users).

Final Details...

• Add the sermon title, date, and description on the following lines. (Note that on the date, you have the option to delay the viewing of the sermon you are loading.)
• Don't forget to add a photo from the ChurchSpring Library (or add a quality photo of your own).
• Is this sermon part of a series? If so, be sure to watch the video below showing you how to create a series listing.
• Finally, hit "Save," and your sermon should be all set! You did it!
• Log out of your website to check out the newly loaded sermon as it appears to visitors!

FAQS & TROUBLESHOOTING

1. "Can I add both an audio file and a video embed code into my sermons page?” Yes! You must add the audio file first, and then in the text box at the bottom of the page, click on the "video" icon in the toolbar and add your embed code. 
2. "How do I compress an MP3 file?" For compressing an audio file, check out this article for a couple of different ways you can decrease the size of your MP3: How To Compress Large Audio Files. Step 4 mentions some online tools you can use.