Sermons from YouTube

The Sermons page on your church’s public website fills itself from your church’s YouTube channel. Nobody needs to type sermons in. When a new sermon video goes up on YouTube, it appears on the website on its own.

Before you start

• Your church’s YouTube channel is part of your website’s setup. Whoever looks after your church’s site settings adds it. It isn’t something you change in Administration → Church settings. If your Sermons page is empty, ask them whether the channel has been added.

How it works

1. Someone uploads the sermon to the church’s YouTube channel as a Public video. The sound team’s livestream checklist includes this step. See Run the Sunday livestream.
2. The website checks the channel for new videos early every morning. On Sundays it also checks in the afternoon and again in the evening, so the morning’s sermon is usually on the site the same day.
3. When a check finds something new, the website updates itself. That takes a few minutes.
4. The new sermon shows under Latest messages and All recordings, with its own page where visitors can play it or tap Watch on YouTube.

What gets listed

• Only Public videos. Unlisted and private videos are never listed.
• Not livestreams. Full services that were streamed are left off the Sermons page, even if you later make them public, unless your church’s setup chooses to list them. That’s why the sermon goes up as its own video.
• The title is the video’s title on YouTube, and the date is the day it was posted. Give each sermon a clear title, like the one the livestream checklist suggests, so people can find it with the Search box.
• If you make a video private or delete it on YouTube, it drops off the website at the next check.

If something goes wrong

• A new sermon isn’t showing. Check that it is Public on YouTube and that it was uploaded as a video, not streamed. Then wait for the next check. Uploads on a weekday show up the next morning.
• A title is wrong. Fix it on YouTube. The website picks up the new title at the next check.
• The Sermons page has no videos at all. The YouTube channel may not be set up yet. Ask whoever looks after your church’s site settings.
• More help: see Sunday troubleshooting.