Element Fusion

Please note: This is an article I wrote last year on our support site. This oldie but goodie is reposted here for you to enjoy.

For many years, I have been involved in helping churches manage their information online and sermon management is one of the things I am most passionate about.  The blog element built into Sky, our content management system for churches and ministries, makes sermon management simple and effective.  This article will discuss how to use the blog element to manage sermons online.

Series vs. Non-Series

To begin, you must decide whether you will list your church's sermons grouped into sermon series or gathered altogether in one list.  The software can handle either scenario, but grouping your sermons into series is a bit more complex.  I always recommend the simplest path possible, so think about whether a non-series sermon listing will work for you before committing to series-based management.  I will discuss managing non-series sermons first.

Non-Series Sermon Management

To create a single page that lists all of your sermons, follow these steps:

1. Create a page to hold your sermon listing.
2. Add a text element at the top of the page.  In this element, you can add a page header, some introductory copy, and even an image if you wish.
3. Add a blog element. 
4. Click the edit icon for the blog element and select "edit".  On the edit screen, make the following changes. 
   • Give your blog a descriptive title like "sermon listing"
   • If you want to limit the number of sermons that are displayed, you can enter a total number of posts to display or a number of days into the past to display.
   • Uncheck the box that says "I want to let people comment on my posts".
   • Check the box that says "I want to lock the comments on all my posts"
   • Click "update" when complete
5. Click the edit icon for the blog element and select "write new post".  On the write post screen, make the following changes:
   • Enter the sermon title
   • Change the "Author" field to show the speaker
   • Change the date field to show the date the sermon was delivered
   • In the body field, enter whatever content you desire.  You can enter a description of the sermon, links to media files, or even images.
   • If you are going to be podcasting this sermon, add your downloadable media file as an attachment, or simply create a link in the content area to your mp3 file.
   • Click "update" when complete.
6. Repeat step five for each sermon you want to list. 

Keep in mind that you can even list sermons into the future and they won't show up on your sermon listing until the sermon date arrives.  This can be convenient for staying ahead.  Also, remember that you can set the number of sermons to maintain in the list or a number of days to keep sermons on the list (see step 4b above).  This can help you keep your sermon listings from getting too long.

Series-Based Sermon Management

Managing sermons in series works in much the same way, but you must create a separate blog element for each series.  It is also a good idea to place each of these blog elements on its own page.  Follow these steps:

1. Create a page of your site to list all sermon series.  This will serve as a sort of index page from which your users can access each of your individual series. 
2. Add a text element to the index page and use whatever method you desire to create some introductory copy and a listing of available sermon series with links to each sub-page.  You can even add images if you wish.
3. Create sub-pages for each of your sermon series under the series index page.  Name a page after each sermon series.  This should automatically start to generate a navigational menu for this sermon series section of your site.
4. Follow steps 1-6 under "non-series sermon management" for each series page you create. 
5. Each time you start a new sermon series, you'll need to add another sub-page and create a new blog element.

When you are finished, you will have built an entire sermon series section of your website, with an index page and links to each individual series page.  Each series page will have all of the individual sermons in that series listed.

The Next Level -- Podcasting

You've now setup a convenient and easy to manage sermon listing on your website.  The great thing about using the blog element for sermon listings is that it not only helps you keep your sermons neatly organized on the web, but it can also generate a podcast of those same sermons automatically.  Simply grab the RSS feed generated by your blog element and you're good to go.