Home Pastors Preaching & Teaching Six Ways to Preach Your Sermon on the Web

Six Ways to Preach Your Sermon on the Web

OK, you put a lot of time and effort into constructing and presenting a powerful sermon. You have crafted the language in such a way that the theologically sound message comes through very powerfully. The preaching moment is now over. Many of these sermons live on through audio CDs or video DVDs, but there are a growing number of preachers who are leveraging the Internet to gain a greater hearing for their sermon. In addition, these methodologies can increase the length of time that people remember the message. Finally, it allows visitors to experience a little bit of the worship hour at your church.

OK, so what can a preacher do?

Post Your Sermon to an Audio Podcast

This is simple. You already have the audio of your sermon. Why not post it in its entirety to an Audio Podcast. Surprisingly many people, including preachers, listen to these sermons that are available online. Now, there are paid services that bring together a number of preachers, and there are free services that will require a little more technical expertise.

My suggestion would be to take your audio and get a hold of someone in your congregation who has a bit of technical expertise and have that one upload your sermons online. Then let your congregation know that sermons are now available. It shouldn’t cost much, and it will allow your sermon to be heard beyond the four walls of your congregation.

Blog Your Sermon

You could simply post your sermon in text. You can do this to a service like SermonCentral, or you can post it to your own blog (or Web site). The nice thing about either option is that it allows your sermons to show up in Google search results. You can post a full text version of your sermon, summary, or perhaps an outline.

Again, grab a hold of a technically savvy individual in your congregation and get your sermons up online.

Put Your Sermon Up on YouTube

Everyone uses YouTube. You can put your sermons up on YouTube. There are a number of powerful preachers who do this today. Go into YouTube and simply type in preachers, and you will see a number of them. If you already have a video recording of your sermons, then put them up there now!

Send a Sermon Summary to an E-mail List

In my Internet consulting work, I always emphasize the necessity of getting an e-mail list. You want to grow a list of people who you can contact at any time with inspiring and powerful messages. Sending a sermon summary (or outline or full manuscript) will definitely help you to grow such a list as well as bless the people who are reading.

Get your congregation to sign up and then start sending messages to the congregation. An e-mail list can be a very powerful way to “meet” with your congregation outside of the church.

UStream

Did you know that you can stream your worship service for free? Head on over to Ustream.com and check it out. Some stream services as well as many other kinds of things. Again, you will probably need some technical person to help you, but more than likely, you already have an audio/sound team that can handle this.

Twitter and Facebook Your Sermons

Everyone is on social networking sites. Even pastors, preachers, and evangelists make use of these powerful platforms. Why not create a “Facebook Fan Page” for your ministry and post links to the sermons as well as maybe summaries. There are text limits to Twitter and Facebook messages, but that only forces you to be succinct. Check them out and use them in your ministry.

You have put a lot of effort into the sermon, use the Web to magnify them. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to send me an e-mail or write them in the comments. If you have used or plan to use the Internet to magnify the power of your sermon, I would like to hear about that as well.