Editing your own sermon podcasts and videos (August Posting Challenge)

I prepare 10 hours for most sermons. It is normal for pastors prepare 20-30 hours. The recommended number to preach a good sermon is 20-30. The reason that I don't right now is that I don't have time as a small church pastor and planter. I believe I can prepare a good enough sermon in 10 hours. If there ever were more flexibility, then maybe I would increase that.

I believe this is a good use of time. A sermon should be the word of God through a man. It is powerful and communicates with many people at one time. I once read that 70% of people say that the sermons are the reasons that they pick a church. So 10-30 hours is well-worth investing in the sermon.

If the sermon is worth 10-30 hours of preparation, then it is also worth 1-2 hours to turn the sermon into a podcast, video form, and clips. If the sermon reaches 50-800 people at the time it is preached, then it can have even more effect in recorded audio and video and even more effect in clips. I believe pastors should spend the time to learn to edit and upload their own sermons to have an expanded and on-going ministry for each sermon.

Many churches put that task on the sound guys, tech team, or communications team. But they are often not very good. If they don't know how to edit for noise, add an intro, or add a picture thumbnail, then the podcast or video won't be as good as those 20 hours of work deserve.

Think about it: If you add 2 hours of work after you preach the sermon, you can put it in a usable form that people in the community can use, people can share them with their friends, and your church can have a 24/7 ministry. And by learning to do it yourself, you can make sure that it is done in a way that matches the level of work you already put into the sermon. This is mainly geared toward smaller church pastors and church planters. If you are at a larger multi-staff church, you probably ignore this post anyway.

Having a quality podcast is the bare minimum, but the real advantage is in turning the sermon into audio clips and video clips (more on that to come).

Check out our church's latest series "167" to get an idea of what is possible in less than 15 minutes of work. Go to belgiumchurch.com/listen.



It sounds complicated. How do you learn to do that?

Plan:

  • Pick the format you want to learn first podcast or video. I recommend focusing first on podcasting and learn to use Audacity. Audacity is free and awesome. That makes it a great software to learn. When you want to learn video, pay for Adobe Premiere Pro (or Adobe Creative Cloud). 
  • Find an introductory playlist on Youtube teaching the basics of how to use the software. Watch one video per day for 2 weeks. This is a pretty good place to start. But you should plan to watch 6-10 videos so you get an idea of what and how to use the software.
  • Then edit and upload your own sermons.

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