So far in the Church Website Podcasting Series we have discussed Why You Should Podcast and the steps to Recording Sermons and Resizing Sermons for the web. Once you have sized your mp3 so that it's web-ready, you will want to upload the file to the internet. There are a handful of ways to do this but in my opinion, there is one that stand out as the best option for most church websites - that is DropBox.com.

Go to dropbox.com and set up a free account in just minutes. You'll start with 2GB of FREE Storage. By sharing your love for DropBox on Facebook and Twitter as well as inviting some friends via email, you can quickly boost your free space up over 10GB. If you have sized your sermon files well, this free space will be enough for you to host over over 1000 sermons. That's over 20 years of your preaching available on your church website for free.

Once you have signed up for DropBox, you will download a desktop app that will basically just be a folder on your hard drive. You can put the same folder on all of your computers and your mobile devices and anytime you add a file (such as a sermon mp3 file) to the DropBox folder, it will be accessible to you on any of your synched devices. You will also be provided a direct url to the file - something that looks like - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/########/SermonTitle.mp3. This direct link will be what will be used to play sermons on church websites. You will be able to embed or play this file with almost any website hosting provider. If you have a SnapShot Website, you can play the mp3 with the new Flow Podcast Feature.

More on embedding or playing the sermon on your Church Website in part 4. For now, sign up for a DropBox account and get started uploading your sermons. If you have questions about setting up or using the service, let us know. We love to help.

In the last post, I explained a few of the great benefits of setting up a podcasts for church websites. Now for the process of beginning to pull it off.

Recording Sermons - The manner of recording will have a lot to do with the sound system that you are using at your church. If there is not already a built-in recording mechanism in your sound system, you will want to connect your computer and record the sermon using software such as Audacity or Garage Band. Once you have the audio file on your computer, you will be able to burn the file to CDs. To do this you will want to use the “Export as WAV” or “Export as AIFF” command to save your recording in a sound file.

Shrinking Sermons - The WAV and AAIF files will be large files that are CD quality. Sometimes people will unknowingly add these CD quality files to their church websites. Sometimes these files can be 50MB or more for the 30-45 minute sermon. You may have experienced this in the past when you go to a church website and click to play or download a sermon… 10 minutes later, the file is ready. Most people don't want to wait that long so you will either have to convince your preacher to shorten the sermon length to about 5 minutes or simply reduce the bit rate of the audio file to make it web-ready.

If your Audio file is merely spoken word (as opposed to music) you can reduce the bit rate to 32kbps (kilobits per second) without compromising much quality. Some have even said that you can take the file down to 16kbps but in my experience, this can add a bit too much static to the sermon. If you are using Audacity or Garage Band, you will be able to reduce the bit rate right from the interface and export the file as am mp3. If you already have a large audio file and you would like to simply reduce the bit rate to make a web-ready smaller file, one easy and free way to pull this off is through iTunes.

Here are the steps to make it happen:

1. Open iTunes preferences (file or iTunes > preferences)
    
2. Choose the General Tab then click Import Settings.
    
3. Set Import Using to "mp3 Encoder"
    
4. Set Setting to "Custom"
    
5. Set Stereo Bit Rate to "32kbps" and click OK (twice)
    
6. Find the audio file in your iTunes music library.
    
7. Right click on it and choose "Create mp3 Version" - This will create a copy of your file with the smaller bit rate that you can then upload to your website.

Using this method you will be able to reduce the file size of a 30 minute sermon down to about 6MB - 8MB. Once you have done this, you are ready to upload the file to the web so that you can drop it on your church website. More on where to store this file for free in part 3.
 

When I was in college, I went to a local church with fantastic teaching. At the back of the sanctuary, there was a audio cassette rack where you could pick up a copy of a previous sermon for a one-dollar donation. I loved this cassette rack. I loved that if I had to miss a week of church I could grab the cassette from the rack and play it in my car on the way home. I loved that if there was a sermon that I thought a friend or family member would especially enjoy that I could grab a copy of it and hand it to them.

The days of the audio cassette are over (in most places, I'm assuming.) Most churches made the jump to CDs several years ago and then to the internet. With the technologies available today, sharing a sermon with those you love is easier than ever.

If your church is not already recording and sharing your sermons through your church website, here are four quick reasons that you should start right away:

1. It's a helpful way to archive sermons - I'm going to teach a 3 week series on Luke 15 this coming summer as our pastor will be on Sabbatical. I know that our church did a series on Luke several years ago and instead of simply wondering what the focus on the series was, I can simply listen to it. Brilliant.
    
2. It's an easy way to make a sermon available to a church member who had to miss the worship service for some reason - My wife and I have three kids under the age of 5.

We've had lots of people asking about easy ways to add video and audio podcasts to their church websites.  We've had the Advanced podcasting feature for several months but we're now ready to announce that things just got a whole lot better.

The New Flow Podcast Feature is here.   Sign up for a 100% risk free 30-Day trial to test it out yourself.

There are all sorts of features that you are going to love.

Check out the video tour that will show the player in action.

Here are a few of our favorite features:

1. Easy Video Integration - If you are video recording your sermons, you can host the files on services like vimeo.com or blip.tv for free.  Now with a simple click of a button you can have your video popup right from your website so that people can watch and share.
    
2. Social Integration - Imagine that I came to your church on Sunday and heard a message that I loved.  I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with a friend (or all of my friends.)  Now, I can go right to your website and click on the email or tweet button for the sermon and just like that, I have shared the blessings with others.
    
3. Sermon Archive - Do you want to keep several years (or more) worth of sermons available on your site? With the new Flow Podcast Feature...

We just talked with Eric from Mountain View Bible Church.  He's new to SnapShot Web - he's had a SnapShot Website for a church for only a few months and it's not totally finished yet.  Even though he's still working on finishing up the site, we had to show you the podcast that he's got up and running.  It's amazing.  Click here to see it for yourself.  Here are some of the ways that he has made it especially cool:

• For each message, he has added a series name, a sermon name, an image, and some notes
• A clear and simple description for his users on how to interact with the podcast
• Two archive options so that you can find a sermon by series or by date
• A simple way for you to search all the sermons if you know you are looking for something in particular
• An RSS feed set up at feedburner so that people can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another podcatcher
• Tweet option enabled so you can share a sermon over twitter if you'd like (you can see this by clicking on one of the sermon titles.)
• Email this sermon to a friend set up

Wow.  We're impressed with how well he's using the new Podcasting feature.  Well done, Eric.  Keep up the good work.

If you are interested in getting your Podcast set up like Eric's just let us know at support@snapshotweb.com or 877-549-1900 and we'll have you up and running in no time.

SnapShot Web keeps getting better.  Check out the new advanced podcasting option.  There are all sorts of sweet options included with the module, including "email a friend", subscribe, play now, download, and retweet.  You've got to see this one in action.  Check out the video that will give you a quick tour.