CONTACT USBack to MinistryPlatform Site
Your Knowledge Base has moved to the new Help Center.  Check out the release notes for details. And don't forget to update your bookmarks and in-house documentation before May 28.

Sermon Foundations

 

Before you add a sermon to your app, there are a few values you'll need to add in MinistryPlatform. Forgot to add them ahead of time? No problem, you can always add them later. But we recommend setting yourself up for success by adding these values first!


Service Types

Service Types help you to separate services for different purposes. For example, you may have a Contemporary service and a Traditional service. Or you may only need one service type for "Worship Service". You'll need at least one Service Type before you can create a Sermon Series.

  1. PocketPlatform Lookups > PocketPlatform Service Types.
  2. New PocketPlatform Service Type.
  3. Add your service type.
  4. Save.

Speakers

The Speaker identifies which pastor or guest speaker gave which message. A callout displays under each sermon graphic and on each sermon item on the Sermon Series detail screens. After adding your Speaker, you can add them to the sermon they preached.

  1. PocketPlatform > Sermon Speakers.
  2. New Sermon Speaker.
  3. Add the Speaker's information:
    • Contact: The Contact record for the sermon speaker.
    • Display Name: How you'd like the sermon speaker's name to be displayed in your app.
    • Bio: Optionally, add the sermon speaker's bio.
  4. Save.
Pro tip: Attach a photo of the Sermon Speaker to each Sermon Speaker's record. It will show up on the Sermon screen detail. Have a guest speaker? Create a Speaker record and assign it to the default contact. The only information from the Speaker record that shows up in the app is the speaker's name and profile photo. Just make sure the image attached to the default contact makes sense!

Sermon Series

A Sermon Series is a group of sermons that go together. It might be focused on a book of the Bible (Romans, anyone?) or on a topic (hello, Advent!). Putting your sermons in a series will make them easy to organize and find. Your congregants will thank you!

  1. PocketPlatform > Sermon Series.
  2. New Sermon Series.
  3. Add the following:
    • Title: The title of your sermon series.
    • Display Title: If you'd like to display a different title for the series, add it here.
    • Subtitle: Additional descriptive text about the sermon series.
    • Status: Hidden, Draft, or Published.
    • Position: The order the sermon series displays on the app.
    • Series Start Date: The date of the first sermon.
  4. Save.

Sermon Series Categories

Sermon Series Categories allow for categorized view and control of sermon series on set-top devices, like Apple TV. These apps each have horizontally scrolling lists of sermon series, which directly correlate to the Sermon Series Categories.

  1. PocketPlatform Lookups > Sermon Series Categories.
  2. New Sermon Series Category.
  3. Add the following:
    • Category Name: A user-friendly name for the sermon series category. This will be displayed in the apps, so be strategic so people can find what they're looking for.
    • Position: The order the categories will be displayed in. Pro Tip: Negative numbers will display before positive ones, so add a "-1" if you need to bump a new category to the top of the list.
    • Start Date: The date your sermon series category will be available in the apps.
    • End Date: The date your sermon series category will stop being available in the app.
  4. Save.

Sermon Series Types

Sermon Series Types are used to create "buckets" of media. Some examples include Sunday Sermons, Devotionals, Kids Media, and Small Group Lessons. After adding the Sermon Series Type, you can add it to the sermon series it applies to.

  1. PocketPlatform Lookups > Sermon Series Types.
  2. New Sermon Series Type.
  3. Add your series type.
  4. Save.