Did you know? Pastors spend an average of ten and half hours on every single sermon, and they’re doing that forty-plus times per year.
After all, these sermons aren’t easy fluff pieces. They’re dense pieces of content that require a great deal of prayer, research, and time to compile.
Yet, unfortunately, much of that content is never seen or heard from again. What a colossal waste of time, energy, and evangelism opportunity!
While many churches have started transitioning to offering more online content, using helpful resources such as The Digital Pulpit, many churches still have a great deal of untapped potential they’re leaving on the table each and every week.
That’s why, on today’s podcast, we’re sharing 7 ways to repurpose sermons so you can get more impact out of your Sunday message.
1. Repurpose Sermons into Blog Articles
Repurposing sermons you’ve preached in the past into blog articles is one quick and easy way to extend the life of your sermons – and you don’t even have to be the one to put these articles together!
Simply go to Rev.com, upload your sermon video file (or enter the URL), and Rev.com will transcribe your entire sermon for you for a very low cost.
From here, you might choose to upload the transcript to your blog as one massive post (after formatting and proofreading, of course), or you might break the sermon into multiple posts you publish separately.
You can then send these same blog posts out via your email list or via social media for even more exposure.
This is a very quick, easy, and cost-effective way of repurposing sermon series you know could impact more people with a bit more exposure.
2. Create Shareable Quotes for Social Media
As humans, we all love content that inspires us, encourages us, or challenges us – especially inspiring quotes placed on a beautiful backdrop. And the good news is repurposing sermons in this way is incredibly easy to do!
Simply upload your sermon to Rev.com to get the transcript or ask a volunteer to take notes while you preach. Then, pull out any short, inspiring quotes (that will still make sense when taken out of context), and paste them onto a beautiful background to share on social media.
You can find tons of great images on a stock photography site like Lightstock, and you can easily create simple graphics using free photo editing software like Canva. Both are very affordable and easy to use.
If you want to repurpose sermons in this way, you will want to be consistent. Sharing a few graphics when you get around to it likely won’t help. But regularly sharing encouraging, uplifting content can really help increase your online engagement.
3. Create Short, Shareable Video Clips
Alternatively, instead of (or in addition to) pulling written quotes out of your sermons, you may choose to repurpose sermons as short video clips to be shared on Youtube or on various social media sites.
The key here is to make these clips short. While you can get away with uploading your entire sermon to Youtube, don’t simply upload the whole video to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok in its entirety. It’s likely far too long.
Users on these platforms are used to (and strongly prefer) short, highly engaging video clips no more than fifteen to sixty seconds in length.
Here’s how to repurpose sermon videos into short video clips: First, have a volunteer take the entire recording and break it down into short sections of about four to five minutes each. These videos will go on Youtube.
(Tip: Don’t simply cut the video after four minutes. Make sure each clip makes sense when taken out of context of the rest of the video.)
Next, have the same volunteer create much shorter videos, approximately ten to sixty seconds in length. These short videos are perfect for sharing on social media.
Finally, you can use an app called ClipChamp to quickly and easily adjust the size and orientation of each video as needed to fit on the various social media platforms.
4. Repurpose Sermons into Podcast Episodes
Similarly, repurposing sermons into audio podcast episodes is another quick and easy way to extend the life of a past sermon series.
You can take the finished audio file and publish it on your podcast in its entirety, or you can find ways to get more creative with it.
For example, you might share some additional behind the scenes information that didn’t make it into your live sermon. Alternatively, you may have someone else host the podcast by sharing clips of your sermon mixed with their reactions to and takeaways from what you’ve shared.
Either method can be very engaging.
5. Create Small Group Curriculum
Struggling to come up with engaging content for your church’s small groups to discuss? Repurposing sermon content into questions for small group discussion is an easy (and free!) way to solve this problem.
Simply ask a volunteer to listen to your sermon – they’re probably planning on listening anyway – and reverse-engineer the key concepts and main takeaways from your message into five to seven discussion questions your church’s small groups can use to discuss the topic further.
Repurposing sermons in this way will help your congregation go beyond simply listening to your messages to putting everything they’re learning into practice.
6. Create Free Resources to Use as Lead Magnets
Hoping to convert more of your church’s website visitors into email subscribers? If so, why not repurpose sermons from years past into new lead magnets that will help new (and existing) people get further connected with your ministry?
Again, simply go to Rev.com to obtain transcripts of your past sermons. Then, you or a volunteer can turn these transcripts into resources such as ebooks, devotionals, video courses, and more.
These resources can be delivered immediately upon sign-up by your email management tool, or you could drip them out over time with an automated sequence you set up in advance.
7. Repurpose Sermon Notes into a Book
Repurposing sermon series you’ve taught before into a full-length book is definitely the most time-consuming idea on this list, but it can also be the most rewarding.
Books allow you to share a topic on a much deeper level than a simple sermon will permit.
They allow your church congregation to learn more about you, your ministry, and your mission. And they allow your message to reach new people who might not set foot in your church otherwise. Some people simply prefer books to videos or in-person events.
Plus, they allow people to learn more in-depth information in a much shorter time frame. For example, someone might learn more spending a few hours reading your book than they would learn over attending your church services for months, simply due to the lengthier nature of a book.
There are plenty of services out there that specialize in repurposing past sermons and sermon notes (even a jumbled mess of sermon notes) into comprehensive, organized books that can be given away as gifts to your congregation or sold to bring in additional income for your church.
Ready to start repurposing sermons you’ve taught before into new content, but not sure where to start? Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do all seven options all at once. Instead, pick one or two to try and go from there!
Then be sure to visit FrontDoor.Church, where you can find all sorts of resources to help you extend the front door of your church much further than your property with tons of online sermon content you’ll love.
