Onboarding + Ongoing Phases
Welcome to Open Pulpit! We are so excited to incorporate your sermon archive and your ongoing preaching into our catalog. This is a multiphase process, so we've outlined it in detail to help you know what to expect.
You have already completed Phase 0: your application, and our sampling and evaluation of some of your sermons that led us to approve your candidacy. Below is what comes next. Our director will arrange to discuss this with you on a live video call and answer any questions you might have.
A note before you dive in: this is a lot of detail, and it's really here for the real church nerds — the folks who want to know exactly how everything works. You don't have to read every word (honestly, nobody does), but we'd rather over-share than leave you guessing. If you just want the gist, skim the phase names below and the "What to Expect" sections.
Phase 0.5 Ongoing
From the day you sign the agreement, we need your help keeping our catalog current with your new preaching — this is separate from the historical archive we're already working through in Phase 1. Send us the audio file of each new sermon you want included, with metadata requested on our form. Feel free to recommend content considerations or tags.
This phase begins at the effective date stated on the contract and runs concurrently through all of the other phases.
We know not every church has staff who can send sermons weekly, and that's fine — we can work on a batch schedule instead (say, every six weeks or quarterly), and we'll prompt you when it's time. We'll figure out what cadence makes sense for you on our call.
Phase 1 Data Development
We will download audio files from the link you've provided, transcribe them, transcode them for storing and streaming, and start to build out metadata: dates, sermon titles, liturgical seasons, series (if applicable), scriptures, for each sermon.
This is also the time when it would help us if you go ahead and submit a 200-word congregational context essay (things it might help for a listener to know about your church and your preaching), a headshot (portrait), a photo of you preaching (landscape), a bio, and a list of any sermons you already know that you want excluded from the catalog.
How you can help
We can edit out music and other liturgy, and we can infer most of the data from the transcript, but if you happen to have any records that might help us here — audio files with only scripture + sermon, bulletin history, planning docs with scripture references and series made explicit — that will help make things more efficient for us. We can also manually skip over or delete any sermons from other preachers, but again, if you have some record of when these occurred, that makes our job easier. If you have a naming convention for your audio files, please let us know. If you know of any sermons that you do not want included on our app, including guest preachers, please let us know.
What to expect
During this phase, we will likely be emailing you to ask for clarification where any data is unclear.
Phase 2 Data Enhancement
In this phase, we'll begin adding original data to your sermons, including titles (if your sermons do not already carry titles), tags, and content considerations. Most tags will be shared with our whole sermon corpus, but we may also create some new tags to reflect recurring themes that are unique to your work. You'll have a chance to provide input on these, especially on your unique tags and sermon titles.
We will also send you any sermons that we think you might want to be reminded of before deciding whether to include them (for example, a sermon with a personal story about someone else).
How you can help
Just let us know if you have any recurring themes or keywords that you'd like to see represented, or title conventions you'd like observed.
What to expect
About ¾ of our sermons are assigned content considerations, so don't be surprised or alarmed by that. Our sermons deal with real, hard subject matter: racism and segregation, ostracization after coming out, religious exclusion, and more. Content considerations allow users to engage this material as they feel able instead of being surprised by it.
Phase 3 Evaluation
We use our AI-assisted evaluation process to evaluate every single sermon in our corpus. This process results in a "score" for each sermon. Scores are not shared on the app, with users, or with other preachers. They are only available internally at Open Pulpit. A preacher may access a record of their own sermons' scores by request.
Evaluation measures two things: the quality of each sermon (to what extent it is biblical, theological, contextual, and humble), and, separately, any potential harm the sermon might do to certain communities who have been hurt by the church.
Quality of sermons determine how often they are featured and promoted in our curated collections. We exercise significant human review in this process.
Identified potential harm in a sermon may lead us to exclude it from our corpus. We have made this difficult decision for a very small percentage of sermons submitted to Open Pulpit (about 5%). This decision is never made by a machine: sermons flagged for potential harm are extensively reviewed by humans.
How you can help
Your patience and trust is very much appreciated. We understand the vulnerability of having your life's work evaluated like this. We're so, so grateful for your participation.
What to expect
Expect a small number of your sermons to be gatekept out of our corpus. We can inform you about this however you'd like: say nothing, let you know that some are excluded, let you know how many, let you know which ones, and/or let you know why. Let us know what you want to know and we'll tell you. We're also happy to share your scores with you, or just your averages, or your top ten — whatever you want to know about this process, just ask. (What we cannot share is listener data; we keep this private to protect our listeners.) We're grateful to you for sharing your good work with us. We're really glad to have it.
Phase 4 Curation
In this phase, we will incorporate your work into our app and curate it to make sure your best sermons get seen and heard by our listeners. The world needs what you've got! At this stage, your sermons are live on the app for browsing and listening.
How you can help
Check it out and let us know what needs fixing. There's always something.
What to expect
An amazing listening experience! Your sermons, curated and featured and searchable! And, probably some errors, because we're human. Let us know.
Phase 5 Ongoing
Same as Phase 0.5, because we still need your help to keep our catalog up to date. Send us the audio file of each sermon you want included, with metadata requested on our form. Feel free to recommend content considerations or tags.
This phase begins at the effective date stated on the contract and runs concurrently through all of the other phases.
How you can help
Let us know what day of the week you estimate you will be sending these to us, and keep us posted whenever there might be changes or delays.
What to expect
Your sermons, available in the app. Thank you!
Thank you so much for being a part of Open Pulpit and, more importantly, for faithfully preaching the Good News in your beloved community. Good theology saves lives.