Podcast Setup

This guide walks you through setting up your church’s sermon podcast using CP Sermon Library.

What is a Sermon Podcast?

A sermon podcast is an audio feed of your church’s messages that people can subscribe to in podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. This allows your congregation and others to:

• Automatically receive new sermons when published
• Listen on mobile devices, smart speakers, and other platforms
• Discover your content through podcast directories
• Listen offline after downloading episodes

Enabling the Podcast Feed

Your feed is /messages/feed/podcast/ (or your slug) and works as soon as the plugin is active. Don’t use /feed/podcast/, which gives an empty feed.

To set the title and artwork:

1. Navigate to Series → Settings → Advanced, or under Messages if Series is turned off
2. Set Enable Podcast Feed to Enable
3. Click “Save Changes”

A Podcast tab then appears in Series → Settings, or under Messages if Series is turned off, where you fill in the feed details (at least Title and Image). Until a Title is saved, the feed is named after the newest sermon.

Configuring Podcast Settings

All podcast settings are on the Podcast tab:

1. Navigate to Series → Settings → Podcast tab, or under Messages if Series is turned off
2. Configure the fields below
3. Click “Save Changes”

Essential Fields

• Image — Upload square artwork (the field description asks for 1400×1400 to 3000×3000, JPG or PNG)
• Title — Your podcast name (typically your church name + “Sermons” or “Messages”)
• Subtitle — A brief description (1-2 sentences)
• Description — A complete description of your podcast content
• Provider — Usually your church name
• Email — Contact email (required by podcast directories)
• Copyright — Copyright statement (e.g., “© 2025 [Church Name]”)
• Link — Your church website URL
• Language — Primary language of your sermons

iTunes Settings

• Category — Select from available category options (default: “Christianity (Religion)”)
• Clean — Check this box to indicate non-explicit content (typically checked for churches)

Feed URL

CP Sermon Library automatically generates your main podcast feed based on your sermon archive URL: https://yoursite.com/messages/feed/podcast

(If you’ve changed the sermon slug, the URL will reflect that, e.g., /sermons/feed/podcast.)

This is the URL you’ll submit to podcast directories.

Episode Count

The number of episodes in your feed is controlled by the WordPress setting at Settings → Reading → “Syndication feeds show the most recent X items.” The default is 10.

Taxonomy-Specific Feeds

You can access podcast feeds scoped to specific series, speakers, or service types by appending /feed/podcast/ to the relevant page URL:

• Series feed: https://yoursite.com/series/series-slug/feed/podcast/
• Speaker feed: https://yoursite.com/speakers/speaker-slug/feed/podcast/
• Service type feed: https://yoursite.com/service-types/service-type-slug/feed/podcast/

Excluding Sermons from the Podcast

Exclude from Podcast is on the sermon edit screen only after Enable Podcast Feed is set to Enable (Advanced tab). It is not shown on a sermon that has Add Variations checked.

1. Edit the sermon
2. In Message Details, check Exclude from Podcast
3. Update the sermon

Validating Your Podcast Feed

Before submitting to directories, validate your feed:

1. Copy your feed URL (shown on the Podcast settings page, e.g., https://yoursite.com/messages/feed/podcast)
2. Visit a podcast validator service:
   • Cast Feed Validator
   • Podbase Podcast Validator
3. Paste your feed URL and validate
4. Address any errors or warnings

Common issues to check:

• Missing required fields (title, provider, email)
• Improperly sized artwork
• Invalid media file formats
• Sermons without audio files attached

Troubleshooting Podcast Issues

Feed Not Generating (404 Error)

1. Go to Settings → Permalinks and click “Save Changes” to flush rewrite rules
2. Verify your permalink structure is not set to “Plain”
3. Check server rewrite rules if using Nginx

Episodes Missing from Feed

1. Check that the missing sermons have audio files attached
2. Verify the sermons are published (not draft or scheduled)
3. Check if the sermons are marked as “Exclude from Podcast”
4. The feed only includes the most recent X sermons (based on your Reading settings)

Cover Art Not Displaying

1. Verify the image is at least 1400×1400 pixels
2. Check file format (JPG or PNG)
3. Ensure the file is JPG or PNG format
4. Re-upload the image in podcast settings