Uploading mp3 sermon for your church website (as painless as possible)

1. Find someone in the church or group that has experience with posting information to the internet or willing to learn. The process is not difficult but has several steps. This would be an ideal project for the youth group to take on or anyone in the web design business.
   
2. Record the sermon. Find a way to patch a computer into the sound system. Look for right and left channel out connectors or a headphone monitor plug. You will need recording and editing software. There are several free programs available for download such as Audacity. Programs for purchase can make the process easier, but it will cost a little. Recording directly to CD is a good option for backing up your content, then you can rip the CD to mp3 on your computer (using windows media player – low quality settings).
   
3. Edit the recording. Take out whatever is not necessary such as silent moments (using audacity).
   
4. Export the edited recording in the MP3 format. Use a program (such as Super http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html or paid programs) or an online compression tool (http://www.online-convert.com/) to compress the audio for online listening (32 kbps 22,000 Hz - stereo or mono bit rate). If you can get your final sermon down to around 10mb, then you are doing good.
   
5. Upload the MP3 file to a free web host like www.archive.org (create an account and tag each file with info about the message).
   
6. Create a new page on your website or blog and then link the sermon file and player. www.archive.org provides a download file and code for an embedded player for your website.
   
7. Consider creating a Podcast. By clicking on subscription button sermons will be automatically downloaded to the computers, Ipods, and other MP3 players as they are posted.

Example of sermon hosted at Archive.org: