Hey friend!
Try something before you read the rest of this email.
Open ChatGPT. Type in a question your last sermon answered. Try something like "how do I forgive someone who hurt me" or "how do I handle grief after losing my dad."
Look at the websites it links to in the answer.
Now look for your church in that list.
This takes about 2 minutes. Go ahead, I'll wait.
You preached a whole sermon on that question. You studied for it, prayed over it, and gave it everything on Sunday. The AI tools people use to ask that same question all week might have no idea your sermon exists.
That's the topic of the newest episode of the Church Tech Today Podcast. It's called "Your Sermons Are An SEO Goldmine When You Use AI," and you can listen to it on Spotify right now.
I'll give you the short version of the problem here. The episode gives you the fix.
Run a 10-minute AI visibility test on your church this week.
You can do this yourself or hand it to a volunteer.
- Pick your 4 most recent sermons.
- Write each topic as a question a real person would type. Use everyday words, like "what does the Bible say about anxiety."
- Ask ChatGPT each question. Write down the websites it links to.
- Search the same questions on Google. Check the AI Overview at the top and the results under it.
- Mark yes or no for your church on each one.
Keep that list. You'll use it again at the end of this email.
AI tools can only send people to words they can read.
If your church posts sermons only as video or audio, search engines have a hard time reading them.
Here's how I put it in the episode: a sermon "that's posted only as audio, as a podcast or online or as video, effectively, it's pretty much invisible for the most part."
Google's own guide for site owners backs this up. It lists "making sure that important content is available in textual form" as a basic best practice. The same guide says there are no special tricks to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The page needs to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet.
So the fix is easy to say. Put your sermons on your website in writing, in a form people want to read.
Each sermon becomes an article built around one real question someone is asking. That article gives Google and ChatGPT something to index and link to.
Your sermon archive already answers the questions people in your town are asking.
You preach on grief. You preach on marriage, doubt, money, and forgiveness.
People in your zip code type those same topics into Google every day.
You already did the hard part when you studied the text and preached the message. The answer is sitting inside a sermon video on your website right now.
If you preach most Sundays, your back catalog already holds dozens of answers your website could be sharing this year.
Or as I say in the episode, "You already preached on it."
The Church Tech Today Podcast walks you through the 3-step fix in 16 minutes.
This is the part I want you to hear in my own voice.
Listen to "Your Sermons Are An SEO Goldmine When You Use AI" on Spotify
Here's what you'll hear in the episode:
- The 3 steps to turn one sermon transcript into a blog post people can find on Google.
- 2 free transcription tools, including one that doesn't ask for an account or an email address.
- The plain-language prompt I use in ChatGPT or Claude, read out loud so you can copy it down.
- Why a blog post fills the space between a 30-second clip and a full sermon.
- How to hand the whole workflow to volunteers who can work on their own schedule.
- What one article a week adds up to after a year.
It's about 16 minutes long. That's one drive to the office. Press play on Spotify here.
Start with your 4 most recent sermons.
That's the challenge I give at the end of the episode. Take your 4 latest messages and hand them to one volunteer with the prompt from the show.
Here's the line I want you to remember: "Within the next week, you could have four new front doors to your church that continue to work while you sleep."
Once those posts are live, run your AI visibility test again with the same questions. Put the new list next to your first one.
Hit reply and tell me what you found when you ran the test. If ChatGPT already links to your church, I want to hear how you did it.
Worth Noting
- Your Sermons Are An SEO Goldmine When You Use AI: show notes. The episode summary, the full prompt, the tool links, and the complete transcript.
- AI features and your website. Google's guide for site owners on how AI Overviews and AI Mode work.
- The Church Tech Today Podcast on Spotify. Every episode in one place, including the 10 sections every church AI policy needs.
To your AI fluency,
Kenny Jahng
AIforChurchLeaders.com
PS: Follow the Church Tech Today Podcast on Spotify so the next episode shows up in your library as soon as it's out. Follow the show here.
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