Servantly Sermon Archive with YouTube Import and Live Detection

Stop paying $40–120/month for sermon management platforms. Sermon Importer & Archive does it all — free, self-hosted, inside WordPress. Most church websites struggle with sermon archives. Either they pay for expensive third-party platforms, embed YouTube playlists that look unprofessional, or ask a volunteer to manually copy sermon details into WordPress every week. None of it works well. All of it takes time nobody has. Sermon Importer & Archive connects your WordPress site directly to your church's YouTube channel and handles everything automatically — importing sermons as published posts in the Sermons category (sermons slug; the category is created if missing), organizing them by speaker, scripture, and series, and detecting when you go live so your website can show the stream in real time. What It Does Automatic Sermon Import Connect your YouTube channel once. The plugin pulls videos from your channel’s uploads playlist using playlistItems.list (not search.list), then creates WordPress posts with title, description, thumbnail, and publish date from YouTube. New sermons can appear on your site automatically — no manual entry, no copy-paste, no volunteer hours wasted. Smart Title Parsing Designed for real church naming conventions. The parser extracts sermon title, speaker name, scripture reference, Bible book, and series name from your video titles automatically. Other churches may need naming consistency or parser tuning over time. Live Stream Detection When your service starts, your website can know. The live detector uses a two-request pattern (playlistItems.list + videos.list, up to 2 API quota units when the server actually refreshes live status from YouTube), only inside configurable windows around your Service Times. Outside those windows, no YouTube calls are made for live status (and cached answers may use 0 units). Results are cached in a transient (shorter TTL while live). The stream UI can switch when service ends — no volunteer flipping a switch. Quota-Conscious YouTube API Design Your API quota is treated as a resource to steward. Imports use the uploads playlist pattern above; live checks avoid hammering the API and include guards such as actualEndTime so finished broadcasts are not mistaken for live. The REST live-status endpoint supports a rate-limited refresh and sends Cache-Control: no-store so CDNs and browsers do not cache stale “live” states. Filterable Sermon Archive Visitors can filter your sermon library by speaker, Bible book, series, and year. The archive works with popular WordPress themes and search plugins out of the box. Speaker, Book & Series Taxonomies Sermons are organized into custom taxonomies on the post type (servantly_si_sermon_speaker, servantly_si_sermon_book, servantly_si_sermon_series), REST-visible, with rewrite slugs sermon-speaker, sermon-book, sermon-series. Bulk & titles merges duplicate terms and can optionally map YouTube titles split by a delimiter to sermon fields on import. Curated Content Protection Lock individual sermon posts to prevent auto-import from overwriting your manual edits. The importer skips creating duplicates when sermon_video_id already exists. Unlocked posts can be refreshed on re-import; locked posts (_sermon_locked) are not overwritten. Service Times Configuration Configure your recurring service times once. The plugin uses them to gate live detection, power the homepage countdown to next service, and give visitors accurate schedule context. Homepage Sermon Hero The [servantly_latest_sermon] shortcode outputs a sermon hero — latest sermon embed, countdown to next service, live detection, and a grid of recent messages. Optional shortcode attributes: label (eyebrow text), sermons_url (defaults to home_url( '/sermons/' ) — your site’s front URL plus the /sermons/ path; override if your archive lives elsewhere). Watch Online Page The [servantly_watch] shortcode creates a Watch Online experience: live embed when streaming (with a LIVE treatment), otherwise latest sermon, plus a recent grid. Hero “Play Now” and live links resolve to Settings → Watch online page URL when set, otherwise the most recently updated published page/post that contains [servantly_watch], otherwise home_url( '/watch/' ). Optional shortcode attribute watch_url on [servantly_latest_sermon] overrides per hero. Front-end JavaScript can swap the player without a full page reload when status changes. Admin Screen (Sermon Importer) The plugin adds a single admin menu, Sermon Importer, with tabs (not separate submenus):

• Manage Sermons — Paginated list, inline editing, media-library thumbnails, lock/unlock, AJAX save.
• Import — Manual Import latest vs Import full channel; on-screen quota notes; warns with a link to Settings if the key or channel ID is missing.
• Auto-Import — WP-Cron runs hourly. When the current weekday and hour match slots you configure (up to two distinct hours per day), a recent-only import runs and a summary is stored for the tab.
• Service Times — Recurring times for live-detection windows and countdown context.
• Settings — YouTube API key, channel ID, comments policy (default: leave WordPress unchanged; optional sermon-only or sitewide), sermon page styling, scripture links to Bible.com, hero label, optional Watch online page URL (hero / live links), speaker options.
• Bulk & titles — Merge duplicate taxonomy terms; optional delimiter-based YouTube title → fields mapping for imports (with live preview).
• API log — Recent failures with HTTP codes, messages, and pretty-printed JSON bodies (API keys redacted in storage).
• Protect Your Church tab — omitted when WhoKnew Shield Pro is active with a valid or grace-period license (no upsell noise for existing customers).

Front End: Template & Shortcodes

• Page template: In the block or classic editor, choose the Sermon Archive template (page-sermons.php supplied by the plugin) for the page that should render the full archive experience.
• Shortcodes: [servantly_latest_sermon] and [servantly_watch] as described above. Styles and scripts live under the plugin’s assets/ directory.

REST API Read-only routes under the namespace servantly-si/v1 (public by design for the archive and watch UI):

• GET /wp-json/servantly-si/v1/sermons — Paginated sermons with query args such as speaker, book, series, year, sort, page.
• GET /wp-json/servantly-si/v1/filters — Filter option payloads for the UI.
• GET /wp-json/servantly-si/v1/live-status — Live/offline payload; optional refresh respects a short server-side cooldown.

Live-status responses use Cache-Control: no-store so caching layers do not serve stale live states. Caching Plugin Compatibility When auto-import runs via WP-Cron and creates new sermon posts, the plugin automatically purges the page cache across all major caching plugins and hosting environments — but only when new posts are actually created (imports that find nothing new never touch the cache). Supported out of the box (no configuration needed):

• SiteGround Speed Optimizer
• WP Rocket
• LiteSpeed Cache
• W3 Total Cache
• WP Super Cache
• WP Fastest Cache
• Autoptimize
• Breeze (Cloudways)
• Hummingbird (WPMU Dev)
• Cachify
• Comet Cache / ZenCache
• Swift Performance Lite & Pro
• Kinsta MU Cache
• Nginx Helper

If you use a caching plugin not listed here, hook into the servantly_si_after_cache_purge action to add your own purge call: add_action( 'servantly_si_after_cache_purge', 'my_custom_cache_purge' ); Comments & Pings Configurable. Under Sermon Importer → Settings → Comments & discussions, choose whether WordPress should leave comments alone (default), disable them only on sermon posts (posts in the Sermons category or with a stored YouTube sermon_video_id), or disable them sitewide (and hide the Comments admin menu / admin bar node — the original single-purpose church behavior). No option deletes existing comment rows; sitewide or sermon-only modes simply prevent new comments/pings where applied. Customizing for Another Church Functionally you need your own YouTube channel ID, API key, and service times. Shortcode names use the original plugin slug for backward compatibility; title parsing is tuned for common church patterns — adjust YouTube titles or extend parsing if your naming differs. Who This Is For Any church or ministry that:

• Publishes sermons to YouTube
• Wants a professional sermon archive on their WordPress site
• Streams live services on YouTube
• Is tired of paying monthly fees for sermon management platforms
• Has a volunteer managing the website who needs something that runs itself

See It Live Built for and running at Calvary Chapel Lake Arrowhead:

• Sermon archive — filterable teaching library by speaker, book, series, and year
• Watch Online page — live stream detection with recent sermon grid
• Homepage sermon hero — powered by the [servantly_latest_sermon] shortcode

Free. Forever. This plugin was built for our own church and given to the broader church and ministry community at no cost. There is no paid Pro version of Sermon Importer, no feature locks, and no upgrade wall for sermon or archive features. The admin may include an optional Protect Your Church tab pointing to WhoKnew Shield (that tab hides automatically when WhoKnew Shield Pro is active with a valid or grace-period license). If it helps your church, that is enough. Development Coding standard configuration: phpcs.xml.dist in the plugin root (next to servantly-sermon-importer.php) in source control — it is omitted from distribution ZIPs built for upload. With PHP_CodeSniffer available in your environment, from a checkout of that directory run phpcs (or phpcs --standard=phpcs.xml.dist). Also Recommended Protect your church website's contact information. Staff email addresses, office phone numbers, and your building's physical address are harvested by spam bots every day — the same bots that enable phishing attacks, robocalls, and junk mail. WhoKnew Shield™ protects all of it automatically, with zero configuration. Free version available. More Free Tools for Nonprofits & Ministries This plugin is part of the Servantly suite — free, open-source WordPress plugins built for nonprofit organizations and ministries. For more information and additional free software, visit servantly.org. Credits WhoKnew.io — whoknew.io

Setup takes about five minutes. After you activate the plugin, open Sermon Importer → Settings. The admin screen walks you through API Key and Channel ID in order, with the same direct links to Google Cloud Console (project, enable YouTube Data API v3, create an API key), Google’s API overview, YouTube Studio, and Google’s official Channel ID help. You should not have to guess which Google screen to use or whether you need OAuth.

1. Upload the servantly-sermon-importer folder (the one that contains servantly-sermon-importer.php alongside readme.txt, includes/, assets/, etc.) to /wp-content/plugins/. If a ZIP wraps that folder in an extra parent directory, use the inner folder that contains the main plugin PHP file.
2. Activate the plugin under Plugins (look for Servantly Sermon Archive in the list).
3. Open Sermon Importer → Settings. Paste your YouTube Data API v3 key and Channel ID using the on-screen explanations and links. Under Comments & discussions, leave the default (do not change comments) unless you want sermon-only or sitewide closure — then Save. Use a plain API key — not an OAuth “Web application” client. Restrict APIs to YouTube Data API v3 only; leave Application restrictions on None until imports and live checks work, then optionally use IP addresses if your host provides a stable outbound IP. Avoid HTTP referrers — WordPress calls YouTube from your server, not from visitors’ browsers, so referrer rules usually break everything.
4. Open Service Times and add the recurring times you stream or meet. Live detection only calls YouTube during windows around these times (see FAQ), which keeps day-to-day quota use low.
5. Open Import. If the key or channel ID is missing, the tab shows a warning with a link back to Settings. Run Import latest for a small first test, or Import full channel when you are ready to backfill history (see FAQ for quota).
6. Create or edit pages: assign the Sermon Archive template where needed. sermons_url on the hero defaults to home_url( '/sermons/' ) unless overridden. Put [servantly_watch] on your Watch page (any slug); the hero finds it automatically, or set Watch online page URL in Settings. Add [servantly_latest_sermon] on your homepage (or any hero page).

Getting a YouTube API Key (same links as in Settings) If you prefer this readme over the admin screen, follow the same path:

1. Google Cloud Console — pick or create a project.
2. Enable YouTube Data API v3.
3. Credentials → Create credentials → API key (not OAuth / not “Web application”).
4. Optional context: YouTube Data API overview.
5. Edit the key → API restrictions → Restrict key → only YouTube Data API v3. Application restrictions → None first; then optionally IP addresses. Avoid HTTP referrers for server-side calls.
6. Paste the key into Sermon Importer → Settings and save.

Finding Your Channel ID (same steps as in Settings) Your channel ID is almost always 24 characters: UC plus 22 more letters and numbers (no spaces). For standard UC… IDs, the plugin derives your hidden uploads playlist ID without an extra channels.list call.

1. YouTube Studio while signed in as the account that owns the church channel.
2. Settings (gear) in the left sidebar → Channel → Advanced settings.
3. Copy Channel ID (full string starting with UC).

Official help: Find your YouTube user & channel IDs (includes youtube.com/account_advanced).

2.1.11

• Fix: Import post dates are now formatted in the site timezone instead of UTC. Version 2.1.10 capped future YouTube publish times to “now” but still wrote UTC clock values into post_date, which WordPress treats as local time — scheduling sermons hours later (e.g. an 11 AM import appearing as 6 PM). Capped dates use current_time(); past YouTube dates use wp_date().

2.1.10

• Fix: YouTube live stream archives with a future publishedAt timestamp no longer create scheduled (future) WordPress posts. The post date is now capped to the current time at import, so sermons publish immediately instead of being held and published hours later via WP-Cron — which was causing SG Optimizer and other caching plugins to rebuild pages in an HTTP context and produce mixed-content warnings site-wide.
• Fix: Added early X-Forwarded-Proto detection in the plugin bootstrap so is_ssl() returns correctly on reverse-proxy hosts (SiteGround, WP Engine, Cloudflare) during WP-Cron and other background requests.

2.1.9

• New: Added screenshots 23–25 showing live stream states for the homepage hero and Watch Online page.

2.1.8

• Fix: Improved copy on the WhoKnew Signal informational tab.

2.1.7

• New: Added an optional informational tab introducing WhoKnew Signal™, a companion plugin for self-hosted web push notifications. The tab is hidden automatically when Signal Pro is installed with an active license.

2.1.6

• Fix: purge_post_cache() was calling sg_cachepress_purge_cache() with no arguments and firing breeze_clear_all_cache on every single sermon save, which flushed the entire site cache (including the homepage) instead of only the saved sermon's page. Both calls now pass the specific post URL so only that page is invalidated.

2.1.5

• Fix: Saving a sermon's speaker/book/series dropdown, meta description, or resource buttons (sermon notes, study guide, transcript) now automatically purges the page cache for that post across all major caching plugins (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Super Cache, SG Optimizer, Breeze, Cache Enabler, WP Engine). Changes are visible immediately without a manual admin cache flush.
• Fix: Saving plugin settings that affect sermon page output (description style, layout, button labels, colour palette, scripture links) now triggers a full site cache flush automatically.

2.1.4

• Fix: Restored background-size: cover and background-position: center to .servantly-card__thumb so server-rendered cards in the Most Recent Sermons strip continue to display thumbnails correctly.

2.1.3

• Fix: Disabled the Load More button while a fetch is in progress so rapid clicks no longer get silently dropped, leaving the pagination stuck.
• Fix: Switched sermon card thumbnails from CSS background-image to <img loading="lazy"> so images off-screen are deferred by the browser instead of all firing simultaneously, which was causing images to fail silently on slower connections or after multiple Load More clicks.

2.1.2

• Compatibility: Tested and confirmed compatible with WordPress 7.0.

2.1.1

• Fix: Added Cache-Control: no-store response headers to the /sermons and /filters REST endpoints to prevent server-side and CDN caches (e.g. SiteGround SuperCacher) from storing empty responses and serving "No sermons found" to visitors.
• Fix: Appended a timestamp parameter to all sermon archive AJAX requests so stale cached URLs are never reused by browsers or proxies.
• Fix: Extended all description style CSS rules to also target .servantly-res-drawer__body so ccla-* and servantly-desc__* formatting applies correctly inside the resource drawer after it is portaled to <body>.
• Fix: Removed an incorrectly inherited border-left green stripe from the resource drawer caused by the base description container styles being applied to the drawer context.

2.1.0

• Feature: New Design tab in the plugin admin with selectable layout templates for all three public surfaces — single sermon page (Classic, Hero, Minimal, Sidebar), homepage hero shortcode (Classic, Split, Cinematic, Minimal), and sermon archive page (Grid, Magazine, List).
• Feature: Extended CSS variable system — every color used by the plugin's public output (typography, surfaces, badges, overlays, borders) is now driven by a CSS custom property. Hardcoded values have been removed throughout.
• Feature: Per-element color customization. The Design tab exposes individual color pickers for all ~23 tokens (accents, backgrounds, surfaces, text, badge, overlay colors). The existing preset palette acts as a quick-start baseline; individual overrides layer on top without affecting any other tokens.
• Feature: All layout choices and color overrides are global settings applied consistently across every sermon page — clean, predictable, and easy to manage.
• Feature: Five sermon description display styles (Classic, Article, Summary, Minimal, Cards) selectable from the Design tab. The Article style ships a full set of semantic HTML helper classes (.servantly-desc__section-label, .servantly-desc__takeaways, .servantly-desc__takeaway, .servantly-desc__check, .servantly-desc__bullets, .servantly-desc__highlight) for structured, high-end sermon notes and summaries.

2.0.5

• Improvement: Imported sermons now receive a clean, structured post excerpt instead of the raw YouTube description. The excerpt is assembled from the parsed sermon title, scripture reference, and speaker name when available. For non-sermon content (e.g. general video channels), the importer falls back to the first clean sentence of the description, then to the video title alone — always producing a meaningful excerpt for Yoast SEO, Open Graph, and meta descriptions rather than boilerplate YouTube text. Re-importing existing unlocked sermons also refreshes their excerpts; locked posts are never modified.
• Feature: The Desc expandable row in Manage Sermons now includes an editable Meta Description field (plain text, 160-character max) that maps directly to the WordPress post excerpt. Saving the description row saves both fields together, giving administrators full control over what appears in Google search results and social sharing previews without leaving the plugin.
• Feature: New Settings option "Meta description source" lets site owners choose between the structured sermon fields (default, recommended) or the raw YouTube description as the excerpt source on import. Individual sermons can always be overridden in the Desc row regardless of this setting.

2.0.4

• Improvement: The homepage sermon hero ([servantly_latest_sermon]) now transitions out of "live" state dynamically — no page reload, no manual cache clearing required. When the stream ends, the hero smoothly restores the latest sermon title, thumbnail, scripture, and speaker using sermon data embedded in the page at render time. The live banner and countdown are always present in the HTML and toggled by JavaScript, eliminating the previous behavior where a full-page cache could keep the hero stuck showing "Streaming Live Now" until the cache was manually cleared.

2.0.3

• Feature: All public-facing text on the archive page is now configurable via Settings — including the "Load More" button, "All Sermons" button, "Sermon Details" button, "Most Recent Sermons" heading, "Teaching Library" heading, sort option label, no-results message, and load error message. Enables use of the plugin for any content type beyond sermons.

2.0.2

• Fix: Resources button arrow no longer overflows outside the button boundary on the Manage Sermons admin table.
• Fix: Resources expandable row now opens correctly when the toggle button is clicked.

2.0.1

• Fix: resolve taxonomy terms by ID before assignment so WordPress never creates duplicate speaker/book/series terms when the object cache is cold after an import purge.
• Fix: add auto-merge duplicate terms utility to Bulk & titles admin tab (Tool 3) — scans all three sermon taxonomies and one-click merges exact-name duplicates into the canonical term.

2.0.0

• Initial public release.