Publishing an episode
The most-used surface of the podcast module is the episode editor — where you upload a sermon, fill in the metadata, and either publish it now or schedule it for Sunday morning. Once you hit Publish, your RSS feed updates and every directory that subscribes pulls the new episode within minutes to hours.
Open Podcast → Episodes → New episode.
The fields
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Yes | Episode title — usually the sermon title |
| Speaker | Recommended | Defaults to your primary pastor; pickable from member directory |
| Series | Optional | Auto-completes from prior episodes; new entries create a new series |
| Scripture reference | Optional | Free-text — e.g. "Romans 8:1–11" |
| Episode number / season | Optional | Useful if you publish in seasonal sermon series |
| Audio file | Yes | MP3 (recommended), WAV, M4A, or AAC |
| Cover art | Optional | Defaults to your show-level art if you don't upload per-episode |
| Show notes | Recommended | TipTap rich-text editor; renders to HTML in the feed |
| Explicit | Inherits | Defaults to your show's explicit flag; override per episode |
| Status | Yes | Draft or Published |
Uploading audio
GCM accepts MP3, WAV, M4A, and AAC. We recommend MP3 at 128 kbps mono for sermon audio — it sounds clean, downloads fast, and costs less in bandwidth. Stereo is wasted on a single-mic voice recording.
The upload progresses in the background while you fill in the rest of the form. You can save the episode as a draft before the audio is done uploading — GCM will keep the draft and you can revisit when you're ready.
Long sermons are fine
There is no length cap. We've seen 90-minute Bible studies publish without issue. The longer the file, the longer the upload takes — but RSS, Apple, and Spotify all accept it.
Show notes
The show-notes editor is TipTap, the same rich-text engine used elsewhere in GCM. You can drop in:
- Headings, bold, italic, bullet lists.
- Internal links (to a webpage on your church site, e.g. a related blog post).
- External links (to a worship song on Spotify, a referenced article).
- Images (a sermon outline graphic, a verse card).
In the RSS feed, the show notes go into both <description> (plain-text excerpt) and <content:encoded> (full HTML). Apple Podcasts uses <description>; Spotify and most modern apps render <content:encoded>.
Draft vs publish
A draft episode is invisible to listeners — it doesn't appear in your RSS feed, on your website, or on any directory. Use draft for in-progress edits, especially when waiting on a sermon audio file.
A published episode goes live in the feed at its publish timestamp. Directories poll every 15–60 minutes; Apple usually pushes a notification to subscribers within an hour.
Scheduling
Set the publish timestamp to a future date and time to schedule. The episode stays in draft until that moment, then auto-publishes. Most churches schedule Sunday-morning sermons for Monday at 8 AM church-local time, so the audio is ready for the commute.
Scheduled episodes need final audio
A scheduled publish only fires if the audio file is fully uploaded. If you scheduled an episode last week and the upload was incomplete, the scheduled publish silently waits — it won't ship a half-uploaded file. The Episodes list shows a yellow badge for scheduled-but-not-ready rows.
Editing a published episode
You can edit metadata (title, show notes, scripture) on a published episode at any time. The next poll from each directory picks up the changes. You cannot replace the audio file on a published episode without unpublishing first — that's a directory cache hygiene rule, not a GCM limit. To replace audio, set the episode back to draft, swap the file, and re-publish.
Where it shows up
- RSS feed (
/api/podcast/feed.xml?org=<slug>) — picked up by every podcast directory. - Your public site — the Podcast block on your website builder pulls the latest episodes.
- Email + WhatsApp blast (if you set up the workflow) — see Workflows → Triggers.
Next steps
- RSS and directories — getting your feed listed on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music.
- Branding — show-level art, category, language.
- Set up your podcast — the initial configuration if you haven't yet.
- Website builder — embedding episodes on your public site.