Turn a YouTube sermon into clips by pasting the link.
If Sunday’s sermon is already on YouTube, that link is all we need. Paste it and 20 to 50 minutes later you get 3 to 7 captioned vertical clips cut from the strongest moments, plus 7 social graphics and 4 written pieces from the same message. Nothing to download, no editor to open.
Everything we make is yours to post, send, and keep.
How to convert a YouTube sermon to clips
Copy the URL of the sermon video. Paste it into Extend the Sermon. That is the whole input step.
From there we pull the audio, transcribe it word for word with timestamps, and read the transcript looking for thoughts that stand on their own. Each one becomes a vertical clip: trimmed to start on the hook rather than the windup, reframed so your pastor stays centered instead of lost in a wide platform shot, and captioned to match the speech.
You review what comes back and post what you like. Nothing goes out without you.
Livestream rips and long recordings work
Church YouTube videos are rarely just the sermon. Most are the full service: worship, announcements, the message, the closing. That is fine. We work from the transcript, so the sermon gets found inside the longer recording.
If you would rather upload a file, that works too. MP3, MP4, WAV, and M4A are all accepted, up to 2 GB, which covers a long Sunday recording. Phone audio from a quiet room, lapel and pulpit mics, and Zoom or Streamyard exports all transcribe well.
What the video quality changes
Audio decides the writing. Video decides the clips. Transcription lands at 95% or better on clear sermon audio, and every written piece comes off that transcript, so a rough camera does not hurt the blog post or the email.
Clip count is where the camera shows up. A recording that holds a reasonably tight shot of the pastor yields more usable vertical crops, which is why the range is 3 to 7 rather than a fixed number. A single locked wide shot of the whole stage yields fewer, because cropping to vertical from a wide frame leaves the speaker small.
Posting the same clip to YouTube Shorts, Reels, and TikTok
Every clip comes back vertical and captioned, so the same file works on YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and Facebook Reels without a re-export. You upload once per platform, but you are not re-cutting anything.
Write a title that states the point of the clip, not the sermon series name. A title that names the idea gets watched. Sermon clip, week 4 does not. Keep descriptions short: one line on the point, one line linking to the full sermon.
Do not upload the full sermon as a Short just because it is fast. Shorts and Reels reward a single idea delivered in under a minute. A 3 to 7 clip batch from one sermon gives you a week of posts built around single ideas, which outperforms one long clip relabeled as short-form.
Clipping the sermons already sitting in your channel
Most churches have years of sermons on YouTube that never got clipped. That back catalog is still usable. An older recording processes the same way as last Sunday's, in the same 20 to 50 minutes, at the same 95% or better transcription accuracy on clear audio.
Start with three filters. Evergreen topics (grief, marriage, anxiety, identity) age better than dated references. Series your congregation still brings up in conversation are worth a second life. And whatever already has the highest view count on your channel has proven demand, so extending it costs you nothing to test.
Paste the YouTube link the same way you would for this week's sermon. Public and unlisted videos both work. Within the hour you get 3 to 7 new vertical clips, 7 social graphics, and 4 written pieces out of a message that already did the work of holding attention once.
Unlisted, private, and members-only videos
Public and unlisted videos work. Private videos and members-only content do not, because we cannot reach them. If a link fails, you will get told which of those it was rather than a generic error, and you can upload the file instead.
Everything we make is yours to post, send, and keep.
Keep reading
Sermon clip maker
The full picture: how clips get picked and what else comes back.
How long sermon clips take by hand
The 6-hour math, step by step, if you do this yourself.
Try it free
First sermon free, no card. Paste a link and see.
How Extend the Sermon works
Three steps, and the full 14-to-18-piece breakdown.
Send us one sermon. See the whole week.
Paste a YouTube link or upload the file. In 20 to 50 minutes you get 14 to 18 finished pieces from that one sermon. The first one is free, no card.
Get your free sermon →