Sermon Shots – A Video Tool Review

By Pamela Rose Williams

Since 2011 Telling Ministries has been reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the use of technology. Since their flagship site, What Christians Want To Know, they have been faithfully developing sites and tools on the internet reaching millions of people in hundreds of countries throughout the world with that Good News. Recently, I was offered an opportunity to review their newest tool, Sermon Shots, which helps churches create professional looking, short-format video content from their original sermons and messages. Learn more about Sermon Shots here: About Us – Sermon Shots. Following is my review of Sermon Shots.

Software Overview

As a “techie” myself, I am always excited to see clever technology tools that make life easier. And as a partner in delivering the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have recorded and posted many audio and video recordings on the internet for our Selah Mountain Ministries outreach. Editing and enhancing videos is always the thing that consumes much time on a Sunday in order to get it uploaded for viewing as soon as Monday.

As advertised, Sermon Shots really “comes to the rescue” to help anyone, no matter how skilled or unskilled you are at creating short-format video content. How do they rescue you? They make it easy to upload your YouTube video from the URL or video from your computer. Then you can easily find “clippable moments” for your new, stream-lined, short message because sometimes just a little message is all you need.

I was amazed at how seamless the whole process was. Let’s face it, one of the most time-consuming things about video editing is uploading and “rendering” or compiling the video useful for whatever software you are using for your edit work. That is hard to get around, but you can hardly notice that time transcribing and rendering because this tool is so nifty that your attention is drawn to how easy it was to clip that huge video and have it make sense as a short-format video.

Once you pull your video into Sermon Shots, there are so, so many templates from which to choose as you are selecting your design. Sermon Shots has been careful to give you vertical options that work with Facebook Reels and Tiktok, nice squares for Facebook and Instagram posts and even horizontals for YouTube videos that might be a little longer.

Okay, so now you have your video up there and you have that sweet new design for your “shot”. Get ready because this next step is the cleverest and most terrific part of Sermon Shots! When you look on the left of the screen you will see the whole sermon transcribed into searchable words. These are actually a closed caption kind of rendering that comes directly from what the speaker has said in the video message. Keep in mind that if the presenter speaks fast or sometimes speaks unclear words, your transcribed words on screen may need a little editorial help. From here you can search for any keyword and quickly navigate through the entire video to find your clips. Since your goal is to make short clips for social media, Sermon Shots even reminds you with frequent “Tips” on their “Easiest Way to Create Sermon Clips for Social Media” page of things like time limits on certain platforms. And once you have selected all your clips (just by selecting keywords and phrases) you can preview and make edits as needed. And what is so cool here is that if you decide you really don’t like that template it is so easy to go backward and select another and then preview again until you get it just how you like it.

Finally, download and share your new Sermon Shots video on social media. All this in 6 easy steps, really!

Take a look as Corey Alderin, CEO at Sermon Shots offers this quick tutorial:

A Few of My Favorite Things

In any review, I always find some things that just outshine everything else. Some of my favs for Sermon Shots include:

• The seamless 6 step process from taking your large YouTube video or your video file on your computer and getting it into a nicely packaged “Sermon Shot” for social media
• The templates – there are hundreds of them! Great thought has gone into creating templates that make your videos pop. You can choose a favorite or many favorites and change it up each time
• The flexibility to change your mind throughout the whole 6 step process from what frames to use, how many to use and what template fits best and more
• The tips and helps throughout the process which are worded well and helpful for all levels of user
• The utter sense of accomplishment when you have swiftly pared down your large video to a quick message that emphasizes what Sermon Shots calls those “Amen Moments”
• Great resources and information available in the “Popular Articles” section at the bottom menu on all pages on the Sermon Shots site.
• The emails from the customer relations team will also be a welcome help as you learn your way around this tool. We have received 7 already in just a couple weeks. If you decide you don’t want these helpful little notes you can unsubscribe at any time.

My Wish List

In my review I had few things that I added to my wish list for this software. Keep in mind though, the folks at Sermon Shots are practicing continuous improvement and may have already thought of this! Here are a couple things to consider:

(1) I wish there was an ability to drag and drop a video from your computer into the “Upload a Video” window. The only way I found to upload the video was by clicking on the “Click to choose a video” icon and then navigating to the location of your file and selecting it there.

(2) I wish the “Tags” on the “Choose a Template” screen was more clear (perhaps a little info box like there is for the templates). What I mean here is, use of the term “Tags” is not something I would have thought to mean what type of template that you think fits your shot best – close up, wide, narrow, etc. Perhaps a different term or description would be better here.

A Little Sample from Selah Mountain Ministries

Here is a short-format video from one of our “How to Study the Bible” online courses that I extracted from a 30 minute video using Sermon Shots:

Overall Recommendation

Sermon Shots is a clever video clipping online software program that can be used by anyone. It is easy and inexpensive to use. At Sermon Shots they are meeting their mission to “help Churches share content that reaches more people … inside and outside of [the] church”.

Here at Christianity Every Day we recommend you try it and you can even create 2 clips for free! We believe you will come to the same conclusion we have; it is a great product and worth every penny. And if you are not into creating those shots yourself, purchase the full-service product and they will do it 100% for you!

Get More Information

To learn more about Sermon Shots, visit them on the web at Sermon Shots – Create Sermon Clips In Minutes, and everywhere on social media:

Sermon Shots | Facebook

Sermon Shots (@sermonshots) • Instagram photos and videos

Sermon Shots (@sermonshots) | TikTok

Sermon Shots – YouTube

 #SermonShots #TellingMinistries #SoftwareReview

Disclosure: Many thanks to Sermon Shots for providing an opportunity to review their product as well as a link to the PLUS level access of Sermon Shots for review.  Opinions are 100% our own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. Read our full DISCLOSURE POLICY.