Description
Byte Sermons gives churches everything they need to publish and organize sermon content on their WordPress website — without locking you into a specific theme or page builder.
Key Features
- Sermon custom post type — A dedicated post type built for sermons, with support for title, content, excerpt, and featured image.
- Video embed support — Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, or Rumble URL and the video is automatically embedded in a responsive 16:9 player.
- Series management — Group sermons into series with a title, image, and description. Each series gets its own archive page with a hero banner and sermon grid.
- Speaker / preacher profiles — Assign sermons to one or more preachers. Each preacher gets a profile page with photo, bio, and their full sermon listing.
- Topic categorization — Tag sermons with topics (Faith, Prayer, Grace, etc.) so visitors can browse by theme.
- Scripture references — Link sermons to specific Bible books and chapters. All 66 books of the Bible are pre-loaded, organized by chapter.
- Live-filter sermon library — The sermon archive page includes an instant filter bar — search by keyword, series, preacher, or topic without a page reload.
- Beautiful archive pages — Every taxonomy (series, speakers, topics, scripture) has a purpose-built archive template that fits seamlessly into your theme.
- Theme-agnostic layout — Works with any WordPress theme. Plugin pages inherit the active theme’s header, footer, typography, and colors.
- Layout settings — Control left/right padding on desktop, tablet, and mobile independently from the Sermons Settings page.
- Custom permalink slugs — Customize the URL structure for every content type from Settings Permalinks.
Who Is This For?
Byte Sermons is designed for churches of any size that want a clean, focused way to share sermon content online — without the complexity of a full church management system.
Template Override Support
Any template can be overridden by placing a same-named file inside your theme’s folder. This gives designers and developers full control over the presentation of every sermon page.
Installation
- Upload the
byte-sermonsfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory, or install via the WordPress plugin screen. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
- Go to Settings Permalinks and click Save Changes to register the custom URL structure.
- Navigate to Sermons Add New to publish your first sermon.
- Optionally visit Sermons Settings to configure page padding for desktop and tablet/mobile screens.
FAQ
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Does this work with block themes and classic themes?
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Yes. Byte Sermons detects whether you are using a block theme or a classic theme and adjusts its rendering accordingly. Plugin pages use the active theme’s header and footer in both cases.
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Can I embed videos from platforms other than YouTube, Vimeo, and Rumble?
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Currently, automatic embed URL detection supports YouTube, Vimeo, and Rumble. You can paste any oEmbed-compatible URL and it will render if WordPress supports it natively.
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Will my sermon data be deleted if I deactivate the plugin?
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No. Deactivating the plugin preserves all your sermon posts, taxonomies, and settings. Data is only removed if you delete the plugin and confirm the cleanup prompt.
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Can I customize the sermon archive URL?
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Yes. Go to Settings Permalinks, scroll to the Sermon Permalinks section, and set a custom URL base for sermons, series, preachers, topics, and scripture references.
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Can I override plugin templates with my theme?
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Yes. Copy any template file from the plugin’s
templates/directory into your theme folder (preserving the filename) and WordPress will use your version instead.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Byte Sermons” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Byte Sermons” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.2.1
- Fixed: Sermon posts not displaying in wp-admin — Resolved post type mismatch between database and plugin code (bytesm_sermon bytese_sermon).
- Fixed: Taxonomy naming inconsistency — Updated all taxonomies to use consistent bytese_* prefixes across database and code.
- Fixed: Scripture meta box not loading — Corrected plugins_url() path for bible-books-admin.js JavaScript file.
- Fixed: Template file alignment — Renamed template files to match corrected taxonomy names.
- Fixed: WordPress security warning — Improved input sanitization in permalink-settings.php.
- Updated 30 PHP files to use correct taxonomy names throughout codebase.
- Verified all 77 sermon posts and 1,189 taxonomy terms preserved during migration.
1.2.0
- Split tablet and mobile padding into separate settings — desktop (≥1025px), tablet (768px–1024px), and mobile (≤767px) can now each be toggled independently.
- Applied Scripture section on the sermon edit screen now renders selected references as removable pills. Clicking × on a pill deselects the reference without needing to scroll the checkbox list.
- Checking or unchecking a scripture checkbox now instantly adds or removes the corresponding pill in the Applied section.
- Added Sermons Settings page with Layout section for desktop and tablet/mobile padding control.
- Improved theme compatibility: plugin pages now inherit the active theme’s horizontal spacing.
- Removed dependency on WordPress block layout classes (alignwide, is-layout-constrained) for greater theme compatibility.
- Fixed 0px default padding — no padding is added unless explicitly enabled in Settings.
1.0.0
- Initial release.
- Sermon custom post type with video embed support (YouTube, Vimeo, Rumble).
- Series, speaker, topic, and scripture taxonomies.
- Live-filter sermon archive with instant keyword, series, preacher, and topic filtering.
- Beautiful archive pages for all taxonomies.
- All 66 Bible books pre-loaded with chapter-level terms.
- Custom permalink slug settings on the Permalinks screen.
- Theme-agnostic layout — works with block themes and classic themes.