Terms for churches

What your church agrees to when it shares its sermons on Share the Sermon. Version 2026-10-10.

Share the Sermon is a free home for sermons: anyone can listen, watch and download them, with no account, no ads and no tracking. "Freely you have received; freely give" (Matthew 10:8). To publish here, your church agrees to the following.

2.1 What we believe

We affirm:

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who became man. He lived without sin, died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. Salvation is God's free gift: everyone who repents and trusts in Jesus is saved by grace through faith, not by works, and receives eternal life. He is Lord, and He is coming again.

John 1:1, 14 · 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 · Mark 1:15 · Ephesians 2:8–9 · John 3:16 · Romans 10:9 · Acts 1:11

Churches differ on many other things, and that's fine. Share the Sermon hosts sermons from many churches and preachers who share this faith; hosting a sermon does not mean Share the Sermon endorses every view expressed in it. Listeners are encouraged, like the Bereans, to test everything against Scripture (Acts 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21).

2.2 Freely given, freely shared: the licence

1. Everything your church publishes on Share the Sermon is licensed to everyone under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Anyone may copy and share it, in any medium, as long as they credit your church, don't use it for money and don't alter it.

2. Translations and transcripts. In addition to that licence, your church allows anyone to make and share translations and transcripts of its sermons, as long as they are:

   • faithful: they convey the message without adding, leaving out or changing it;
   • clearly marked as a translation or transcript, naming the original sermon, your church and the translator;
   • never for money;
   • shared under these same terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 plus this permission).

3. The licence can't be taken back. You can remove any sermon, or all of them, from Share the Sermon at any time; it is gone from the website, the apps and the feeds within a day. But copies people already have may still be shared under the licence. Please publish only what you are happy to give away for good. (At sign-up this sentence has its own tick box.)

2.3 Only what you may share

What we believe about this. We believe the Word of God belongs to God. It was freely given, and no one should own it or sell it (Matthew 10:8). The same is true of songs written for His glory. The law, though, lets publishers own their translations and songs, and Scripture tells us to submit to the authorities God has placed over us (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13). So we keep the rules below because they are the law, not because we think God's Word should be owned.

1. The preacher agrees. In Sweden and many other countries a sermon belongs to the preacher, not the church, even when the preacher is the church's own pastor. So publish only sermons whose preachers agree to this licence, your own pastors as well as guests. You confirm this when you upload, and if a preacher objects later, we remove the sermon.
2. Sermons, not songs. Leave out worship songs, other music, film clips and anything else your church doesn't own, unless its owner allows sharing like this. A church's CCLI or similar licence does not cover it.
3. Bible readings. Bible passages read within a sermon are fine. A recorded reading of a whole Bible book needs the translation's permission, unless the translation is free for everyone, such as the King James Version (except in the United Kingdom), the World English Bible or the Berean Standard Bible.
4. If someone tells us a recording contains something they own, we may take it down while it is sorted out, and we will tell you why.

2.4 What you allow Share the Sermon to do

To share your sermons as described above, your church allows Share the Sermon to:

• host, stream and offer them for download on sharethesermon.com, in the Share the Sermon apps, in podcast feeds and in players embedded on other websites;
• make technical copies, such as other file sizes, video in one or two sizes, and an audio-only version of each video, without editing what is said;
• show your church's name and logo and the speakers' names with the sermons.

Share the Sermon never sells sermons, never shows ads and never charges listeners.

2.5 Care and honesty

1. Titles, speakers, dates and descriptions are accurate.
2. No advertising, product sales or political campaigning in titles and descriptions.
3. No content that is illegal.
4. Speak about people with respect, including those you disagree with.
5. Film the preacher, not the congregation. Being seen at church reveals a person's faith, which the law protects especially. Keep the people listening out of the picture.
6. Prayer needs are part of church life, and mentioning them is fine. But a recording here is public and can't be taken back, so don't name someone together with private matters such as illness, family troubles or sin, in a way that lets listeners know exactly who it is, unless that person has agreed. The announcements and prayer time at the start or end of a service can simply be left out of the upload.

2.6 Review, reports and removal

1. Applications are approved by hand. A new church's first uploads are reviewed before they appear.
2. Anyone can report a sermon, with the report button on every sermon or by email to support@johntibell.com. We confirm that the report arrived, look at every report, and tell the person who reported it what we decided.
3. We may remove a sermon, or suspend a church, that breaks these terms or no longer holds to 2.1. We will tell you what was removed and why, and you can reply.
4. support@johntibell.com is also the contact for authorities. Anything that suggests a threat to someone's life or safety goes to the police.

2.7 Your contact person and your data

Your church names a contact person and keeps the details up to date. We use them only to run your church's account and to contact you about it. They are stored on our server in Stockholm, Sweden, run by Akamai (Linode), and your uploads in Akamai's storage in Stockholm. We keep them while your church has an account; invoices are kept for 7 years, as Swedish bookkeeping law requires. You can see, correct or delete your details at any time, and you can complain to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY). See the privacy policy. Listeners are never asked for any data.

2.8 Free, and what costs money

Publishing on Share the Sermon is free for every approved church: your church page, the podcast feed, the embeddable player, the QR code and link, and the home-screen app. Your own website or store app is an optional paid service, priced for the work of building and keeping it up to date (see the price list). The sermons themselves are never sold.

The line under every sermon

(website, apps, podcast feed)

© [year] [Church name]. Free to share under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: copy and share it with credit, never for money and never altered. Faithful translations and transcripts are also allowed, marked as such, under the same terms.

Short form where space is tight (player, podcast episode notes):

Free to share · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · translations welcome

Questions about these terms: support@johntibell.com.