Guide Organise Your Messages

Organise Your Messages

Description

Once you have more than a handful of sermons, people need ways to find the one they want. Proclaim gives you four, and they do different jobs.

The four ways, and when to use each

Tool	Use it for	Example
Series	A run of messages that belong together in order	The Sermon on the Mount, parts 1–8
Topics	Subjects that cut across series	Prayer, Grace, Marriage
Message Types	The kind of event a message came from	Sunday morning, Midweek, Guest speaker
Scripture	The passage taught	John 3:16–18

Tip

A message belongs to one series and one message type, but can carry many topics and many scripture references. That difference is usually what decides which one you want.

Set up series

1. Components → Proclaim → Series → New.
2. Enter the series title and a description.
3. Add an image if you want one on series listings.
4. Save & Close.
5. On each message, set Series, and optionally Message Number to fix the order within it.

Leave Message Number blank and Proclaim assigns the next one.

Full detail: Help-serie

Set up topics

1. Components → Proclaim → Topics → New, then enter the topic name.
2. On a message, add topics in the Topics field.

Topics work best when you keep the list short and reuse them. Forty topics used once each help nobody.

Tip

If an AI provider is configured in Proclaim's Options, the message form can suggest topics for you based on the message text.

Full detail: Help-topic

Set up message types

1. Components → Proclaim → Message Types → New.
2. Name it after the kind of event — Sunday Morning, Bible Study, Wedding.
3. Set it on each message.

Most sites need three or four of these and then never touch them again.

Full detail: Help-messagetype

Add scripture references

On the message form, the Scriptures field is a repeatable list. Each row is one reference.

1. Select + to add a row.
2. Type a book name — suggestions appear as you type.
3. Enter the reference, such as John 3:16-18.
4. Choose a Bible Version if you want the passage text shown.

Up to twenty references can be added to one message.

Note

Only Bible versions with an active provider appear in the dropdown. If the list is short, that is why.

Quick Tips

• Decide your naming conventions before you have three hundred messages. Renaming later is possible but tedious.
• Visitors can filter by all four on the messages list, and the landing page can show each as its own section.
• A message does not have to have any of these. They are for finding things, not requirements.

If Something Goes Wrong

What you see	What to check
A series shows no messages	The messages are not assigned to it, or they are unpublished
Series order looks wrong	Set Message Number on each message
A scripture book will not autocomplete	Check the scripture library is installed — see Help-admin
Topics do not appear on the site	The template may not be showing the topics element — see Guide-Control-How-Proclaim-Looks

Related Information

• Help-serie · Help-series — series
• Help-topic · Help-topics — topics
• Help-messagetype · Help-messagetypes — message types
• Help-message — the message form, including scripture