The Challenge
Graham Chapel Wesleyan Church needed their weekly sermon podcast to include transcripts and chapter markers — features their listeners had been requesting so they could follow along, take notes, and quickly navigate back to key sermon points. But the manual work required to produce these took hours per episode, which meant they simply weren’t getting done.
The Solution
I designed and built an end-to-end n8n automation workflow that handles the entire post-production pipeline — triggered automatically when a new episode is published to the RSS feed:
- AI-Generated Transcripts — Each sermon audio is transcribed using Whisper, producing accurate text that listeners can follow along with
- Smart Chapter Detection — AI analyzes the transcript to identify natural sermon segments and generates Podcasting 2.0-compliant chapter markers in JSON format
- Sermon Summaries — AI distills the full sermon into a concise summary highlighting the main points
- Scripture Identification — Automatically extracts and lists all scripture references mentioned during the sermon
- Automated Publishing — Transcripts and chapter files are uploaded and the WordPress post is updated, completing the process without manual intervention
The Workflow
The n8n workflow orchestrates every step in sequence: RSS feed trigger → MP3 download → Whisper transcription → VTT conversion → Ollama-powered chapter generation → JSON formatting → file uploads → WordPress post update. Each step runs automatically once the sermon recording is available.
The Impact
What previously took hours of manual work — or wasn’t being done at all — now completes within minutes after each Sunday sermon. Listeners get the transcripts and chapter navigation they requested, the podcast feed meets Podcasting 2.0 standards, and the pastor’s message reaches the audience faster than ever.