Security

How does The Sermon Link protect your website?

Risks

The main threat to your sermon database is unauthorized publishing; your congregation trusts your website because they trust you, and only authorized content should show up there. The Sermon Link has been designed to prevent unauthorized updates to your sermon database.

Security Strategy

Each account is associated with one domain name (your website). Sermons uploaded to your account can only be streamed from your website. When other users upload sermons, they do not show up on your website.

If you would like more details about the security mechanisms in place to enforce these rules, please contact us.

Account Setup

Anyone can create an account with The Sermon Link, but before uploading a sermon for a website they must first demonstrate that they are an authorized administrator of that website. There are two ways to do this:

  1. Sign up for The Sermon Link with an email address that matches your website (e.g. you@example.com and example.com).
  2. Sign up for The Sermon Link with an unrelated email address (e.g. you@gmail.com), then send us an email with one of the following verification messages. Within 48 hours you will get an email indicating that you are authorized to upload sermons.

Verification options

Suppose you have registered for The Sermon Link with the address you@gmail.com and you want to upload sermons for example.com. Send an email to alex@thesermonlink.com with proof of the following verification methods.

If someone in your organization has an @example.com email address (like someone@example.com), you can ask them to send us the following email:
From: someone@example.com
To:
alex@thesermonlink.com
Subject:
Account Setup for you@gmail.com
Body:
I authorize you@gmail.com to upload sermons to The Sermon Link for example.com.
If the contact page for example.com lists you@gmail.com in the "Contact Us" section (or equivalent), you can send us the following email. Please include the link to your contact page to help us validate your email.
From: you@gmail.com
To:
alex@thesermonlink.com
Subject:
Account Setup for you@gmail.com
Body:
Please see https://example.com/contact-us.html which indicates that you@gmail.com is an official email for example.com.
Please paste the website address of the contact page for example.com
If example.com has a contact form, you can send the following email. Someone on our team will send you a message through your contact form with further instructions.
From: you@gmail.com
To:
alex@thesermonlink.com
Subject:
Account Setup for you@gmail.com
Body:
Please use our contact form at https://example.com/contact-us.html to verify that you@gmail.com is authorized to upload sermons to The Sermon Link for example.com.
Please paste the website address of the contact page for example.com
If none of these options work for you, please contact us to tell us more — we should be able to find a validation method that works in your situation.

Verification Delay

To protect against fraudulent verification attempts, each account verification request is manually reviewed. You will be notified by email when your verification request has been processed. We usually process them within 12 hours, but may take up to 72 hours.

Continue your Account Setup
Once you receive your account verification confirmation email, you can complete your account setup and upload your first sermon.