Importing from Series Engine
If your church currently uses Series Engine, Sermon Library can import all your sermons, series, speakers, and topics in one step — preserving your content, media links, and relationships.
Before you import
Back up your site first. The importer does not delete any Series Engine content, but it's always good practice to take a full database backup before any bulk operation. Most hosts provide one-click backups through cPanel or a similar dashboard.
Make sure both plugins are active at the same time — Sermon Library needs to read Series Engine's data directly from the database.
Running the import
Go to Sermon Library → Import in your WordPress admin.
You'll see a summary of what will be imported: number of sermons, series, speakers, and topics found in Series Engine.
Click Start Import.
The importer runs in batches. A progress bar shows how many items have been processed. Do not close the browser tab while it's running.
When complete, you'll see a summary of what was imported and any items that were skipped.
What gets imported
| Series Engine | Sermon Library equivalent |
|---|---|
| Sermons (enmse_sermon) | Sermons (sl_sermon) |
| Series (enmse_series) | Series (sl_series) |
| Preachers (enmse_preacher) | Speakers (sl_speaker) |
| Topics (enmse_topic taxonomy) | Topics (sl_topic taxonomy) |
| Video URL | Video URL |
| Audio URL / MP3 | Audio URL |
| Sermon date | Recorded Date |
| Scripture reference | Scripture |
| Featured image | Featured Image |
After importing
Once the import is complete:
Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes to flush the rewrite rules so your new sermon URLs work.
Browse to Sermon Library → Sermons and spot-check a few sermons to confirm the data came over correctly.
Check the series, speakers, and topics lists as well.
Once you're satisfied, you can deactivate Series Engine if you no longer need it.
Duplicate protection: If you run the importer more than once, it checks for existing sermons by matching the original Series Engine post ID and skips any that have already been imported.
Troubleshooting the import
The import page shows "0 sermons found." Make sure Series Engine is active and that it actually has sermon data. If Series Engine is active but shows 0, check that it's the standard Series Engine plugin (not a heavily customized fork).
The import stops partway through. This is usually a PHP timeout. Try increasing the max_execution_time in your PHP settings, or contact your host. You can safely re-run the importer — it will skip already-imported items and pick up where it left off.
Images didn't import. Featured images are imported by reference — the importer copies the attachment association, but the image files themselves must already exist in your media library (which they will if you haven't deleted them). If images are missing, re-upload them through Media → Add New and then re-assign them to the sermon.