What works without AI?

Manual sermons, media players, church details, layouts, local Ask Grace help, and Core's YouTube importer do not need a Gemini or OpenAI key. The importer has its own YouTube key requirement. AI is optional.

Choose a provider

  1. Install and activate Sermon AI Tools. Open its settings and choose Gemini or OpenAI.
  2. Save your own provider key on the server. Use a provider account with the access and billing your intended tools need. Never put keys in page content or browser-side scripts.
  3. Check the selected provider before using AI text tools. Series-cover generation can use an eligible saved provider as described below.
  4. Review all generated facts, titles, Scripture references, and images before saving or publishing.

Sermon AI Tools (Optional Plugin)

Enhance your sermon workflow with AI-powered tools. The optional Sermon AI Tools plugin can automatically generate sermon thumbnails, metadata, SEO descriptions, and social media content from your sermon transcripts.

After installing the plugin, access its settings under Sermon AI Tools in your dashboard to input your API key and configure preferences.

Series covers: On a series edit page, choose a title and visual style, then click Generate cover. Either a saved Gemini or OpenAI key enables this action; without either key, a setup link appears instead. The preferred configured provider is tried first. After a clear rejection, the other saved provider may receive the same series description and sermon titles/summaries and generate one cover. Provider charges may apply. Timeouts, uncertain completion and safety blocks do not trigger fallback. The result identifies the provider used. Review the selected image and click Update to save it. A saved key does not verify image-model access or billing.

Color Extractor

When you upload a featured image (e.g., for a Sermon Series), the theme automatically extracts the dominant colors from the image to use as a dynamic overlay or background, keeping your site looking fresh and cohesive.

WebP uploads: With Grace Church Core 1.6.18 or later, new JPEG and still PNG uploads automatically use WebP if your host supports it and the result is smaller. Turn this on or off under Settings > Media > WebP images. Conversion runs locally without an API key. Transparency and image orientation are preserved; the original upload is retained with the attachment and can be opened from its WebP details. Keeping an original uses disk space even though visitors receive the smaller image. Permanently deleting that attachment also deletes its retained original.

For an image already in the Media Library, open its attachment details and choose Create WebP copy, then Select WebP copy in the media picker and save your page or image selection as usual. The saved title, alt text and caption are copied; current pages and featured-image selections are unchanged. Repeating the action reuses the existing copy. Animated PNGs, GIFs, WebP/AVIF images, images above 40 megapixels or 32 MB, unavailable local files and failed conversions keep their current format. Importer/AI sideloads keep their own format and can use the same explicit copy action. If another plugin already optimizes uploads, you can disable Grace's automatic conversion here.

Costs and fallbacks

Your theme purchase does not include API credits. Provider fees and limits apply to successful requests and some attempted requests according to that provider's terms. Explicit retry/repair requests can create another charge. A series-cover fallback sends the same series context to the other configured provider only after a clear rejection; ambiguous timeouts and safety blocks do not trigger it.

If the key is saved but generation fails, use the API troubleshooting steps. Do not keep retrying a request with uncertain completion.