Privacy

Last updated October 13, 2026

VisualPodcasts makes Good News Clips (short illustrated vertical videos from a church’s own recorded voice; formerly called YouthCasts) and, by inquiry, illustrated sermon films and Sunday Slides. This page explains what we collect, why, who helps us handle it, and how to have it deleted. Questions go to chuck@visualpodcasts.com.

What we collect

• Your account: your email address. If you sign in with Google, Google also shares your name and profile picture with us.
• Your church: its name and website, your role, the preacher’s name, and your choices about how sermons may be illustrated (for example, whether to show Jesus).
• Your messages and sermons: the recordings, scripts and manuscripts you send, along with the clips, films and slides we make from them.
• Your approvals and sharing choices: the version you approved, your permission for our public sample wall, and when and by whom those choices were made.
• Basic technical information: a sign-in cookie that keeps you signed in, and the ordinary server logs our hosting keeps (such as IP addresses and pages requested). When you play a video, our video service records playback details such as browser and device type so the video streams well.

We don’t use advertising or tracking cookies.

How we use it

• To make your clips, films and slides, and deliver them to you.
• To write to you about your requests, and to check each church’s free first clip.
• To keep the service working and secure.

We never sell your information or use it for advertising, and nothing from your church is published or shared without your approval.

Your gallery and our public sample wall

Your church portal keeps your requests, reviews and downloadable finished videos together. Source recordings, contact details, illustration preferences and unfinished versions stay private. The request form starts with permission to show an approved finished clip on our public sample wall checked; you can uncheck it before submitting or change it later in your portal. We publish only a version your church has approved and we have reviewed for public display. The speaker is credited; displaying your church’s name is a separate choice.

Each church’s first clip is free; in return, once your church approves it, it may be displayed on our Featured clips page. The request form explains this before you submit.

Withdrawing permission removes the clip from our wall immediately, and we remove our public storage copy. Cached copies can take additional time to disappear. Your private gallery and downloads remain available. We cannot remove copies others have already downloaded or shared.

Paintings made with AI

To plan the pictures and paint new ones, we send the text of your sermon to Google’s Gemini service. We use Gemini’s paid service: under its terms, Google does not use what we send to improve its products, though it may keep requests for a limited time to detect abuse. Every painting is reviewed, and edited where needed, by a person before you see it.

The paintings we make join our private painting library, and we may use a painting again for another church’s sermon. Your source recordings and scripts are not shared with other churches. An approved finished clip may be viewed publicly only with your sample-wall permission.

Who helps us

These companies handle information for us, only to provide their part of the service:

• Clerk: sign-in.
• Supabase: our database and file storage (servers in Canada).
• Render: hosting for this website.
• Mux: video storage and playback.
• Resend: the emails we send you.
• Google: Gemini, as above, and Google sign-in if you choose it.

Keeping and deleting

We keep your church’s information and sermons while you use VisualPodcasts. Write to chuck@visualpodcasts.com to see what we hold, correct it, or have it deleted. We’ll delete it from our active systems within 30 days. Copies in provider backups and service records expire under each provider’s retention policy (Google, for example, keeps Gemini requests for a limited time to detect abuse).

Children

VisualPodcasts is for churches and their staff. It isn’t meant for children, and we don’t knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If we change how we handle information, we’ll update this page and its date, and tell signed-up churches about any important change.