Architecture

System Overview

The Thrive ecosystem is built around a simple idea:

Have one central source of truth for sermon and church content, and publish it out to every place people engage.

To make that work, we use a small set of focused components:

• A Global API that stores and serves all sermon and configuration data
• A Mobile App that uses the API to show content to attenders
• A Public Website that also uses the API to stay in sync
• An Admin Tool that staff use to manage content
• An AI Processing Pipeline that enriches sermons with summaries, tags, and podcast feeds
• A Livestream & Production System that captures, switches, and streams services to Facebook and YouTube

Diagram

     Visitors / Search              Attenders                Staff
          |                            |                       |
          | browser                    | iOS / Android         | browser
          v                            v                       v
   +----------------+        +----------------+       +-----------------+
   | Public Website |        |  Mobile App    |       |   Admin Tool    |
   | (thrive-fl.org)|        | (Expo / RN)   |       |   (Angular)     |
   +-------+--------+        +-------+--------+       +--------+--------+
           |                         |                          |
           |          HTTPS          |          HTTPS           |
           +------------+------------+-----------+--------------+
                        |                        |
                        v                        v
              +-------------------+     +------------------+
              |    Global API     |     |     AWS S3       |
              |   (C# / .NET)    |---->|  (sermon audio,  |
              |                   |     |   podcast RSS)   |
              +--------+----------+     +--------+---------+
                       |                         |
                 data  |                         |
                       v                         |
              +-------------------+              |
              |     MongoDB       |              |
              | (sermons, config, |              |
              |  podcasts, blogs) |              |
              +-------------------+              |
                       |                         |
                       |  invokes                |
                       v                         v
              +------------------------------------------+
              |        AI Processing Pipeline            |
              |             (AWS Lambda)                  |
              |                                          |
              |  Transcription ──> Sermon Processor      |
              |       |                  |               |
              |       |           Series Summary         |
              |       |           Processor              |
              |       v                                  |
              |  Podcast RSS Generator                   |
              +-------------------+----------------------+
                                  |
                    +-------------+-------------+
                    |                           |
                    v                           v
           Enriched data back            Podcast RSS feed
           to MongoDB                    published to S3
                    |                           |
                    v                           v
           Mobile App & Website          Podcast Platforms
           (read via Global API)       (Apple, Spotify, etc.)

High‑Level Flow

1. Sermon is recorded
   Audio is edited and prepared by the production team.

2. Staff upload the sermon
   Using the Admin Tool, staff upload audio and fill in basic details (title, date, series, speaker, etc.).
   The Global API securely stores this information and manages links to the audio file.

3. AI enhances the content The AI Processing Pipeline:
   • Generates a TLDR-style summary (130-180 words) with straightforward, educational tone
   • Assigns topical tags from 90+ categories (e.g., hope, marriage, anxiety, finances)
   • Prepares waveform data for audio player visualization
   • Generates podcast descriptions written for non-church audiences
   • Creates series-level summaries when a series is complete
4. Content goes live everywhere
   • The Mobile App and Public Website call the Global API to:
     • List sermon series
     • Show individual messages
     • Display summaries, tags, and artwork
   • Podcast platforms use the generated podcast feed to stay in sync.
5. Attenders engage
   • In the Mobile App, people can:
     • Browse and search sermons
     • Play audio (online or downloaded)
     • View summaries and tags
     • Access “Connect”, “Give”, and other church resources
   • On the Website, people see the same core content, plus marketing and visitor‑focused pages.

Why This Design?

This architecture is intentionally:

• Centralized - One place (the Global API) is responsible for the actual data.
• Flexible - Multiple front‑ends (app, website, admin tool) can evolve independently.
• Future‑friendly - New experiences (a TV app, kiosk, etc.) can plug into the same API without redoing the content pipeline.

Example Weekly Workflow

Here is a typical rhythm for a normal week:

1. Sunday – The service is captured by three cameras through the ATEM switcher, streamed live via OBS, and recorded. ProPresenter handles graphics and NDI overlay. See Livestream & Production for the full signal flow.
2. Early week (Mon–Tue) – Audio is edited and exported by the production team.
3. Mid‑week – A staff member uses the Admin Tool to:
   • Upload the audio file
   • Attach the message to the right series
   • Enter title, date, speaker, and passage
4. Shortly after upload – The AI Processing Pipeline runs automatically to:
   • Transcribe the message using Azure Speech-to-Text
   • Generate a TLDR-style summary and assign tags from 90+ categories
   • Prepare waveform data and generate a podcast description for non-church audiences
5. Same day – The Mobile App and Website automatically show the new message via the Global API; podcast apps receive the updated feed.

From the team’s perspective, the main manual task is one upload in the Admin Tool. Everything else fans out automatically.

Key Technologies (High‑Level)

Without going deep into implementation details, the system uses:

• A C#/.NET API for the Global API layer
• MongoDB for storing sermon and podcast data
• AWS (including S3 and Lambda) for media storage and serverless processing
• A web‑based Admin Tool for staff (Angular)
• A mobile app built with modern cross‑platform tooling (Expo/React Native)
• A public website that consumes the same API as the app
• OBS Studio and ProPresenter 7 for livestream production and graphics
• A Blackmagic ATEM video switcher with three Canon C100 II cameras
• ProPresenter Automations (Python) for automated OBS scene switching
• Thrive Stream Controller (Docker, .NET/React) for one-click stream management
• GitHub Pages for hosting this architecture documentation

The rest of this documentation looks at each part of the system in more detail.

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