Version 1.3.0-beta (aka Beta 1)
Multi-Document Type Support
ThAD now supports 7 document types beyond sermons:
- Sermons — Weekly preaching including homilies, meditations, and liturgical reflections delivered during worship services.
- Articles — Blog posts, newsletter pieces, and website content oriented toward parish communication.
- Pastoral Letters — Formal spiritual communications from the rector including seasonal reflections, advent/lenten letters, and contemplative correspondence to the congregation.
- Classes — Structured, curriculum-based teaching programs with formal learning objectives and deeper theological exploration.
- Bible Studies — Scripture-focused discussion materials designed for group study, typically with study guides, verse-by-verse analysis, and reflection questions.
- Forums — Short topical talks (10–20 minutes) on contemporary issues, designed for post-worship discussion and Q&A.
- Other — Miscellaneous documents that don’t fit the standard categories.
Email-Based Document Upload
Send documents directly to ThAD via email instead of using the ChatGPT upload interface. This bypasses ChatGPT’s file size limits and its tendency to silently truncate long documents without telling you. You get a confirmation email back with the extracted metadata so you can verify what was captured.
Apple Pages File Support
Native Apple Pages (.pages) files are now accepted alongside DOCX, PDF, and TXT.
Dramatically Improved Search
Search is now powered by LLM-enhanced metadata, meaning ThAD understands what your documents are about, not just what’s in the title:
- Semantic search — Queries match against primary focus, topical keywords, semantic themes, biblical narratives, and characters (both biblical and non-biblical).
- Multi-field filtering — Combine filters like theme + date range + liturgical season + Bible passage in a single query.
- Intelligent Bible reference matching — Asking for sermons on “John 3” will find sermons specifically on John 3:16, and searching “2 Corinthians” picks up references to “2 Cor 6:14–7:1” regardless of how the reference was originally formatted.
- Response modes — Ask for just metadata, summaries, full text, or a simple count.
- Canonical reference lists — The GPT uses validated lists of themes, Bible books, liturgical seasons, and document types for more accurate queries.
Improved Sermon Briefing
The sermon briefing now includes full Bible text (NRSV) for all assigned readings and better matching of your past sermons to lectionary passages.
Richer Document Data
Beta extracts significantly more metadata from your documents than Alpha. Alpha captured about 15 fields per sermon (title, date, summary, Bible references, themes, characters). Beta extracts 25+ fields including primary focus, topical keywords, semantic themes, biblical narratives, practical applications, target audience, occasion, liturgical season, series name, and style analysis.
This richer data is what powers the improved search — ThAD has a much deeper understanding of each document’s content.
Online Help
You can now ask ThAD for high level information on what it can do and then for further details on any of those features. Help will also be included on the web site.
Improved Writing Style Guides
Improved writing style guides for each of the different document types so your sermons sound like your sermons and your pastoral letters sound like your pastoral letters.
Version 1.2.0-beta
Beta Infrastructure
Transitioned from Alpha to Beta release stage with dedicated infrastructure, API versioning, and improved reliability.
API Versioning
All API endpoints now use a versioned path (/v1/) for stability and future compatibility. Existing Alpha configurations continue to work during the transition period.
Version 1.1.3-alpha
Initial Release
First version of ThAD with core sermon search, summarization, lectionary integration, and Custom GPT support. Launched with two Alpha users and 740+ sermons indexed.