How to announce live translation from the front

Whether a translated service is used is decided in the first minute, by whoever holds the microphone. A church can set everything up perfectly and have three listeners, because the announcement was a mumble about "the QR code on the sheet". Here is what works.

The shape of a good announcement

Four sentences, in this order: what it is, who it is for, how to start, what to bring.

"Today's sermon is translated live into English and Farsi. If you follow more easily in one of those, scan the code on the screen with your phone, choose your language, and put in earphones. It runs in your ear while I preach. Ask at the desk if it does not start."

Forty seconds. Said by the person leading the service, before the first song, while the code is on the screen. Not at the moment the sermon begins, when the preacher is already walking up.

That is the listener's half of the first minute. The preacher's half happens before Sunday: slower sentences, verse references said out loud, fewer idioms that only work in one language. It is a short list and it is set out in how to prepare a sermon for live translation. The one habit worth practising before the others is the gap at the end of a thought, which is what a pause does to a translated sermon.

Three versions

The first Sunday. Longer, and honest: "This is new for us. It is a computer voice that follows what I say, and it is good, and it is not perfect. If something sounds strange, tell us afterwards; we fix it for next week." Permission to be imperfect is what makes people try it. The longer version of that sentence, and the three objections you should expect in the week after it, are in explaining AI in the service to your congregation.

The ordinary Sunday. The four sentences above. Every week, the same words, the same place in the service. Regulars stop hearing it; visitors are hearing it for the first time.

In the listener's language. Ask a member who speaks the language to say one sentence from the front, in Farsi or Ukrainian or Spanish: "the sermon is in your language today, on your phone, scan the code." It lands differently, and it says something about who the church thinks is in the room.

The mistakes

• "For our foreign guests." Nobody in the room thinks of themselves as a foreign guest. "If you follow more easily in English" describes a behaviour, not a person.
• The code only on a sheet. A code on paper is scanned by the people who read sheets. On the screen, large, for the whole announcement.
• Saying it once in March. A visitor in June was not there. Every week.
• Explaining the technology. Nobody needs to know how it works to press "Farsi". Under a second behind the speaker, a natural voice that keeps the preacher's tone and rhythm — that is for the website, not the pulpit.
• No earphones sentence. Half the room does not have any. Say it, and keep a bag at the desk.

What to say the second week

Ask, from the front, one question: "Who used the translation last week?" A few hands. "Good — tell the people you came with." That is the whole marketing plan, and it works better than the card.

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Further reading: how AI church translation works in practice and the AI tools a church uses on a Sunday morning.