A bilingual Christmas Eve service: plan it now
Christmas Eve brings the people who come once a year: grandparents visiting from abroad, the neighbor who finally said yes, the husband or wife who married into the family. In a church that serves more than one language, it is also the service where the most people can be left out. A bilingual Christmas Eve service takes a little planning, and November is the time to do it, while there are still ordinary Sundays to try things on.
Start with who will be in the room
Before choosing how to translate, find out who needs it. Ask the greeters and the people who know the families: which languages did the visitors speak last year, and who came with someone who could not follow? Many churches find two groups. One follows best in the language of the service, often the older members. The other follows best in English, often their children and the people they married.
Then settle two things: the language spoken from the front, and the languages people will read or hear. Neither has to be English. A Spanish service can be followed in English, and an English one in Spanish, Korean or Romanian.
Pick one way, and test it on an ordinary Sunday
There are three common ways: a reader who says each part again in the second language, an interpreter with headsets, or live captions on the screen and on people’s own phones. Our guide to a bilingual church service weighs them up, and the one on translating a sermon live goes through each way step by step.
Whichever you choose, do not try it for the first time on Christmas Eve. Use it on two ordinary Sundays in late November or early December, with the same people at the sound desk who will be there on the night. Write down what went wrong and fix it before the next try.
The readings and the carols need the most care
Christmas Eve is mostly Scripture and song, and those are the hardest parts to translate on the spot.
- The readings. Give the reader, the interpreter or the person at the sound desk the list of passages a week ahead. Names like Bethlehem, Nazareth and Emmanuel come out right more often when everyone knows they are coming.
- The carols. Sung words are hard to follow in any translation. Put both languages on the slides, the words people sing and a translation under them, and print them in the bulletin for anyone without a phone.
- The children’s part. If the children perform, a line on the screen saying what they are acting out helps everyone, including the grandparents.
With Livefy, the sermon and the readings are translated live as they are spoken, and the slides can show the translation beside or under them on every screen. The setup guide shows how.
Make it easy for a first-time visitor
A visitor will not ask how to follow along. Tell them before they have to wonder:
- Show how to follow on the screen before the service starts, and put the same instructions in the bulletin. If people follow on their phones, show the QR code there too, with the welcome card.
- Have someone say one sentence from the front in each language at the start: how to follow, and that everyone is welcome.
- Ask two or three members to sit near the door and help anyone who looks lost.
- If people will listen on their phones, remind them to bring earbuds, and check that the church Wi-Fi holds up with a full room.
A checklist for the weeks before
- By the end of November: decide the languages and the way you will translate.
- The first two Sundays of December: use it in the normal service, with the Christmas Eve team.
- Two weeks before: send the readings and the carol words to whoever translates, and make the slides in both languages.
- The week before: print the bulletin with the instructions, and the QR code if phones are used.
- On the night: arrive an hour early, test the sound and the screens, and follow along on a phone from the back row before anyone else arrives.
A bilingual Christmas Eve service done well is often the first time a visiting grandparent hears the whole of the Christmas story in their own language in that church, and the first time a teenager hears it in the language they think in. If you want to see what live captions look like on a phone, a short sermon plays in eight languages at livefy.live/demo.
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