How to become a multilingual church
Families down the street speak Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese or Swahili, and some have already visited. This guide is for a church that wants them to feel at home: finding the languages around you, the first visit, the sermon, and a 90-day plan to begin.
Find out which languages live around you
Start with facts, not guesses. The US Census Bureau asks people which language they speak at home and publishes the answers as language data. More than 1 in 5 people aged 5 and over in the United States spoke a language other than English at home in 2017 to 2021, and the Bureau's detailed tables list over 500 languages and language groups source.
To look up your area on data.census.gov:
- Click Search by Address, below the search bar on the first page.
- Type the church's street address with the city and state or the ZIP code, and press Search.
- From the areas the address sits in, click your county, your city or town (a Place), or your ZIP code (a ZIP Code Tabulation Area).
- Type S1601 in the search bar and click the magnifying glass, so your area stays chosen. Open Language Spoken at Home.
The Census Bureau's own help page shows the search by address source.
Table S1601 shows how many people speak a language other than English at home, in four groups: Spanish, other Indo-European languages, Asian and Pacific Island languages, and other languages. Each group is split into ages 5 to 17, 18 to 64, and 65 and over source. For named languages, search C16001 the same way. It lists about a dozen, among them Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog and Arabic source.
The figures are survey estimates, and smaller languages are folded into groups. Fill the gaps by asking the local schools, English classes, a refugee resettlement office, the shops run by newcomers, and the visitors who already come. Then check those languages with the language checker, or see every language.
The first visit
Walking into a church where you do not speak the language takes courage. Make the first few minutes easy.
- Greeters. Put someone at the door who speaks the language if you can, with a name badge that says so, such as Hablo español. Everyone else can learn to say hello and welcome in the languages around you.
- Signs. Add the main languages to the signs people need first: the entrance, the children's area, the restrooms and the coffee.
- A welcome card in their language. A short printed card at the welcome table: a greeting, what happens in the service and how long it lasts, where the children go, and how to follow the sermon on a phone. Ask someone who speaks the language to write it or check it.
- A QR code to follow the sermon. With a live translation service such as Livefy, the welcome card on the screens shows your church's name and logo, a short greeting, the languages you translate into and a QR code while people arrive. Print sheet makes a page for the door with the same code and a short code people can type. Put the code on your printed card too.
- Someone to sit with. Invite a guest to sit with a family, if possible one that shares their language. Sitting alone in a row is hard in any language.
The service itself
The sermon is the hardest part to follow in a second language. Three simple steps open the service to everyone.
- Captions on the screens. Livefy, open in a web browser on a computer at the sound desk, takes the sermon's sound from the mixing board and shows the translation as captions on the room's screens, in any of 109 languages, each caption language using its own hours. Prayers, readings and announcements come through the same way.
- Captions and a translated voice on phones. Guests scan the QR code and choose their language. They read along on their own phone, or press Listen to hear the translation read aloud, for example with headphones. There is no app and no account, and the phone uses its own connection, so there is no church Wi-Fi to set up.
- A bilingual song or reading. Sing one verse of a song in the new language, or have a Bible reading in it, with the English on the screen. It needs no equipment and says that this language belongs here. Ask someone from that community to choose it and lead it.
Like any live translation, it makes mistakes, most often with names, uncommon words and unclear sound. Clear sound from the mixing board helps most. The guide to translating a sermon live walks through a Sunday step by step, the setup guide covers the sound and the screens, and the demo church shows the phone page a guest sees.
Children and youth
In many families the children speak English at school and another language at home. Table S1601 shows how many people aged 5 to 17 near you speak another language at home.
- A buddy and a few words. Pair a new child with a friendly child who speaks their language, if there is one. Give the leaders a few words of the language: hello, well done, bathroom, your mom is here.
- A note for the parents. In the parents' language: where the class meets, when to pick up, who the leaders are and how to reach them. Parents trust a church with their children when they understand what happens.
- Children are not the interpreters. It is tempting to ask a bilingual child to translate for their parents. It puts a heavy load on a child and makes the parent depend on them in public. Use an adult, a printed note or the captions instead.
- A real role for youth. Bilingual teenagers can join the welcome team, run the slides when a song is in two languages, or help in the younger classes. Ask them, and let them say no.
- The same safety checks. Every volunteer who works with children goes through the church's usual checks, whatever language they speak.
Small groups, meals and new leaders
Sunday morning welcomes people. The rest of the week is where they come to belong.
- Eat together. A shared meal needs very little language. Ask families to bring a dish from home and tell the story behind it.
- A group in the language. A Bible study or prayer group in the new language gives people a place to speak freely. Keep it tied to the rest of the church: the same leaders' meetings, the same events, and Sunday together.
- Some mixed groups on purpose. A group with two languages can read the passage in both, each person from a Bible in their own language, and pray in whichever language they like.
Leaders from the new community. A church becomes a multilingual church when people from every language help lead it, not only attend it. Look for the people others already turn to for advice. Invite them onto the welcome team, the prayer team, the music and the ushers, then into the leaders' meetings and onto the church council or the elders. Give them real decisions, not only jobs. Listen when they tell you what their community needs.
What to avoid
- Making people perform. Do not ask a new family to stand up, introduce themselves or sing a song from home in front of everyone. A guest cannot easily say no. Invite people quietly, and let them choose.
- Treating language as a problem. A new language is a gift to the church, not a gap to fix, and from Pentecost (Acts 2) to Revelation 7:9 God's family has many languages. Do not make English the price of belonging. Many people speak English well and still pray in the language of home: of those who spoke another language at home, 62% also spoke English very well source.
- Planning for people instead of with them. Ask the new community before you print, translate or label anything, and let them correct you.
- Guessing a language from a country. Many countries have several languages. Ask people which language they prefer.
- Asking about papers. Never ask about immigration status.
A 90-day plan
- Days 1 to 30: listen and learn. Look up your area on data.census.gov. Ask the schools and local groups which languages they meet. Ask the families who already visit what would help. Choose one or two languages to start with, and learn to say hello and welcome in each.
- Days 31 to 60: prepare the welcome. Find greeters, including at least one person from the new community. Put up signs in the new languages. Write the welcome card with someone who speaks the language. Set up the captions and the QR code, and try them at a midweek meeting before a Sunday. Brief the children's leaders.
- Days 61 to 90: open the doors. Start the captions and the phone translation on Sundays, and announce them from the front for the first few weeks. Add one bilingual song or reading. Hold a shared meal. Start, or plan, one group in the new language. Then sit down with people from the new community, ask what is working and what is not, and plan the next 90 days together.
Questions
What is a multilingual church?
A church where people who speak different languages worship, serve and lead together. It does not need a separate service for each language. It needs a welcome people understand, a way to follow the sermon, and leaders from each community.
How do we find out which languages are spoken near our church?
On data.census.gov, search by the church’s address, choose your county, city or ZIP code, then open table S1601 (Language Spoken at Home), or C16001 for named languages. Then ask the local schools, English classes and the families who visit.
Do we need a separate service in each language?
Not to begin. Captions on the screens and on phones let guests follow the main service in their own language, and a song or reading in their language helps them feel at home. A group or service of their own can grow later, led by people from that community.
Can guests follow the sermon on their phones without an app?
Yes, with live translation. Guests scan a QR code, choose their language and read the sermon on their own phone, or press Listen to hear it read aloud with headphones. There is no app or account, and the phone uses its own connection.
Should a bilingual child interpret for their parents?
No. It puts a heavy load on a child and makes the parent depend on them in public. Use an adult volunteer, a printed note in the parents’ language, or the captions.
More guides: How to translate a sermon live · Church translation equipment: headsets, receivers or phones · AI translation for church: how to introduce it to your congregation · How to run a bilingual church service · Church interpreter tips: how to interpret a sermon well · Live translation for Zoom, Google Meet and Teams church meetings · all church translation guides