When KM and EM worship together
In many Korean immigrant churches the English Ministry started as a youth group and grew into a congregation of its own, with a second-generation pastor who preaches in English. Most Sundays that works. Then come the services that bring everyone together: Thanksgiving, Easter, a church anniversary, the installation of a new senior pastor. Someone has to decide which language the sermon is in, and someone always ends up following half of it.
With live translation the EM pastor can preach in English at a joint service while first-generation members, deacons and kwonsa listen in Korean. The reverse works too. When the senior pastor preaches in Korean, set the speaker language to Korean and the English Ministry follows in English. The tech team switches the speaker language with one tap, so a service with two preachers is no problem.
Korean speakers in English-speaking churches
Not every Korean speaker in America goes to a Korean church. Near research universities you meet visiting scholars who are here for a year or two with their families, graduate students, and parents who came over to help with a new baby. A church in Ann Arbor, Austin or Chapel Hill may have a few Korean families who understand daily English but find a forty-minute sermon tiring. Korean captions let them rest in the content rather than work at the language.
There are also couples where one spouse grew up in the US and the other moved from Korea more recently. They want to attend one church together, not take turns.
How it works
- 01Scan the QR code
Put it on the screens, in the bulletin or in the church's KakaoTalk group before Sunday. It opens the listening page in the browser.
- 02Choose 한국어
No account and no install needed. iPhone users can also use the ChurchTranslate app.
- 03Listen or read
With an earbud in, they hear the sermon in Korean a few seconds behind the preacher, with Korean captions on screen. Showing the English original alongside helps those who are still learning English.
Honest about quality
Korean has levels of politeness and a church vocabulary of its own, and a live translation will not always hit the register a Korean pastor would choose. Bible names and terms are the hardest part. ChurchTranslate keeps a terminology list per language and corrects known terms in the captions, but it is a tool for following a sermon, not a polished translation. Before a big joint service, ask a few elders to listen during the free trial and tell you what they think.
Cost
One credit is one minute into one language, and only while someone listens. A 100-minute joint service into Korean uses 100 credits. Four of those a month fit the Lite plan ($65, 480 credits). If you also translate the Korean service into English each week, you need two languages' worth of minutes, which is what Duo ($100, 960 credits) is for. See the pricing.