Accessibility isn’t just about livestream viewers—it also serves people sitting in the room.
For many churches, reaching a multilingual congregation presents a difficult challenge. Real-time translation can require specialized equipment, dedicated interpreters, or complex workflows that stretch already limited production teams.
Aberdeen Broadcast Services’ AI-powered captioning and translation solution has received Church Production’s Road Tested Certification.
At Bell Shoals Church, those challenges are especially real. The multi-site church serves a diverse congregation across West Central Florida, with services offered in multiple languages and people attending both in person and through livestream.
Real-time translation no longer requires complex infrastructure.
Creative Strategy Pastor Patrick Clark wanted to explore a way to make services more accessible without adding complexity for the church’s production team. As part of Church Production’s Road Test User Experience program, Bell Shoals agreed to test Aberdeen Broadcast Services’ AI-powered captioning and translation solution, designed to provide real-time captions, subtitles, and translated audio for multilingual worship services.
The Challenge: Real-Time Translation Without Operational Complexity
Providing live translation traditionally requires significant infrastructure—interpreters, dedicated audio distribution systems, or additional equipment for listeners. Those solutions can be difficult to scale, particularly in environments where services are livestreamed and attendees speak multiple languages.
Clark says Bell Shoals was looking for something simpler.
“It does a couple of really cool things,” he explains. “It allows people who are watching our livestream to receive caption services that are very accurate and also in their native language. They have multiple languages to choose from, and it allows people from all across the world to tune in and hear the livestream in their language.”
But the church needed the solution to work not just online, but also inside the room.
The Solution: QR Code Access and Real-Time Translation
One of the features Clark appreciated most was how easy the platform was for in-person attendees to access.
“I thought the user experience in the room was pretty easy,” he says. “All we had to do was assign the QR code to the link. As people came in, they would scan the QR code and it would automatically pull up on their phone.”
A simple QR code can give attendees instant access to captions and translation on their own devices.
Once connected, the solution provides real-time captions that update throughout the service. Users can read the captions on their device or listen to translated audio through headphones.
The result is a workflow that requires minimal additional infrastructure from the production team while still offering real-time accessibility.
Testing Accuracy Across Multiple Languages
Because Bell Shoals already has several Spanish-speaking campuses—and members who speak many other languages—Clark wanted to see how well the platform handled real-world translation.
Users were able to select from multiple languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese. Clark invited members of the congregation who spoke those languages to test the service.
“They all said they were extremely accurate,” he reports, “and not just accurate, but fast.”
For churches exploring automated captioning or translation platforms, speed and reliability are often key concerns. In Bell Shoals’ case, Clark says the results were encouraging.
Support That Matches the Church Schedule
For production teams operating on a Sunday-to-Sunday schedule, reliable support can be just as important as the technology itself.
Clark says Aberdeen’s customer support stood out during the testing process.
“When you're living Sunday to Sunday in ministry, if customer support is only available Monday through Friday, it's not much help when you're trying to get everything ready on Sunday morning,” he says. “Their customer support was available at all times.”
Beyond Sunday: New Ministry Opportunities
Clark also discovered that the technology could support ministry activities beyond weekend services.
Bell Shoals recently launched an ESL (English as a Second Language) class that includes more than 50 Chinese participants who are new to the area.
“This was a huge outreach opportunity for us,” Clark explains.
Previously, providing live translation in a smaller classroom environment would have required mobilizing the church’s production team and deploying additional audio equipment.
“That’s not something we would have had the ability to do before,” he says. “If we wanted to do live translation in a smaller room during the week, we would have had to bring in radios or other technology that would have been pretty heavy.”
With Aberdeen’s accessibility solution, the only requirement was an audio feed from the room.
A Tool That Removes Barriers
For Bell Shoals Church, the Aberdeen's solution ultimately addressed a common ministry challenge: how to make services accessible to a multilingual audience without adding complexity for volunteers or production staff.
Clark says the solution translated quickly and accurately, required minimal setup, and opened the door to new ministry opportunities.
For churches serving diverse communities, tools like these may offer a practical way to extend accessibility—not only for livestream viewers, but also for the people sitting in the room.
