With a diverse, international congregation, Kaufman Church in Texas took the decision to implement KUDO AI Speech Translator in the summer of 2024 to allow members of the community to follow sermons and services in the language of their choice. Live-translated audio and subtitles are now available to the congregation at each service, including closed captions in English for members of the community with a hearing impairment.
The congregation at Kaufman Church, Texas, includes lifetime members for whom English is their second language. Although these community members are able to follow some of the services, they could not fully comprehend and engage with the content before using KUDO. The area in which Kaufman Church is situated is growing, with a demographic that is now over 50% Hispanic, which has brought the church some guests who also fall into the ESL category.
At the beginning of the summer, the team at Kaufman adopted a refugee family who are only Spanish-speaking, and it was this action that sparked the team to begin researching the possibility of having a live translation service that they could provide during their main worship assemblies. They knew that this would be a blessing to their new refugee family, as well as their current ESL members, while opening the door for many more potential ways that they could minister to and serve families in the area and far and wide with the streaming capabilities.
Today, Kaufman Church uses KUDO AI for Sunday sermons for those joining in person. With QR codes printed inside the church, and a PPT slide that is displayed at the start of every service, attendees are able to scan to access AI-translated audio and captions directly from their smartphone without needing to download anything or set up a KUDO account. Closed captions in English also make the services more accessible to those who are hard of hearing.
“There are only a handful of these services out there and even fewer that specialize in churches. The biblical glossary was a major point and seeing how accurate the translations were with biblical and church terminology,” says Chris Dowel, Worship and Family Life Minister at Kaufman Church.
To spread the word about this new language accessibility initiative, the Kaufman team also sent out communication to the community and directly to their Spanish-speaking families to ensure that they come to services prepared with headphones. More recently, the team also added a camera and included a link to each KUDO stream in the description of their YouTube and Facebook live streams, for a more inclusive and engaging remote participation experience.
