Why your church should offer interpretation every Sunday, even when you don't know who's coming

Every church that has tried to serve more than one language knows the Sunday-morning question: will they come this week?

The Ukrainian family that arrived last spring comes most Sundays, but not all. A Spanish-speaking student shows up twice a month. Someone's parents are visiting from Iran. An Arabic-speaking couple came once, sat at the back, and never came again, and nobody knows whether it was because they couldn't follow a word.

Booking an interpreter for people who might not come is hard to justify. Not booking one means the people who do come sit through the sermon understanding nothing. So most churches end up doing nothing, and the newcomers quietly drift away.

Spiiksi removes that question. Here is why.

You pay for minutes, not for guesses

Spiiksi has no equipment to buy, no monthly fee on the free Basic plan and no interpreter to book in advance. Interpretation is billed per minute per language, and only while someone is speaking. During silent prayer, pauses and long transitions, the interpretation pauses by itself and you are not billed. Listening is always free for your congregation.

Churches, charities and nonprofits get our community prices:

• €0.20 per minute for Default languages, such as English, Spanish, German, French and Russian
• €0.30 per minute for Plus languages, such as Ukrainian, Arabic, Persian, Polish, Swedish and Finnish

Prices are per interpreted language and exclude VAT. Here is what a 30-minute sermon costs at those prices:

A Ukrainian sermon for €9. That is less than the coffee after the service, and it is the difference between a family hearing the gospel in their own language or not hearing it at all.

The community prices are for churches, charities and nonprofits only, and we set them up for each congregation. To get them, use the Contact us button in the church and nonprofit section of our pricing page and tell us about your congregation: where you are, which languages you need and how often you meet. We will set up your prices and help you plan your first interpreted service.

More languages, lower prices with Pro and Max

The more languages your church offers at the same time, the more Pro and Max save. Both plans take a discount off every language after the first, on top of the community prices:

• Pro, €9.90 a month: 20% off every language after the first. Pro also lets visitors ask for a missing language, takes up to 500 listeners and lets people ask the preacher questions in their own language.
• Max, €59.90 a month: 40% off every language after the first, and up to 1,000 listeners.

Take a 30-minute sermon interpreted into four languages at once: English and Spanish (€0.20) and Ukrainian and Arabic (€0.30). Per sermon, at community prices:

The more languages and the more services you interpret, the more a plan saves. A church interpreting one or two languages on Sunday morning does well on Basic, or on Pro for the language requests. Tell us how you meet when you contact us, and we will help you pick the plan that costs least.

Add a language the moment someone needs it

You don't have to decide on Wednesday which languages Sunday needs. Start the service with the languages your regulars speak. If a Ukrainian visitor walks in, open the event and press Add language. Ukrainian is running in seconds, even in the middle of the sermon.

On the Pro plan, visitors don't even have to find you. A listener who doesn't see their language presses Don't see your language? Ask for it. You see the request, and how many people asked, on your dashboard, and add it with one tap. It starts translating right away.

So the question is no longer "will they come?" It's "who is here today?", and the answer is on your screen.

85 languages, one QR code

Spiiksi interprets into 85 languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Spanish, Polish, English, Swedish and Finnish. It understands more than 70 languages as the spoken language, so a visiting preacher or a guest testimony works too.

Your congregation needs nothing new. They scan a QR code in the order of service or on the screen, choose their language and listen on their own phone with their own earphones. No app, no account, no receivers to hand out and collect. One service can run several languages at the same time, so the Ukrainian family, the Spanish-speaking student and the visiting parents all follow the same sermon, in the same room, together.

And it is the same QR code every week. Print it once on a card by the door, in the welcome pack and on the back of the pew, and it works next Sunday and every Sunday after. Regulars save the link on their phone and simply open it when the service starts. Newcomers find it where they sit.

Costs you control, every week

Churches work with budgets set by a council, not by a sales team. Spiiksi is built for that:

• Prepaid balance. Top up a balance in advance and the minutes are taken from it. With a prepaid balance your card is never charged automatically, so the church never spends more than you set aside.
• Starts and stops on its own. Set the interpretation to start at the first sound or at a fixed time, and set a maximum length or a latest end time. If nobody remembers to stop it after the service, it stops by itself.
• Pauses during silence. Prayer, communion, the walk to the front: none of it is billed.
• Community prices. €0.20 per minute for Default languages and €0.30 for Plus languages, for churches, charities and nonprofits. Contact us to get them.
• Discounts for more languages. Pro takes 20% and Max 40% off every language after the first.

Set up once, use every Sunday

The setup takes one Sunday to get right and then runs every week:

1. Create an event and choose the languages your regulars speak.
2. Connect the sound. A computer at the sound desk takes the preacher's microphone feed and broadcasts from the browser. Nothing has to be installed.
3. Tell the interpreter about your church. Write a few lines in the interpreter instructions: the type of service, the preacher's name, the readings. List the names and terms that matter, such as your parish name or how "confirmation" should be translated.
4. Put the QR code where people see it, in the order of service, on the screen before the service and on a card by the door. It stays the same every week, so print it once.
5. Add languages as people arrive.

People who prefer to read can turn on Show text and follow the sermon as live text. The same captions help deaf and hard-of-hearing members in your own language, too.

Not just Sunday morning

Once the QR code is familiar, use it for everything else your church does: weddings and funerals with families from abroad, baptism and confirmation classes with parents who don't speak the local language, parish meetings, Bible study and newcomer evenings. You pay only for the minutes you use, so the occasional midweek event costs only what it lasts.

Welcome everyone who walks in

Churches have always been places where strangers become family. Language shouldn't be the reason someone stays a stranger. With Spiiksi, you don't need to predict who will come. You just need to be ready when they do.

See how it works for churches, contact us for community prices, or create a free account and try it at a midweek meeting before your next Sunday.

This post and its cover illustration were made with AI assistance and reviewed by the Spiiksi team.