At Christmas the church fills with people who do not come the rest of the year: relatives from abroad, mixed families, neighbours, colleagues, students far from home. Many of them do not speak the language of the sermon. Here is how to prepare, five weeks out, so every one of them hears the good news in a language they understand.
There is one service in the year when the church is fuller than any other. People come who have not been since last Christmas. Families bring their in-laws. Grandparents fly in. A colleague accepts an invitation for the first time. Students who are far from home look for somewhere that feels like Christmas.
And more of them than you might think do not speak the language of the sermon. The daughter-in-law from Brazil. The grandparents from Ukraine. The international students from Iran. The neighbour who moved here three years ago and still finds a long sermon hard work. They will sing the carols they know, admire the candles, and sit through the message wondering what it said.
Christmas is about five weeks away. That is enough time to prepare properly. Here is how.
Start by asking. Ask the families in your church which languages their visiting relatives speak. Ask your home groups and your youth leaders who they are inviting. Look back at last Christmas, if you remember who was there. You will not get a perfect list, and you do not need one, but you will have a good idea of the languages to prepare for.
Then add those languages to your room. Since yesterday you can open your room and edit its languages at any time, so add them now and test them in the weeks before, rather than on Christmas Eve.
Since late October every room has a QR code as well as a link and a passcode. At Christmas, this is your best friend. Download the code as a high quality image and print it:
On a small card placed on the seats or handed out at the door with the order of service.
In the order of service itself, with one line in plain words: "The message in your language: scan the code with your phone camera."
On the screen before the service and during the welcome, so latecomers see it too.
On a poster in the entrance, where people wait and take off their coats.
A guest points their phone camera at the code, taps, chooses their language and follows the message as it is preached. There is no app to install and no account to create, and nobody around them needs to know.
The link travels where a printed card cannot. Put it in the Christmas invitation your church sends out, in the church WhatsApp group, and in the newsletter. Ask your members to forward it to the relatives who are coming, so a grandmother from abroad has it on her phone before she arrives and only needs to open it when the service begins.
At Christmas your greeters meet more strangers in one evening than in a month of ordinary Sundays. Give them one sentence to say: "The message is available in other languages on your phone. Would you like me to show you?" Let each of them try it on their own phone the week before, so they can show a guest in a few seconds. If someone in your church speaks a language you expect, ask them to stand at the door. A word of welcome in a guest's own language opens more than any card. Our guide on welcoming guests who do not speak the language has more ideas for the door and the follow-up.
Christmas is not only for guests from abroad. Think of the grandfather who hears less every year, sitting in a full, echoing room with children rustling all around him. He can read the speaker's own words, live, on his phone, in the language being preached. A guest can switch between the translation and the speaker's own words with one tap, and a family can sit together with each person following in their own language.
Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Test the week before, at the time of day the service will happen, in the full room if you can. Our step by step set-up guide covers the phone, the tablet and the sound desk.
Press record before the first carol and leave it running to the end. Fed from the speaker's microphone or a voice only channel, the songs mostly stay out.
Let guests join early. Since the end of October a guest who joins before the service sees whether the speaker has started yet, so arriving early is no longer confusing.
Keep the Wi-Fi for the front. The device at the front needs a steady connection. Guests can use their own mobile data.
The code on the card works every week, not only on Christmas Eve. Some of the people who come at Christmas will come back in January, if the welcome felt like it was meant for them. Follow up with the families who brought relatives, ask how it was to follow the message, and let the guests know that the same code works every Sunday. More about MulingStream for your church is on the churches page.
Since 7 April 2026 MulingDisplay puts the live captions on the screen your church already uses for songs and slides. At Christmas, when some guests have no phone with them and the grandparents left theirs at home, the screen carries the message for everybody who reads, and it can show the joining code for those who would rather follow on their own phone.
Since 19 June 2026 the recording room can make the Christmas card for you: choose a language and download a one-page join guide with the room's QR code, its passcode and short instructions written in that language. Print a few in each language you expect and put them at the door.
Since 2 September 2026 churches can use church passes: prepaid, never expiring, covering the whole gathering and everyone listening, and spent only when somebody actually listens. A Day Pass covers everything you run that day, morning and evening, and an International Day Pass is made for a day when the room speaks five languages or more. Read how church passes work and see them side by side on the pricing page for churches.
Sign up as a church, add your languages, and your first two services are free.