I'm really hoping that I can make it clear in my books that #multilingualChurch is about rethinking the whole church, not about making English speakers feel proud of including poor foreigners.

I rarely, if ever write books and articles in the order they appear on the page. I might tackle a chapter in the middle before I go to the end and loop back to the start.

That means that especially tricky or especially detailed chapters can end up being written later. However, now that I want to approach more agents and agents ask for the first three chapters, I have to tackle two tricky chapters, one for each of the books I'm writing. I'd appreciate prayer as I tackle a chapter on Is multilingual church Biblical? and one on what theologians have said about church interpreting.

#multilingualChurch #ChurchInterpreting #theology #AmWriting

Yesterday, I heard that a paper I wrote got rejected. Today I heard that this paper I wrote on #multilingualChurch is out online.

https://missioafricanus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Yes-Your-Church-Can-Be-Multilingual-And-It-Probably-Should-Be-by-Jonathan-Downie_compressed.pdf

I'm in the National Library of Scotland, studying up for the books I am writing on #multilingualChurch. But honestly, I'm frustrated.

Despite all the talk and all the theology, there is something missing. Certainly among white church leaders writing on the topic, there's a nagging tendency to make intercultural church something that the majority culture church does. There's talk of making space, building diverse leadership teams, making space for different voices, even (gasp!) hearing different languages from the stage.

But it's still the majority culture in the driving seat. There's still talk of integrating people into the wider church, as if the intercultural bit was the kiddy pool and the majority culture church was the deep end. There's still a dominant language - English.

Is this it? Is this as far as we go?

Does the White Anglophone world have to be the norm, against which everything else is compared?

I sincerely hope not.

The goal of multilingual church is not to help integrate people into a church as it is right now but to provide a platform for the whole church to be transformed.

#multilingualChurch #MulticulturalChurch #MultiethnicChurch
#fedichurch

Something that strikes me as a learn more about #multilingualChurch is how it so often starts and grows almost by accident. This reflected in writing on it: some scattered observations from preachers, 90 academic and practice-led publications but mostly one-off projects, books based largely on personal experience and often with little connection to wider research.

But more is definitely possible and what exists represents a bunch of hidden treasures. It's exciting to be writing this early in the journey.

Really rewarding to see thar, despite being down for big chunks of this month, churchinterpreting.com has had 22 visitors this month.

My immediate plans are to get my guide to AI for multilingual churches on there and to get some exercises for interpreters and more help for researchers up.

I'd love to publish articles from anyone with experience in #multilingualChurch, especially in displaying content in more than one language at once.

#fedichurch #church #ChurchInterpreting

Something that fascinates me about #multilingualChurch is that it poses problems that are rarely talked about in #Conf1nt or even #PSI. Questions like:
- How do you identify people with the potential to be interpreters?
- How can you build volunteer interpreting capacity?
- How do you stop burnout among volunteers?
- How do you know when human interpreting isn't the right answer?
- How do you know when interpreting at all isn't the right answer?
- What does language neutral interpreter training look like?
- How do you have sensible conversations about #MulticulturalChurch without assuming everyone speaks English?
- What does Scripture tell us about #MulticulturalChurch and #multilingualChurch?

I could go on and on.

One of the misconceptions I'm trying to rid myself of is that #ChurchInterpreting and #multilingualChurch are primarily about Sunday services and about preaching. They are really about theology, discipleship and ministry. They should be as common, if not more so, in pastoral counselling, home visits and prayer meetings as they are on Sundays.

If you or someone you know hosts a #Christian #podcasts, specifically one aimed at #church #leaders, I'd love to be your guest to talk about #MultilingualChurch.

#fedichurch

There are lots of different ways to do #multilingualChurch.

In the New Year, I'll be pushing marketing hard again, after a season where it was on the back burner.

If you know a #church looking for a French<>English #interpreter or someone to help them build their #interpreting capacity, please put them in touch with me, contact details on my profile.

I'm also available for remote and in-person French<>English conference interpreting in manufacturing, press conferences and non-medical NGOs.

#Conf1nt #1nt #multilingualChurch

@interpreting

@royal There are a few things. Fundamentally, #MultilingualChurch rests on #MulticulturalChurch. Really thinking through how a church can reach out to the community around it is the best start. It could mean working with local food banks, maybe building relationships with universities, anywhere in fact that people from different backgrounds might be. Are there already churches from a different community nearby? Before interpreting comes relationship.

I would also strongly suggest that churches get support from churches and leaders who have already walked that road before.

@multilingualchurch I like where you're going with this. What do you say to very small or young churches who either are just getting started, who don't have resources yet (i.e. competence in multiple languages), or who in their existing and emerging relationships haven't discerned this need? I'm curious about how this works at the very small church level vs. at the large, well-funded church level. I can see there may be ways of nurturing a culture that recognizes #multiLingualChurch as valuable and desirable, but it's also likely to be hypothetical at first.

By far the biggest reason why churches should be at least as multilingual as their surrounding communities is that Heaven will definitely be multilingual. Not only should we start getting used to that but, if we are serious about seeing God's Kingdom come, that means knocking down barriers between peoples and races, just like Jesus did.

#MultilingualChurch #church #Bible #ChurchGrowth

I usually wouldn't do this but, if you're a #ChurchLeader looking at making your church multilingual or trying to reach the multilingual communities around you and you'd like to talk with someone with expertise in that area, drop me a public or private reply and I'll set up a time to chat for free on Zoom or Google Meet for 30-45 minutes to walk through your options. Please feel free to boost.

#churches #churchGrowth #multilingualChurch

I am super excited to have managed to update https://churchinterpreting.com/ with three new articles, including one in Spanish and one touching on #MentalHealth in #ChurchInterpreting. Please take a look and go share. All the new articles are in the For Interpreters section.

#church #MulticulturalChurch #multilingualChurch

What every theology Prof should know about translation (from a professional #churchinterpreter trained in translation and doing research in #multilingualChurch)

A deliberately public and hashtagged thread 🧵

1) Translators make lots of choices but they aren't about literal vs free or formal vs dynamic #equivalence.

Even a single word can have multiple possible translations. Now multiply that to the sentence level.

No translator will always adopt the same strategies as grammar, purpose and audience design don't work like that.

It might be tempting but all this means that we really should avoid talking about #translations as being "literal" or "dynamically equivalent" etc.

2) The "right" translation to use therefore depends on why and with whom you want to use it.

3) Accuracy is way more complicated than people think!

Accurate to what? The word order? The effect? The semantics? The associations?

Judged by whom?

I recently did a thread on #multilingualChurch and someone asked why that exists. Here's a kind of answer.

A recent book chapter by John Cheong and Rochelle Scheuermann says that sermons get interpreted when a preacher visits from another country, due to missions work or when there is a high concentration of refugees. But that's not even half of it.

The #ChurchInterpreting research literature shows churches having interpreting:
- to show unity between different groups,
- as a response to being in a multilingual city (not just due to refugees),
- as part of a process of creating a new #church identity,
- as part of a vision to reach new groups of people,
- and to help people who have moved countries for any reason feel at home and learn the local language.

There are more ideas found in the latest episode of The Church Interpreting Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/show/08OUQMvXtLzeDTtJRiazT3

Church interpreting happens for lots of different reasons and knowing why it happening is the first stage in getting it right.

@conradhackett I've been thinking about that field. Would it be a good home for survey research on #multilingualChurch?