Using an Often Ignored MS Word Tool for Multi-Lingual Ministry

The mission field is already at our doorstep. That presents challenges in reaching our communities for Christ.  While Spanish ministry has been a mainstay in our community, we now have a need to reach people who speak Romanian, Arabic, Russian, and other languages.

Many of these people have difficulty understanding messages in English but are able to understand preaching in English if they have a thorough outline of the message in their own language.  We have found that making sermon outlines available in many languages helps these people understand the message and also helps our international members to become better English speakers.  On a typical Sunday morning, we are now making outlines available in Romanian, Arabic, Russian, and Spanish.[i]

It is a lot easier to do than you might think and you likely already have to tools to do it.

The big change I had to make was to have my finished Sunday sermon outlines ready to go by Thursday afternoon.  I then translate the outlines into the four languages using MS Word.  I am surprised at how few people know this tool is available.  Here is how you do it. It is quite simple.

With your outline open complete the following commands.

Click the Review tab on the top toolbar.

Choose: Translate

Choose: Translate document

For me, the next options show up on a right-screen toolbar.

Select:  From English

Select: To [Language of your choice–there are more than 60 options)

Select Translate

Microsoft has a short video here.  This feature is also available in Excel, OneNote, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

Your entire document will be translated into the desired language maintaining your outline formatting.  From this point I save the document, repeat for additional languages, and then attach them along with the English original in an email to select church members who are fluent in both English and the target languages. To save time, I attach them all to the same email and send then the one email to all the language helpers at once. They clean up any mistakes the auto translator might have made and return the finished outlines to our church secretary on Friday so they can be printed and be waiting in the foyer on Sunday morning.

If you do not have a qualified person to proof your outlines, the auto-translated versions are still quite useful. Our people have said that the unedited translations are still quite good and extremely helpful even if they are not perfect.

Here are some benefits we have found so far.

• The outlines aid those who do not know or who are still learning English in following the message.
• The outlines aid those same people develop their English skills.
• The translated outline helps to teach theological terms that might be unfamiliar.
• The language helpers (the proofreaders) learn a little about how to construct Bible messages by studying the outlines every week.
• The presence of the outlines shows care and concern for people who often have some difficulty interacting with and integrating with the greater church body because of language and cultural differences.

The time needed to produce outlines in multiple languages just takes a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how fast your fingers fly.  We can now do, in a few seconds, the tasks that missionaries labored over for hours just a few years ago.

It is a simple tool. I pray this will open up doors of opportunity for you.

 

 

[i] Shout out to Matt Barfield at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana for challenging us with the idea of publishing sermon notes in multiple languages.