Notes from building Voco
Practical guides from Josh Stannard, founder of Voco—written for pastors and church tech teams, including the trade-offs and lessons that product pages usually leave out.
New founder-written field notes will appear here as each expanded edition is released. Voco's established practical guides remain available below.
The Voco guide library
Church translation setup, multilingual welcome and community ministry guides from the original Voco resource library.
How-to guide
01For most of church history, if you wanted to translate your service for non-English speakers, you had two options: hire a professional interpreter, or ask a bilingual volunteer to whisper in someone's ear. Both work. Neither scales. This guide shows you how live AI translation works, what it actually costs, and how to get it running before Sunday.
Diaspora guide
02Nigeria sends more Christians to the UK than almost any other country. Nigerian-background believers are present in almost every major UK city — attending both dedicated Nigerian churches and mainstream evangelical, charismatic, and Catholic congregations. This guide is for churches that want to serve these members well, practically and not just in principle.
Diaspora guide
03Congolese-background Christians are part of many UK cities, often bringing deep faith, strong family networks, and rich worship traditions. This guide is for churches that want to welcome Congolese families well without reducing that welcome to a token greeting or a one-off translated slide.
Diaspora guide
04Over 800,000 Spanish speakers live in the UK — the largest and fastest-growing language group after English. They come from Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and across Latin America, with very different cultural expectations and church backgrounds. This guide helps you understand who they are and how to serve them well.
How-to guide
05The question most church leaders ask before setting up live translation is simple: what will it cost? The honest answer depends on how you're currently doing it — or not doing it. This guide breaks down the numbers for professional interpreters and AI translation side by side, so you can make the right call for your congregation.
How-to guide
06The QR code is the entry point for your congregation's translation experience. Make it visible, explain what it does, and have a volunteer ready to help first-time readers. This guide covers where to display it and what to expect.
Diaspora guide
07Eastern Europeans represent one of the largest language communities in the UK church, but they're often overlooked in multilingual ministry conversations. Over 800,000 Polish, 400,000 Romanian, and an increasing number of Ukrainian speakers live in the UK — and most of them have church backgrounds that make them natural members of evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox congregations.
Ministry guide
08Christmas, Easter, baptisms, and weddings regularly bring in the largest and most diverse congregations of the year. They're also the services most likely to include first-time visitors from non-English-speaking backgrounds — relatives, friends, and community members who may never otherwise attend. Getting translation right for these moments matters more than any regular Sunday.
Diaspora guide
09Over 400,000 Chinese speakers live in the UK, with significant communities in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and most major cities. Chinese-background Christians represent a wide range of backgrounds — from long-established Cantonese-speaking communities to recent Mandarin-speaking students and professionals, and BNO arrivals from Hong Kong since 2021. Understanding who they are shapes how you serve them.
Diaspora guide
10Since the British National (Overseas) visa scheme opened in January 2021, over 170,000 Hong Kong residents have arrived in the UK. A significant proportion are Christians — Hong Kong has one of the highest Christian populations in East Asia, with strong evangelical, Baptist, Anglican, and Pentecostal traditions. These arrivals represent one of the most significant waves of Christian migration to the UK in decades.
Ministry guide
11Refugees who arrive at a church often arrive with very little — and what the church offers in those first weeks can shape their experience of faith for years. Translation is one practical tool in that welcome, but it exists in a much larger context of trust, trauma, and genuine community. This guide covers both.