With a congregation of 6,000 and three services daily, Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, found a long-term solution for integrating their non-English-speaking congregants: real-time interpretation with wireless technology.

Located in the eastern part of San Diego County, El Cajon is home to the nation's second largest Arabic population. Shadow Mountain also has a large number of Spanish-speaking members, as well as German-speaking and other non-English-speaking visiting family members from time to time. Prior to acquiring their new technology, separate church services accommodated parishioners who spoke Spanish and Arabic.

Timothy Hunten, the ministry's technical director, looked into how to best address the church's unique multilingual needs and found Listen Technologies Corporation. Now services are more fully integrated, allowing for a greater degree of multicultural fellowship.

The real-time interpretation is conducted from five booths, each equipped with a video monitor and headphone, allowing interpreters to observe what they are hearing during the approximately 90-minute services (sermons, which are the main portion of the interpretation, last approximately 40 minutes). Listen's LT-800 Stationary FM Transmitter connects to the audio output of a mixing console and transmits the audio signal of the service to the interpreters' headphones.

Interpreters listen to the service in the base language and interpret the service into Spanish or Arabic by speaking into a microphone connected to another transmitter, sending the interpreter's voice to congregants who listen on a LR-400 Portable Display FM Receiver with an earphone. Up to five channels can be accessed during a given service, one dedicated to assistive listening.

Hymns, announcements, and dramatic enactments are not interpreted, but non-English-speaking churchgoers find having their own language right in their ears helps them more fully understand and follow along.

Looking back, the entire acquisition process was really easy, says Hunten, who found Listen's equipment to be affordable and superior in sound quality. The system was worry-free from the start. Well, almost.

"We underestimated how much cable would be needed to set up the antenna (our church is quite large). We purchased the additional cable from a local retailer, and we bought the wrong kind," he said. "We couldn't figure out why things weren't working. Next thing I knew, Listen sent someone out to get the problem resolved. We were astounded that a company would provide that kind of personal service for an account so small."
 
Hunten said the church has been thrilled with the investment.

 "Once we tuned it in and tweaked it for optimum output, we haven't had to do much with it," he said. "In fact, the only maintenance issue we've encountered is changing the batteries, and you can't really call that maintenance, can you?"

The church's 50 portable receivers with earphones are wheeled out to the lobby on a custom-built cart so churchgoers simply pick them up as they enter the sanctuary.

"It has been so rewarding to look around during church services and see so many different faces, to have such a clear picture of who we are as a community," said Hunten, who takes pride in knowing the church's non-English-speaking members feel at home, despite the language differences.

The system's assistive listening component has also allowed quite a few elderly members to more fully participate in the church. This same system could also expand beyond language interpretation and auditory assistance functionality to provide audio to a nursery, cry room, or overflow area.  

Impressed with Listen's quality equipment and customer-oriented approach, Hunten says he has recommended the company to three or four other churches in the area, as well as other businesses that might find such a system useful.

For more information on wireless audio products used in assistive listening, soundfield, tour group, language interpretation, and conferencing applications, visit Listen Technologies online at www.listentech.com.