Sermon: verse suggestions and captions

The desktop app can listen to the sermon through a microphone or an output from the mixer. It does two things with what it hears:

• suggests the verses the preacher is quoting right now — one click and they're on screen,
• shows captions of the sermon on the main screen or in the livestream.

All of this happens on the computer. Once the models are downloaded, it works without internet, and the audio never leaves the computer.

It only works for sermons in Polish. Speech recognition and verse detection are set to Polish, and there's no language setting. If your preacher speaks another language, this feature isn't for you yet.

Shortcuts are written for Mac: on Windows and Linux, press Ctrl instead of ⌘ and Alt instead of ⌥ (⇧ is Shift).

Requirements

• a sermon preached in Polish,
• a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer), or Windows 10/11 64-bit with a graphics card that supports Vulkan and a processor with AVX2,
• 8 GB of RAM and about 1.5 GB of free disk space (the speech recognition model itself is about 0.8 GB),
• an offline Bible installed (Settings → Bible & offline). Without one, Listen stays greyed out.

Sermon listening isn't available on Linux. On an Intel Mac, the app warns you that it will be too slow.

1. Set up the computer (once)

You need internet for this step.

1. Open Sermon (⌘2).
2. The first time, the view shows Set up listening on this computer. Click Download … next to Speech recognition (required) and, if you like, next to Verses in other words. (In Show, on the Sermon tab, the Set up button opens this view.) Once everything is downloaded, the models are at the bottom of the view, under Downloads and this computer.
3. Click Check this computer. The app tells you whether the computer can keep up. If it's too slow, try Speech recognition – lighter model: it needs less memory, but it's less accurate.

2. Verse suggestions

In Show, on the Sermon tab on the left (or in the Sermon view):

1. From the first list, choose the audio input — a microphone, or an audio interface connected to the mixer (the list shows the device name and its channel count, e.g. “· 2 ch”). With a multi-channel input a channel list appears next to it: All channels or Channel 1, Channel 2…
2. Click Listen. The first time on a Mac, the system asks for access to the microphone. Allow it. If you refused, you can change that in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.
3. The level meter shows that sound is coming in. The status changes to “Listening”.
4. When the preacher quotes a verse or gives a reference, cards with the reference appear, labeled e.g. “address”, “quote”, “chapter”. + adds the passage to the plan, ▶ On screen shows it right away.

Display mode:

• Show by click — nothing goes on screen by itself (a good place to start),
• Auto: addresses — a verse goes on screen by itself when the preacher gives the reference,
• Auto: addresses and quotes — also when they quote without a reference.

On top of that there are Auto paraphrases (verses said in other words) and Auto songs — they work only in an automatic mode and need the Verses in other words download. The last list on the bar picks the Bible translation shown on screen. The same automatic settings are in Settings → Sermon — changing them in one place changes them in the other.

The Sermon view also shows the live transcript (Live), On screen with arrows to step through the verses, and Suggested verses.

3. Captions on screen and in the livestream

Captions show the sermon as text, in Polish, in two rows at the bottom of the picture. They need Listen to be running, and you turn them on in the Sermon view:

1. Switch on Translate live. Despite the name, it's also the switch that unlocks the captions. A label next to it, e.g. Not switched on, and the hints about translation and text on phones don't matter here.
2. Turn on Captions on the main screen (the screen in the room), Captions on the stream (the OBS overlay, the NDI source and the Stream window), or both.
3. In the list next to each one, pick Original. Other languages need translation, which isn't available yet (see below).
4. Pick the Caption size (S, M, L). It's shared by both.

Good to know:

• On the main screen, captions show only when there is no song or Scripture text on screen, e.g. on a blank slide, the logo or the background alone. A black screen, a message for the room and the large QR board take their place.
• On the stream, they give way to the lower third with the words of a song.
• Translate live and the captions are off every time the app starts, so turn them on before the sermon. The size and language are remembered.
• Translate live also starts the phone remote connection when the computer is online, and the remote then turns on by itself at the next start. Stop remote in Settings → Remote & musicians ends it, along with Translate live and the captions.

Live translation isn't available yet

You'll see Translate live, the Languages list and, in the church settings in the browser, a Live translation tab, but translating the sermon into other languages doesn't work yet. The server runs in test mode, so a phone or a caption set to another language would get the Polish sentence with a language tag in front of it instead of a translation. Please don't announce it in your church, and leave Live translation of the sermon switched off. We'll post in the forum when it's ready.

What stays on the computer

The audio isn't saved or sent anywhere. The app keeps a log on this computer of the verses it detected, with a snippet of what it heard, so a service can be reviewed afterwards. The log holds up to 20 MB and then starts over.

Tip

Do a test run before the first time: play a sermon recording through a speaker, or ask someone to read a passage into the microphone. Check which audio input gives the cleanest sound. A signal straight from the mixer works best.

What's next

• Streaming: lower thirds for OBS, vMix and NDI
• The Bible on screen