GoGospelNow
Pastor Ken Schultz

Pastor to Pastor

From the pulpit, for the pulpit — why this translator exists.

I’m Ken Schultz, pastor of Crosswinds Church in Plainfield, Illinois. Over the last few years, I’ve used AI to free up time for sermon research, editing, PowerPoint and content creation, social media, translation and accessibility, even budgeting and document work — so I can focus more on people and the gospel.

The moment that started it

A woman in our church asked if her husband — who didn’t speak English — could follow my preaching. I stayed up late building a rough translator. That Sunday, he listened in Spanish while I preached in English. It was clunky and internet‑dependent, but it sparked a clear vision: local, affordable, simple, and church‑ready.

From vision to a field‑ready tool

After months of testing, I built the GoGospelNow Translator using local, open‑source models (Ollama) and natural voices (Kokoro‑TTS). It runs on a budget mini‑PC (Ryzen class), works offline, and has been used in our worship services for many months. It’s configurable for different languages and voices and scales to multiple devices.

  • Runs offline with local AI transcription, translation, and voices. Private and reliable.
  • No monthly fees — support if it blesses you
  • Accurate with logs so you can review output
  • Portable: laptop or mini‑PC; bring it on mission
  • Flexible audio: send AUX from your mixer to PC, deliver via headsets or phones

Why this matters theologically

We know tech can be misused. But we can use it ethically for the spread of the gospel. God scattered language at Babel; at Pentecost people from many nations heard in their own language (Acts 2). This project is one small, practical way to carry that mission forward in our day.

Get the Translator Watch Training Jump to Letter

Implementation notes (for pastors and tech volunteers)

Hardware

Runs on Mac/Windows/Linux. Works on CPU; better with GPU. A Ryzen 7 mini‑PC under $300 performs well.

Audio Flow

Receive audio through mic or AUX channel into the PC. Send translated audio to headsets via Bluetooth headset, in‑ear monitor, or translation headset.

Scale

Multiple mini‑PCs can handle multiple languages simultaneously.

Config

Adjust hardware, languages, and voice styles. Logs included for quality checks.

Letter From Ken

Hello, my name is Ken Schultz and I am the pastor of Crosswinds Church in Plainfield, Illinois. I have been studying AI for the past couple of years. I was a bi‑vocational pastor and planted this church. I started finding use cases that I believe can help the church reach out with the gospel. Most ministries are understaffed and underfunded. I thought AI might be able to help us be more effective and free up time for pastors to do ministry and have gospel conversations instead of administrative work.

I have found that using various AI tools has freed up time and enhanced some aspects of my job. It is fantastic for sermon research, editing, formatting, PowerPoint creation, social media content creation, and more.

The moment that started it

Last year a woman in my church had a husband who did not speak English, and she asked if I could create something that would translate my sermons for him. I got inspired, did some research, and created a script that did close to real‑time translation by using various online tools. I am not a coder but worked on it all night with AI and, I believe, the help of the Holy Spirit. That next Sunday her husband was listening in Spanish while I preached in English. This first version was clunky and depended on the internet and network speed.

I have spent a lot of time on missions in Africa and Haiti, and one of my biggest frustrations is the ability to speak to the locals in their languages. I do not always trust my translators—when I have them—to accurately convey my preaching of the gospel.

From vision to local, reliable translation

I believe God gave me a vision of a translation system that could work on a local device using small, open‑source models. I tried for a few months to get it to work on a Raspberry Pi, but it did not have enough horsepower to run decent models. Eventually I tried it on an AMD Ryzen 7 with 32 GB of memory that could be purchased for under $300. My code with local models worked great on that with no internet. We have been using it like that in our worship services for the past eight months with great results. During spare time—which is limited as a pastor—I have been researching small AI models and have built a UI that can use various models depending on language needs and has great TTS voices for different languages.

Ready for the mission field

It is now ready to be tested in the mission field to bring the gospel to others around the world. Please download the software for free and use it in your ministry. If you like it and have the ability to support me in this project for the sake of the gospel, please buy me a coffee using the button below. I have made it very configurable to different hardware and speaking styles. It has been tested and works well on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems and will work with just a CPU rather well, but if you have an NVIDIA GPU it works with minimal latency.

The way we use it: we send an output of one of our AUX channels into the PC via a 1/8" jack. Then we send another AUX send of the PC output (speaker jack) to an in‑ear monitor with headphones so the listener can sit in the congregation and listen to the translation in their language with near‑second delay. If you have translation headsets, you can use those as well. I have also developed an experimental mode where people can use their own smartphone browser and listen on their own devices through Bluetooth or a wired headset.

Features

  • No monthly fees for the software — buy me a coffee if it helps you
  • Small footprint in your worship booth — runs on a laptop or mini‑PC
  • Uses local models (Ollama) and Kokoro‑TTS for great voices
  • Runs offline with local AI transcription, translation, and voices. Private and reliable.
  • Multiple mini‑PCs can handle multiple languages simultaneously — your service can be in many languages at the same time
  • Produces logs so you can check back on translation accuracy
  • Simple to operate — your AV team can click to start and let it run
  • Can link to API servers for other models on more powerful computers to improve performance
  • Portable — take it on mission trips to preach or understand other preachers in languages you don’t understand

Why this matters

AI technology will be used by the world for evil and harmful purposes, but we have an opportunity right now to use it ethically to help the spread of the gospel worldwide. Jesus said it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean; it is what comes out from the heart that makes him unclean. Let’s use this tech for good! God scrambled language to protect humanity from itself, and then in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit came, He unscrambled languages with tongues that helped people of all nations understand God’s Word. I believe God may have given us the universal language of code to develop a tool in these last days that would help us bring the gospel to all the children of the world He loves.

Let me know how you are implementing the GoGospelNow Translator for good! Please check out my YouTube videos on different AI tools and their use cases in ministry.

In Him
Pastor Ken