How Hunter Bible Church Reaches Every Language, Every Service

When we sat down with Stu Harrison from Hunter Bible Church — Sunflower AI’s very first church client — he told us a story that began with him typing live paraphrase notes by hand during services, hoping it was enough to help a few international students follow the sermon.

Two years later, Hunter Bible Church runs real-time English captions and multilingual translation across every one of its five congregations — serving around 1,500 adults, youth, and kids each week in Newcastle, Australia.

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The challenge: a gospel for everyone, in every language

Hunter Bible Church (HBC) has a growing international student community and a steady stream of overseas visitors — parents visiting for weeks at a time, newcomers from culturally non-Christian backgrounds, and members with hearing impairment.

“We have that deep conviction that the Bible and God’s word is for everyone of every language. Everything we can do to make that accessible for everybody is an easy decision for us.” — Stu, Pastoral Team, Hunter Bible Church

Before Sunflower AI, accessibility meant manual labor: Stu typing live notes for international students at the uni-church congregation, and members like a Brazilian woman pre-translating entire sermons for her visiting mother — week after week.

The solution: real-time transcription and translation, in every service

HBC partnered with Sunflower AI in its earliest days to stress-test transcription accuracy and translation quality — bringing in students who speak Korean, Chinese, Filipino/Tagalog, Portuguese (with Brazilian dialect), and Japanese to validate the output.

Today, Sunflower AI is part of HBC’s standard production setup. It runs in:

• All five Sunday congregations
• Mid-week small groups
• The “Life” series — HBC’s evangelistic gospel presentations — where attendees with limited English can follow along in real time

The impact: ministry, not admin

The numbers tell one story: 5 congregations. ~1,500 people. Every service. 2 years. Manual sermon translation — gone. Live paraphrase typing — gone. Pastoral time freed up for pastoral work.

But the ministry impact is where HBC sees the real return:

• Visiting parents who don’t speak English can now hear from God through his word — not just feel welcomed by the community.
• A Brazilian member’s mum — who used to rely on her daughter translating in real time — now participates freely thanks to Brazilian-Portuguese captions, and the family can actually discuss the sermon afterward.
• A newer Japanese Christian uses Japanese prompts alongside the English talk to deeply process Scripture, not just catch the gist.
• Hearing-impaired members have a new accessibility option beyond building-based hearing loops.
• Even strong-English locals use the captions — and unexpectedly, so do members who struggle to pay attention for long stretches.

“A surprising one for us was people who had trouble paying attention for long periods also found the live transcription to be incredibly helpful.” — Stu

Why it matters

HBC didn’t just adopt a tool — they helped build it. Two years of real-service feedback from their pastoral team and international students shaped Sunflower AI into the mature product now serving churches beyond Newcastle.

“Thanks so much for creating a really helpful product for our church, and for the gospel to go forward in Australia — and hopefully many places.” — Stu