A Success Story in Live Captioning for Churches: How Parkland Chapel Made Inclusion Its Mission
Parkland Chapel is a Bible-teaching church in Farmington, Missouri, serving more than 525 worshippers each week — from young adults to families and beyond. And when it comes to reaching their community, they don’t do anything halfway. As Alana Ankrom, Creative Director, Missions Coordinator, puts it: “if Disney World can put out the best just for pure entertainment, why doesn’t Jesus get the best as well?”
When a woman who had hearing loss began attending services — invited by her daughter, who was being discipled by one of the church’s leaders — the team realized they had no way to make the sermon accessible to her. No captions. No live transcription. And their pastor’s mustache, as Ankrom cheerfully notes, made lip reading a bit more difficult.
That moment of realizing someone could be left out set Parkland Chapel on a path that would end up benefiting their entire congregation — and every guest speaker who ever walked through their doors.
Why Parkland Chapel Chose Verbit to Power Their Live Captioning
Like many smaller congregations, accessibility hadn’t yet been at the center of Parkland Chapel’s planning — the need hadn’t yet made itself visible. When it did, the team went looking for a solution.
A Google search surfaced Verbit near the top of the results. Ankrom connected with Verbit’s team, attended a demo, and quickly saw the potential. Verbit worked to make accessibility attainable with a feasible investment for a small church — removing cost as a barrier and making it straightforward to get started.
“Verbit has been able to make [live captioning] easy and accessible for us as a staff, because our staff is so small.”
The onboarding process, as Ankrom put it, was “incredibly easy for someone that’s in my role” — and within weeks Parkland Chapel was running live captions at both Sunday services without missing a beat.
How Live Captioning Works at Parkland Chapel: In Person and On-the-Go
The technical setup is refreshingly straightforward. A 55-inch TV positioned to one side of the main sanctuary displays live captions during services. For any event held outside the church’s sanctuary, worshippers use a personal device — scrolling through the transcript, adjusting the font size to suit them, and catching up on anything they may have missed.
Early on, a technical hiccup with Verbit’s dedicated live window led the team to fall back on the standard transcript view — and they discovered the congregation actually preferred it. The color-coded speaker identification made it easier to follow along, and the contrast worked better for their members with hearing loss. Verbit’s flexibility in display options meant they could serve their community exactly as needed.
What surprised Ankrom most was who started using the captions beyond the two members she had originally set them up for. Others in the congregation began glancing at the screen to catch something they missed, to follow along more closely, or simply to double-check they had heard correctly. The captions had quietly become a resource for everyone.
Caption Accuracy That Handles Biblical Names, Greek Terms, and Global Accents
For a Bible-teaching church that works through scripture verse by verse — navigating Old Testament prophets, ancient place names, and Greek Bible words and complex theological terms — caption accuracy is not a nice-to-have. It is essential. A misheard or mis-captioned word during a sermon can change meaning entirely.
Verbit’s Captivate™ live captioning solution consistently rises to the challenge, handling complex Biblical vocabulary with the same reliability as everyday speech.
“Those have been like 100% accurate, even with hard to pronounce Bible character names or places in the Bible, it gets it. Greek words, it reads it.”
But the moment that truly demonstrated the value of accurate live captioning came during a visit from a missionary with a strong Egyptian accent. Congregation members who were struggling to follow his spoken words found themselves looking more at the caption screen than at the speaker — and still fully engaging with his message.
“People could actually understand what he was saying and engage with our speaker better because he was telling great stories… [Verbit’s] captions picked him up flawlessly, even with the strong Egyptian accent.”
The same proved true for a visiting speaker from Israel. For two congregation members with hearing loss who rely on captions to fully participate, Ankrom set up the captions on the day and they ran without issue — meaning they could attend and engage with a special event that would otherwise have been inaccessible to them. As Ankrom put it: they asked, and they received.
This kind of accuracy — across accents, terminology, and spontaneous live speech — is what separates professional-grade solutions like Verbit from off-the-shelf AI tools.
It’s a distinction that matters deeply for houses of worship, where the stakes of getting it wrong go beyond inconvenience. Learn more about why houses of worship are prioritizing accessibility and what it means for communities like Parkland Chapel’s.
Church Accessibility That Started with Two People and Now Reaches Everyone
One of the most striking themes from Parkland Chapel’s experience is how an investment made for two people rippled outward to benefit hundreds. This is the nature of church accessibility done well: solutions built to remove barriers for some end up making the experience better for all.
“In just trying to make church accessible for two people, we get to make it accessible for hundreds of people whether we know it or not.”
The congregation at Parkland Chapel now includes members who use the captions to keep up when their attention drifts, non-native English speakers who find reading alongside listening easier to follow, and visitors who might not be familiar with Biblical language or the pastor’s speaking style. Even during ordinary services, the captions serve a function well beyond their original purpose.
Research consistently shows that caption and transcription solutions benefit all congregants — not only those who are Deaf or hard of hearing. A peer-reviewed study published by the NIH found that more than 100 empirical studies confirm captions improve comprehension, attention, and memory for all viewers. For Ankrom and the Parkland Chapel team, the proof is visible every single Sunday.
Explore more on how sermon transcription benefits all churchgoers — with insights that apply to any house of worship looking to deepen engagement across its entire congregation.
In a community built around the idea that every person has worth and every soul matters, going the extra mile for one person is never really just for one person.
“You can never know what your impact is for one person, how that’s going to ripple effect into a whole different community that we never thought we would be able to reach.”
Reliable Live Captioning Support That's Ready to Roll Every Sunday Morning
For a small-staffed organization managing technology across services, websites, AV, and networking, the last thing Ankrom needs is a support experience that adds to her stress. Verbit’s team has been the opposite — responsive, easy to reach, and proactive about seeing issues through to resolution.
Reaching Verbit’s support team is, as Ankrom describes it, about as easy as it should be. A quick message on the dashboard is all it takes, and within minutes, the issue is either resolved with a link or escalated to the account team to follow through. “I don’t have to do the follow up and the work,” she says. Verbit’s response is fast, the follow-through is consistent, and Ankrom never has to chase.
That reliability matters most on Sunday mornings — when there is no time for troubleshooting and no margin for error. Ankrom describes the comfort of knowing the captions will work each week, in whatever format the situation calls for, as one of the most valuable aspects of the partnership.
“I actually do enjoy reaching out knowing that I’ll have my issue solved within a very timely manner each week should that arise.”
It is the kind of partnership, Ankrom says, that her church actively tries to model in its own relationships — built on trust, responsiveness, and the belief that the people you serve are worth going the extra mile for.
How the Partnership Keeps Evolving: Streaming, Language Exploration, and Broader Reach with Verbit
Parkland Chapel is already thinking about the next chapter of its accessibility journey. Streaming captions are on the roadmap, pending a resolution with the church’s website provider. The team is also exploring Verbit’s translation capabilities to potentially serve a Spanish-speaking community nearby — a population their pastor is eager to reach.
What started as a solution for two people has become part of how Parkland Chapel thinks about its mission: that making its services accessible is not a technical checkbox, but an expression of its values. Verbit is honored to help make that possible — and to keep raising the bar alongside them.
Where to Start: Live Captioning for Your House of Worship
For religious leaders and administrators at other churches, synagogues, mosques, or houses of worship weighing whether accessibility technology is worth the investment, Ankrom’s view is clear: the person in front of you is worth it, and the ripple effect will reach further than you expect.
The practical barriers — cost, complexity, and small teams — are real, but they are solvable. Verbit’s approach with Parkland Chapel was to meet the church where it was, make onboarding simple enough for a team of one, and provide support that removes stress rather than adding to it.
“Working with a company that specializes in accessibility… the support, the contact, and then the ability to get something up and running efficiently and easily is well worth it.”
Verbit’s accessibility solutions for houses of worship are designed for communities like Parkland Chapel — flexible, accurate, and backed by a team that understands the stakes of getting it right when it matters most. Whether you’re serving a congregation of 50 or 5,000, live captioning is one of the most immediate and high impact steps a house of worship can take toward becoming a truly inclusive community.
Explore Verbit’s accessibility checklist for houses of worship to see where your community stands and what your next step could be.
About Parkland Chapel
Parkland Chapel is a whole Bible teaching church in Farmington, Missouri, committed to making scripture accessible to everyone who walks through its doors. With a congregation of more than 525 weekly worshippers spanning all ages and backgrounds, Parkland Chapel is known for verse-by-verse teaching, a strong young adult community, and a heart for missions — local, national, and global. Learn more at parklandchapel.org.
About Verbit
Verbit is a leading provider of AI-powered captioning, transcription, translation, and audio description solutions, trusted by organizations across higher education, legal, government, media, and houses of worship worldwide. Verbit’s Captivate™ live captioning solution delivers real-time accuracy across accents, terminology, and complex content — backed by expert support that keeps every live event or service running smoothly. Learn more about how Verbit can help your house of worship.
