Pentecost: transmission to almost 50 countries

Europe is the focus for this year’s video transmission of the central Pentecost service taking place in Frankfurt. The service will be broadcast to nearly 1,600 churches of the New Apostolic Church.

The service will be transmitted to nearly 50 countries ranging from Scandinavia in the north to Madeira, Malta, Cyprus, and Israel in the south, from the Azores in the west to Eastern Europe. In addition to this, there will be a few congregations outside of Europe who will receive a broadcast via the Internet. This is by special request of the respective District Apostles.

It has always felt global

“Only Europe!” The murmurs in the social networks were unmistakable. After all, Pentecost—at least that is the feeling—has been a worldwide event since the year dot. And that is why District Apostle Bernd Koberstein’s comment, that a global transmission of the event is not the standard, met with scepticism.

In fact, over the last few years New Apostolic Christians have really been spoiled. In 2012 everyone witnessed the appointment of a Chief Apostle Helper, in 2013 the ordination of a new Chief Apostle, and in 2014 the International Church Convention in Munich. Of course everyone around the world was to be able to participate in these highlights. But in the year 2011 in Dresden (Germany), for example, the focus was on Europe.

Extraordinary occasions – worldwide broadcast

A look at the history of Pentecost transmissions shows: Pentecost events of a special nature have so far always been broadcast globally. The first global transmission that topped the three million mark was from Nairobi in Kenya in 1996. Pentecost 1996 was the first in a series of international Apostle meetings—the last one was in Cape Town in 2010—of which the central service was broadcast to congregations around the world.

Much more frequent are the smaller more continental transmissions, those that reach under a million viewers. These include the central Pentecost services when satellite broadcasts first came up up between 1990 and 1995 (Vienna, Karlsruhe, New York, Frankfurt, Dortmund, and Zurich), as well as the services held in Hamburg (2000), Leipzig (2001), Dortmund (2003), Wiesbaden (2004), Chicago (2009), and Dresden (2011).

All the same for the interpreters

A transmission on a smaller scale does not necessarily mean less work. Although only one satellite is needed, instead of around a dozen as was the case in Zambia, this makes little difference in the number of languages the service has to be interpreted into: this year into 21 instead of 25.

Among the languages this year are not only the national European languages spoken from Norway to Italy and from Portugal to Russia, but also such exotic languages as Vietnamese. Some European District Churches have large groups of foreign migrants in their areas.

Tried-and-tested technology at new location

The 30-odd interpreters, who all work in an honorary capacity, will be at the new premises of Bischoff Publishers for the first time. At the beginning of the year, the broadcast technology was moved from the old premises in Frankfurt to the new location in Neu-Isenburg.

There is no need to worry. The technology being used by the audio-visual services team is tried and tested. Since the move there have been transmissions to every District Church in Europe.