Canadian Anglicans and Lutherans will celebrate Pentecost this year by speaking in tongues together, in an event that can be viewed by fellow members of faith Canada-wide.

Church members are invited to tune in on Sunday, May 31 at 5 p.m. C.D.T. for a video made to celebrate Pentecost in community, the Anglican Journal reports.

The hour-and-a-half video was made by the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and its full-communion partner, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) and includes the Indigenous Anglican church.

More than 200 members from the two churches will take part in the online event, which will include 26 languages represented.

Hundreds of believers contributed videos filmed at home to the final product, which were assembled together into one major video by the ACC's video department.

"We will get through this together." -Archbishop Linda Nicholls

ACC Primate Archbishop Linda Nicholls, National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop Mark MacDonald, and ELCIC National Bishop Susan Johnson are featured first on the film to greet viewers with a hymn and share reflections about Pentecost. They then begin to read Acts 2, which is carried on through completion by others who individually took part in the video, passage by passage.

Multiple readings of the Lord's Prayer, some musical, and hymns sung by two choirs - all recorded with the help of technology to ensure social distancing measures remain intact - are also featured in the video.

The project, One Family in Mission, began after Canadians first entered lockdown in March.

Nicholls says stress due to the worldwide lockdown led to church leaders to look for "points of hope" to help fellow believers find moments of joy during hardship.

"It's an opportunity for us to celebrate the diversity within and between our two churches," Johnson says. "This diversity is part of our giftedness and our strength. It’s wonderful to come together and celebrate, especially in the middle of a pandemic—we need good news!"

A number of videos submitted for the project were in Indigenous languages, which MacDonald says "allows the diversity and complexity of our various identities as Anglicans and Lutherans to come forward.

"I'm very happy with it," MacDonald says.

Pentecost was chosen as the time for the project to be released because it is a "celebration of delight for the church, a gift of the Holy Spirit in our midst - a gift of the Holy Spirit that is shared amongst all churches," Nicholls explains.

The project was intended to encourage the two churches and their members that the Holy Spirit is still thriving amongst them.

"We will get through this together," Nicholls says.

The One Family in Mission project can be viewed here on May 31 and any other time after. It can also be accessed online at the Anglican Church of Canada's Facebook and YouTube pages.