Hello Carole,
you need to be as specific as possible in your requests for church records at the various archives to have any success. Example: Some of my ancestors come from the villages of Nettlingen and Bettrum, between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. I asked the archive in Hildesheim per e-mail about the records there. The answer was that the books up to 1854 were available as microfiches there. As both ancestors I was looking for were born after that, I had to look at the original books kept in the parish, and had to go there to find anything. The secretaries in the parishes usually work part-time and have very reduced hours, and most of them probably don�t speak english. In one case, they have three hours a week in which you can work with the books.
You will need appointments, and ideally somebody helping you translating - everyday conversation as well as the books. If you are at bigger archives, people there probably speak english. If you need to go to village parishes, don�t expect anybody there to speak english. For the most parts, the parishes have an E-Mail adress these days, but it requires some persistence in finding them on the net.
The web adress to the church archive given further up is a good point to start: http://www.evlka.de/archiv/ It is in german, however. Try mailing them directly: archiv@evlka.de and ask about what you want to know. You should give enough details so that they can give you helpful answers.
Or, try posting your questions here, and hope that enough folks help you.
Stefan