Esther Doss describes herself as a “hearing deaf person.” Born to deaf parents, she knew the alphabet in sign language by the time she was 18 months old—even before she knew her ABCs in English.
A major part of her life has been ministering to deaf people. “My whole heart is set on deaf ministry and bringing deaf people to know Christ,” she says. “That is just my full focus.” Doss explains that her mother instilled in her to share Christ everywhere, and to love deaf people.
But reaching out to the deaf population isn’t easy, according to Doss, a board member of Adventist Deaf Ministries, and Jim Hovey, executive director of ADM, which is based out of Arizona.
“It’s very hard to evangelize deaf people,” says Hovey, himself deaf. “Deaf people are responsive to the gospel message but we need to find a different way to do it.
“In 1997 we had 656 members; now we have 330. In the last seven years our church [deaf] membership [in North America] has dropped 50 percent,” Hovey says.
There are several reasons for this, he says. One is that the quality of sign language interpreters has grown so much over recent years that “when churches rely on people who can barely converse in sign language, then expect them to translate complex theological concepts, a lot gets lost in the process and deaf people can miss a spiritual blessing when they can’t benefit from the service. That will lead them out the door.”
Doss adds, “A lot of churches do not have interpreters. If there’s no interpreter, there’s very little reason to be there at all.”
Even with interpretation available, there’s still a challenge for deaf people. “If I painted a black dot on this piece of paper and told you to stare at this dot for the next hour and a half and anytime you take your eye off this dot, the audio is cut off, that’s how deaf people face church,” Hovey explains. “It’s taxing.”
Doss says that most deaf people would get a lot more out of a service where everyone communicates in American Sign Language (ASL). There are five Adventist congregations in North America that use ASL as the official mode of preaching, teaching and socializing, and ADM would like to see more established.
Another reason for the declining Adventist deaf membership, Hovey says, is “Our church services are increasingly music-oriented. Though some deaf people [can] enjoy a limited amount of music, with the right acoustics, for many it is of limited interest and often painfully interpreted. Very few sign language interpreters have the gift of interpreting music into a visual art form.
“Our church has been slow in learning to communicate directly with deaf people,” he adds.
ADM points out that there is a misconception about what ASL is. It’s not English or French or Spanish. It differs from other languages just like German differs from Chinese. To many deaf people, English or Spanish, or whatever the native language may be, is their second language, and mastering that language can be quite difficult without the ability to hear.
Two percent of the deaf population in the United States attends church, says Hovey and Doss. There are 6 million deaf people in the United States and about 50,000 in Canada, with one Adventist deaf member for every 18,181 deaf people.
A main goal for ADM is to find more ways of witnessing, as well as to empower more deaf people to “feel confident enough so they can go out and be witnesses and be active in their area,” Hovey says. Another goal is to educate the church on the needs of deaf people and how deaf people can help the church accomplish its mission.
“We want to provide support and training for deaf members,” he adds. A deaf assessment was held July 12 to 13 at the church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Several ADM board members and other deaf people met with church leaders to share the obstacles that deaf people face within the church and discover how the church can reach deaf members. ADM also recently held the first “Deaf Reach” this year, which aimed to train lay deaf members for reaching out to other deaf people, including sharing Bible studies with them. ADM offers Bible studies for deaf people through www.deafbibleschool.com.
“Deaf people feel like they have their own world, their own culture,” Doss says, and those who aren’t deaf often don’t realize the major challenges they face. Some churches, she says, do their best to accommodate their deaf members, but sometimes it’s hard for them to know what to do. ADM has resources available for churches, but, Doss says, “Our advice is, ‘Don’t ask us. Ask your [deaf] member.’”
