This week’s thoughts

What a week this has been for me. Lets review…Monday, my van had to be taken to the shop to check on some things before we head out of town this coming weekend. Tuesday…our church gave us a free pool table which is in great shape….Wednesday…we had a slight disturbance in ministry concerning some of our members…Thursday…we had our first softball game with deaf which I have missed softball for almost a year and half with deaf. Friday…I enjoyed my time with family…Saturday we had a worship team meeting and a great service as well. Today….i went to one of my friend’s son’s birthday party which involved some of our church members and it was a great day.  Oh wow!!! a beloved week and I need to have more of these. This week I will be focusing all of my time on my sermon, reviewing, trying to find the right materials for visuals for my sermon at Ohio State Baptist Conference of the Deaf which I had committed to 2 years ago. Its awesome to still be used by Him in various ways.

Interesting story though, when I accepted the job at Southeast. Many of the committments that I had with conferences and revivals related to other denominations were broken due to the fact that I was no longer serving at a Baptist church. There was actually 5 altogether that I was scheduled to do in 2007 and 2008. Three were dropped due to the fact that I was serving a different church other than what I used to serve. This made me a little upset at first, but then it made me laugh a little afterwards. After all, it isn’t my loss that I am not allowed to serve at a place where I am judged for the church that I serve, rather than the Lord that I serve.  I had to make sure that this conference that I am serving for this weekend knew I was a non-Baptist pastor. And the president was cool with a reply back saying “all that matters is that your heart is in the right place…because once you are baptist, always baptist”  I smiled and I loved that remark.

It will be interesting to see the faces this weekend of those who will just be learning that I am from a non-Baptist church. I also will be leading a music workshop which will be teaching people how to express a song in ASL, rather than word-for-word english. This is my first time doing a music workshop but I have confidence in the gifts that God has given me to do this.

Also..for those of you who may not know, our softball team has its own blog…I am the coach and I wanted to post the stats of each game and overall game as well online for those to see.  You can view it here at: www.seccdeafsoftball7.wordpress.com

Thoughts for 2008

As of now, we are close to the half way point of the year in 2008. So many things to be thankful for and so many things to still improve on and so many things still left to start on. I say this because to be honest…ministry is a tough job, yes but it can be so much fun if we keep our joy into it. For those of you who know me, I am a workaholic when it comes to ministry. I will be in my office doing stuff for 4 or 5 different things such as an event coming up next week, or a workshop coming up next month or even now as I speak, I am planning ahead for the Christmas Party in December for our deaf ministry. But I come to realize, it is not so much how much I do for the people or for the community, all that matters is if my heart is in the right place, then God will be pleased. If my work does not please God, then what will my work be worth?

Recently I had been challenged a little by a visitor to our church who claims to have found “proof” that Jesus Christ is not real, that the Bible is another made up story just like other books, and that life is just how we plan it and live it. I nearly laughed but come to realize…wow! Didnt we all use to be like that at some point?

I’ve come to realize that it is times like this where someone needs to step up and say “Hey, dont talk about Jesus that way!” And sure enough, I did. I sent this person a very soft-hearted message and ended it with a blunt statement indicating that “you are not lukewarm” related to a lesson that I had bluntly put out there to our group back in April of this year. To this day, I havent heard anything more from them. I do not know if they are thinking, or fuming with anger, or simply just ignoring my message. But I come to ponder, how would Jesus have done it? I am sure Jesus had his many shares of more than one “doubting thomas” in the world….but wow, goodness…makes me fuming upset when people degrade Jesus like that.

other than this one person….ministry has been good so far. we started up several new branches or extensions from our deaf ministry such as marriage support groups, YODA (youth of deaf adults) for kids, ASL classes for beginners, ASL classes for level 2, and we have several others in process.

My biggest project will soon be revealed probably around October of this year but have to work out a few things before I can officially announce it. If all goes well, the deaf ministry in the metro louisville area as well as surrounding areas will be in for a big boost in deaf ministry resources and will be called to help in the project as well. 

I just recently got back from a deaf teen camp and have been trying hard to catch back up on my rest. The camp went very well. Better than I expected if you must know. Plenty of counselors to help and alot of great memories were made. But above all, God was in it and my prayer is that God continues within them when they reach home and so on.

I plan to volunteer this week at MDO (Mini Deaf Olympics) and plan to make some connections with some of the teens who may be living in the Louisville area but dont know about the deaf churches in our area as well. I have come to know that many of the deaf that I meet do not even know that there are two deaf churches in Louisville and become really shocked that one has been around much longer than the one that I pastor. So one of the reasons I am serving at MDO is to plant that bit of information into the deaf teens who may be living in the Louisville area as well as some of the volunteers who may be helping out this week as well.  Please keep the entire MDO staff and teens in your prayers this week.

Gambling & Christians, do they mix or not?

i have had several people come forward to me admitting that they have gambled in the past and have asked if it was wrong for Christians to do these things. Here in Louisville where it is the heart of horse-racing betting at Churchill Downs and across the river is a casino boat that has generated millions of dollars for its city, I begin to wonder the same question myself. Is it really wrong for people to gamble?

One of the famous questions I can still remember well was “Why does God bless people financially to people that are stuck-up snobs and won’t give to others to help?”  That is a hard question to answer.

I admitted to having done gambling before I became serious in ministry. i used to love to go to Caesar’s and gamble $50 on blackjack or the craps table. If I recall, the last time I played was 1998, almost 10 years ago. I also love to play Fantasy Football which I used to play with a local deaf group of 14 guys. It was fun hanging out with them watching football every monday night and butting heads about players, teams, and just being real men.  Nowadays, I play for free on yahoo fantasy sports which I have won every my league the last 3 years. I begin to wonder…wow, I could have made some money off of that if I had really done something differently.

But then i realized, I was raised a specific way to believe that gambling is a big no-no. I have talked to several people about this issue. Gambling is wrong in the eyes of many of those I have spoken to, but nowhere in the Bible does it say “Thou Shalt Not Gamble” but if we look at various scriptures, there are tons of things that we could piece together little by little to get any idea on what God’s Word says about it but overall it is the individual’s decision on where they stand on this issue. As for me, I am a little challenged by this as I have beleived and felt this was out of the question, a big no for me. And I hope that it challenges you as well.

First of all, “Why gamble?”

Many people gamble because they feel they have needs that cannot be met through earned income. Gambling to them is their “opportunity” to gain more wealth and comforts.

Another group gambles just for the fun of it; they call themselves “social gamblers”.

A third group shows themselves to be ”compulsive gamblers.” For them, gambling is a disease that wrecks their finances, families, and careers.

At first glance, each group appears to have a different motive for gambling but, in reality, they all have the same goals: gaining more money without labor or work involved (Proverbs 14:23) – the ultimate in get-rich-quick plans.

Second, “Is gambling wrong?”

As I said, this is only my opinion, but every individual is to make their own decision on how they want to stand on this issue. But this may help you as a Christian evaluate whether gambling is an activity in which you should be involved, because gambling:

• Often is connected with other sinful acts, such as prostitution and drugs.
• Is always involved with get-rich-quick motives (see Proverbs 28:22).
• Discourages work or labor. typically late nighters or calling into work to be off (see Genesis 3:19).
• Often will offend a brother or sister in Christ (see 1 Corinthians 8:11-12).
• Grows and feeds a heart of greed and love of money, which Scripture says is the root of all evil. “Those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9).

I read somewhere in a magazine that “Christians are the only Christ that many non-Christians will ever see.” Remember that, more often than not, our actions and our decisions will have a great testimony of what should be the true nature of Christ. “I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be disgraced” (1 Samuel 2:30). For me, I rather be safe than sorry and not do it at all. If I arrive in Heaven and someone up there tells me that I was allowed to gamble, then oh well, no big deal for me. Would love to get some comments about this if you could share.

Whats up now?

Summer is here and that means what? Alot of vacation time, family time, and of course clean-up time around the house, ugh! We are in the process now of repainting the inside of our entire house…we were originally waiting for our big stimulus check to purchase some things for our home, especially for our bathroom. But come to find out, we will not receive it until next week, grrr! We was hoping to get it while the kids are away from home for the two weeks (my parents elected to keep the kids for two weeks starting on June 16th) We wanted to do it all in the two weeks that the kids were not here, but a blessing happened from one of our friends to purchase paint and a few other things that we needed for our home.

In the meantime, deaf church has been a blessing. I sometimes wonder at the things that God is doing. But as God is blessing many, Satan is also working overtime on many of us. We must be doing something right, I guess! (smile) This past two weeks have been a blessing for me and Mandi, not to say that we don’t miss the kids, but we come to realize that this was a lesson not only for us but for others who we meet. The lesson we are trying to teach is that above all, we put family first. When the kids are with us, we have to submit to helping others because our ministry at home is far more important than any ministry outside of our home. I think Satan has just about had it with me and Mandi meeting people that last few days. We met a couple this past SUnday and stayed until 4am in the morning. Then we went to another couple’s home and spent the night there but was up until 2am. So God has been working through us but Satan has always been working against us. Our van is acting up again, we have several of our friends in serious crisis, and our internet was accidentally cut off, our videophone hasnt been on for a month due to a fault in our router. So wow! Know what I say?  “Whats next, Satan?” If God is for us, who can be against us? To God be the glory!  Keep us in prayers as always as we pray for you too!

Sermon #1 (Testing)

Remember Who You Are

November 18^th, 2006

by: Steve Dye

(preached at Lousville Baptist Deaf Church for their Thanksgiving Fellowship)

 

 

• There was a story in Texas about a business that was soon to lose their top boss
• When boss died, the VP boss took over and was only on job for few months
• Friend came to VP boss named Bill and told him some good advice
• He told him “These people are going to try to talk to you, try to make you feel good about yourself, and cause you to think of how great you are”
• He said…when that starts, stop and remember who you are and where you came from

————————————————————————————————————

• There was another story of a deaf pastor who resigned his lay pastor position with Baptist church
• He joined non-denominational church
• First day on the job, many people pat his back, say welcome to our church, many smiles, many positive comments
• He didn’t think much about it and tried to not let his ego become too big
• Why? Because his mentor emailed him and reminded him “remember who you are and where you came from”

————————————————————————————————————

• Another story of a man named John.
• He was a popular guy with the local people and out of town people knew his name too
• His only job was to share the Gospel and preach to the people who came
• Soon people asked who he was..he boldly said “I am not the Christ”
• He had received praises for his work everyday but John remembered who he was because he knew there is someone greater than him, Jesus

————————————————————————————————————

 

 It is hard to accept praise, thank yous, “you are good”, “you are awesome”, pats on the backs, and other ways people praise you for. Its hard to resist temptation that you could possibly be better than others. But in the eyes of God, we are all equal. Why accept that praise when it all belongs to God?

 

(Illustration of Giving Praise to God)

• Put up 3 cups and a pitcher ful of water on a table for all to see.
• Explain that the 3 cups are people within the church or workplace
• When God gives you blessings, you get a little water from the pitcher
• When people give you blessings or praise, they pour their own water into your cup
• What do you do? You cant keep all of the water…you give some back to God
• The praise is ongoing…..you get praise…you give praise…you get praise…you give praise

 Bible Verse                            2 Timothy: 8-9

 

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, born from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s Word is not chained” (NIV)

 

“Remember Jesus Christ. He was raised from the death. He is from the family of David. This is the Good News that I tell people. And I am suffering because I tell that Good News. I am even bound with chains like a person who has done wrong. But God’s Word is not bound.” (English Translation)

 

The verse is telling us that we have to remember Him. We have to remember WHY we are serving Him. We have to remember WHAT is our main point. We have to remember when it is all done, who do we THANK the most?

 

There is a movie that I want to share with you tonite. It is from the Disney movie, Lion King. There is an illustration that we can relate to.

 

Simba grew up and ran away because he thought that he had killed his father in the past. He didn’t want to face that and wanted to forget what he was, who he was, and why he was on earth for…he had ran away and been away from home for a longgggg time until one of his past friends found him and tried to convince him to come back and do what was right. Simba kept denying himself and what his role was….

 

(After the movie)

 

Its interesting….if you put yourself in that picture or movie…you see God is telling you to remember Him…remember Who YOU ARE….

 

Remember Jesus Christ             - you cannot forget that. In your words, actions, home,work, you MUST always remember Jesus Christ

 

                                        (Hebrews 11)

 

Others Remembered            

 

• Abel remembered by sacrificing more than his brother
• Noah remembered by listening to God more than people around him
• Abraham remembered by listening to God’s commands to travel not knowing where go
• Abraham also remembered by believing that God would give him a son, no matter his age or his wife’s age because through him, millions of people born because of his faith
• Abraham’s family did not forget God. They pressed on and on and never saw the promised land but they never gave up faith.
• Abraham remembered by willing to kill his son, Isaac. He learned to put God first.
• Isaac remembered by blessing his sons Esau and Jacob
• Jacob remembered near his death to bless Joseph’s family and worshiping God
• Joseph remembered by not seeking revenge but bless his brothers after being sold as a slave.
• Moses’ parents remembered by hiding Moses, trusting in God, and not being afraid of the King’s orders
• Moses remembered by choosing to leave Egypt with God’s people, trusting in God, and not afraid of the Pharoah
• Moses and the people remembered God when passing through the Red Sea, knowing God saved them
• Joshua remembered God when the walls of Jericho fell down
• Gideon remembered God when his army destroyed armies that were much bigger than his
• Samson remembered God when his strength was gone
• David remembered God when he was questioned for his size, but his faith helped killed Goliath
• All of the prophets of the Old Testament remembered God when people were not listening to them.
• All of the disciples remembered God during the time they were walking with Jesus
• All of the disciples continued to remember God when Jesus was crucified and resurrected
• All of the disciples remembered by proclaiming Jesus name to the world
• Your pastors remembered
• Your leaders remembered
• Your teachers remembered
• Which means…YOU should remember too.
• Remember WHO you are in Christ, with Christ, and from Christ

 The day that you accepted Jesus Christ is the day that you can NEVER forget Jesus

Christ

 

The day that you first taught or witness about Jesus Christ is the day that you

REMEMBERED

 

The day that you die from this earth and enter Heaven is the day that Jesus will welcome

you and say “Hey, I remember you. Good job! Welcome home!”

 

I look forward to that day, seriously!

 

Closing story:

 

Paul and his friend, Silas were walking in town one day and noticed a woman who had a

demon spirit that was telling people about who they were. Paul healed the woman and the

local town people who owned the woman did not like it so they had them arrested.

 

While Paul and Silas was in prison…they did not complain. They praised and praised and

praised and sang and prayed and they remembered Him. Then happened..the walls of the

prison shook, the chains on their bodies came off, the prison doors opened…and nothing

in that prison could stop God’s power.

 

Remembering God is important, because if you don’t remember God, your prison walls

never shake, your chains on your hands stay on, and your door remains locked.

 

Some of you tonite are here with many prison walls and many chains. God hasn’t

forgotten you. But have you forgotten God? I pray and challenge you tonite to remember

God and give Him the glory of every blessing that He has given you.

 

Closing Prayer

Whats am I doing now?

I have taken a break from blogging lately due to the fact that I had done 3 posts about the Deaf Ministry issues that many people wonder about. Still awaiting my “partner” to write his about Deaf preaching, although I am tempted to do one about Deaf preaching myself, but will wait to see about his post first. Its been a crazy few weeks. 

Our Deaf Church has been awesome. The team has been working well together. The flow of the Holy Spirit has been ongoing and many people are still being called to come forward for decision making. Today, I recieved a newspaper from our church that included an article about our Deaf Church and the impact that it has been making on the Deaf community. It was humbling to see the miracles that God is doing lately. It was also great to see people respond to the messages that God has preached through me week after week.

The last few weeks have really been some of the most compelling sermons I have ever preached. Topics such as: Divorce & Unhappiness in Marriage, Living Together before Marriage, Kids & their much needed role models, and upcoming Why Youth are so Rebellious? Its been a challenge for me to preach on those but the response has been great. After the sermon on Divorce, many married couples had come forward to confess that they had been considering divorce until they heard that the Word of God only gives us 2 options for divorce (Adultery & Abandonment) but thats not to say to be trigger-happy on the idea, but to continue to work on the marriage with everything you have to give into it.

Me and my wife was thinking about the time that we had a small marriage support group which consisted of 3 other married couples from different churches at the time. It was a blessing to have that once a month get-together. We felt that we needed to get that back together as soon as possible. Many of our married couples have “trust” issues so we elected to start within our core group first before we opened it up to others to develop that relational ministry between everyone and set up a support system among ourselves.

The Deaf Men’s events are on hold until September…as of now, we are hosting golf outings for 9 holes on the 2nd weekend of every month (June, July, August) at selected courses. We have opened this up to everyone since we know many of us love to play golf. After the golf outings, we will attempt to go to another park nearby and play corn-hole and fellowship with each other on the same day.

The Deaf Women’s events are also on hold until September…and they too are hosting fellowship get-togethers on selected weekends in June, July, and August. I beleive they will do something a little different this fall with their events as the women’s group has grown more since we first started. More info on that will follow.

Our biggest spotlight now is the fact that our church is asking all of our ministries and our group meetings and bible study classes to align itself to teach a common topic for the month of June and July. The topic is “Heaven”  many of the groups will be using the book that Randy Alcorn wrote which is a workbook. The Deaf Ministry elected to pull information from old materials that another ministry is using as well and convert to ASL for our group to study from. We will start the teaching of Heaven on June 7th and end on July 19th. This will be a challenge and I am sure many of our people will be interested as common questions always arise about the layout of Heaven. (What is looks like? who will be there? what will we do there? Why a new earth / new heaven?) Keep us in prayers about that as we near the date…

On a personal note, me and my family are well. Kids are happy to be out of school. My oldest, TJ, is looking forward to going to 8th Grade Camp at Country Lake which is the Southeast Christian Church Junior High Summer Camp in June. All three of our kids will be going to my parents for two weeks in June as well. While they are away, we will be focusing much of our time and energy on remodeling the house in areas needed. We have already begun to paint some of the rooms and arranging of furniture within the house.

I think as the summer nears, our house will have a total makeover because its something we have always wanted to do but never really had the financial support to do it until now. Along with the buying of stuff, some of our friends have given us free paint, free wallpaper, free whatever to help us get started…its been a blessing.

This past Monday, we had a Deaf Picnic at our church location. Weather predicted 60% chance of rain but we had a backup plan for a move to inside one of the buildings on campus. We had a great turnout of 92 people. Much of them I had not seen in years and was good to be able to share with them about the Deaf Church. Many of them had never been to Southeast before and it was a blessing to welcome them and fellowship with them as well.

Well thats about all for now, folks. Hopefully next time, I will be able to do some more blogging. I am thinking about adding a new page where I can add my weekly sermons on the blog as well, haven’t really decided on that yet. Anyhow, be good in the Lord and enjoy the weather while you can! God bless!

Deaf Ministry 301: Deaf & Bible Translations?

Again, this is only the view of my own perspective, and not in the perspective of the church that I serve for nor the people that i worship with. The correct Bible translation for Deaf people have always been an ongoing debate between many congregations that I have been a part of.

When I grew up, I had a KJV Bible, which was my first Bible given to me from my parents when I was around 10 years old.  Over the years, I really hadn’t been exposed much to different translations out there. My family was pretty much a KJV type of Bible reading throughout my entire childhood. Although, I had a KJV Bible, I honestly have to confess..I did read it but I didn’t fully understand it. Now I know i was not the only one in the world with this problem because KJV tends to be a little hard for some to fully grasp the words.

Today I have probably 8 different versions of Bible translations. I value the Life Application NIV version as it is more easier for me to study from. Now the debate happens that the NIV has some verses missing in its translation, thats good for us to know…but when it comes down to preach those verses, I will pull those verses from the translation that HAS those missing verses..although I don’t think studying about the “worm” (Mark 9:44 which is deleted from NIV) will help much as I have never seen or heard any other pastor preaching about it. But thats the benefit of having more than one version of Bible translations to look into and find the one that is best for signing in American Sign Language. I study from a Life Application NIV and I preach from it as well.

In my Easter sermon 2 years ago, I quoted 5 different translations of what the angel told the women who had come to see Jesus body in the tomb (after it was rolled away)….”Come and see” was the traditional words in all 5 translations. I wanted to make sure that everyone understood that even though the words of all Bible translations maybe different…the important ones are sometimes the same.

Now..enough about my preferences…what about the Deaf congregations? I have seen some use the CEV, the NIV, the KJV, the NASB, the Deaf-easy-to-read, and a few others that I cant think of. Our Deaf church, we have Easy to read versions for those who do not bring their Bibles…I beleive only one person in our congregation has a KJV, many of the others have NIV version. I tell my congregation that what I preach and what I put on my powerpoint slides are NIVs unless noted on the slide. Sometimes i will point out an interesting point of a different translation to make the connection more clear.  I have learned that the KJV is never my interest in preaching, encouraging to purchase it, or even studying from it. My spiritual self feels more connected and more comfortable and led to the NIV.

I had a couple come tell me that they went to another church to visit and came back blasting at me and upset telling me that I should not be preaching or studying from a NIV. Because it was missing verses and that many are saying that it is similar to a Jehovah Witness’ Bible version. That may be true, but I am not Jehovah Witness and I am not hiding any verses. As i said, the time comes..i will preach those verses if needed. In replying back to this couple, I told them..”Ok so you are saying every Deaf person needs to be using KJV only? If that is true, then do you think everyone will understand it and benefit from it?”  It comes back to that verse I mentioned in last post…”Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial” Interesting, the next verse says “Everything is permissible but not everything is constructive”…my point exactly on the Bible translations. Not everyone will benefit from a KJV. I applaud those who do benefit from it, but I do not want to seem pushy towards it and I do not beleive our God wants us to force the one version of KJV on our people.

In closing, I have always told Deaf…you pick a Bible that best fits you. If its a children’s Bible, get it. If its a Deaf Bible, get it. If its a NIV, get it. If its a Picture Bible (from Deaf Missions) get it. I have no problem with translation Bible versions, as long as they speak truth and the individual is being spiritually fed through the Word of God at home and at church. But overall, I think the best version for any Deaf person would be a “Visual-Bible translation” which would include dramas, visuals, and signing of the scriptures.

Some may argue that my perspective seems a little liberal. If we can’t be liberal or flexible in our methods to reach the lost Deaf…we defintely do not need to be legal preaching the only one Bible translation….if we can’t be liberal…and we can’t be legal….then why don’t we all try to be something in the middle…which I like to call..holy.  Again, I close….”If God is in your Bible translation and it leads you to that one translation, who can be against it?” 

Deaf Ministry 201: Why Deaf Worship has to be different?

Before I begin this, I need to make known the topics that I share about Deaf Ministry issues such as music, preaching, worship, events, fellowship, and anything related to what I will share about it is in the opinion and sharing of my thoughts only, it is not the opinion of the church that I work for nor the opinion of the people that worship along with me. I speak for myself only and welcome all those who would like to question my thoughts or my opinions on these issues.

I know that in the last topic was about Music and Visual Aids. Over the next few posts, along with Stephen, we will try to cover alot of ground on the different kinds of needs that a Deaf worship experiences.

In this post, welcome to Deaf Ministry 201: Why Deaf Worship has to be different?

In my early church years, I grew up in church in a “mainstreamed hearing service-reading the pastor’s lips while he’s preaching-following the words in the hymnal books for music-sitting with all the family-laughing last when the congregation hears a funny joke”  You get the idea? I benefited little from the worship experience. Why because I strongly could not catch everything the preacher was saying….I was able to follow the music well as I had hearing aids and able to watch people’s lips for cues of when to start singing the next line or the next word.

In the 1980s and early 1990s…my church didn’t have no visual aids and no help for deaf. Keep in mind that I had not learned sign language until years later so I depended the majority of my understanding on lip-reading.

Lets fast forward to 2000, when I first was exposed to Valley View Church where I was introduced to the idea of visual aids, powerpoint slides, videos in church, etc. I was in awe of how much much I was understanding and how much more I was benefiting from the worship experience. And I knew right then, this is what all deaf churches or deaf ministries NEEDED in order to reach the lost Deaf in our communities.

A pastor in Maryland that I recently spoke with said something that pretty much knocked some of my brain cells out and got me collecting them back up to rethink my strategy…in 1 Corinthians 10:23 it states “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”  now I know that verse was talking along the lines of other things…but what this pastor was trying to indicate was that…visual aids are permitted only if we feel if it is beneficial to our worship experience.

In our preaching…it is beneficial.  In our worship music…it is beneficial.  In our sunday school classes…it is beneficial. In all that we do…any type of visual is beneficial…WHY?  because most percentage of Deaf in today’s churches rely heavily on visuals. 

I cannot imagine preaching or doing worship without the help of visual aids. I cannot see how the deaf churches back in the 70s and 80s did it.  But in the time that the generations have changed, we need to be changing with them. In other words, “old wineskins” need to be be out…and we need new taste.  This is exactly what I am talking about.

In 2003, the deaf church in my hometown, Louisville Baptist Deaf Church…if I am not mistaken, never really used any visual aids until they saw how much of an impact it made at their Deaf Cafe events towards the deaf that were coming and had no church home. Now, the church is using it more for their preaching and for their worship. Overall, it helps!

Deaf worship varies, yes.  I still cherish the ASL songs that have NO music. I envy those who can perform expressive music without sounds. (I have tried and have not really gotten into it) There is a deaf volunteer who sings for Louisville Baptist Deaf Church, Milton Walters…oh my gosh! He by far, blows my heart away with his expressive ASL music. That is cherished everywhere I go because it helps me in my worship as to feed me. But when I get up there to express music in ASL music WITH sound, I am sure there are quite a few who are blown away as well. It is all Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has no limits to how we should express ourselves in worship. Again, I close this with the saying….”If God is in it, who are we to be against it?”

Deaf Ministry 101: Music & Visual Aids

Hello to all my viewers out there. I am not sure who views my blog from out and beyond the Louisville area. I wanted to take this time to share some insights on my experiences with deaf ministry work with anyone who is considering starting up a new one, taking over one, or just along for the ride to support another person who is in the leading role. A few months ago, when I joined the blog world, one of my friends who is the associate pastor of another Deaf Church had something in mind for a deaf ministry series. I am not sure what he had in mind, but I guess I will go forward into it and see whether he jumps in or not. For the rest of you guys, feel free to ask questions or add your own comments.

As you may or may not know, I have 12 years of deaf ministry experience which I have held numerous roles from sunday school teacher, deaf ministry leader, deaf conference vice president, pastor, supporter, visitation group leader, Small groups leader, mentor, and others I can’t think of the top of my head now. I have led numerous workshops and preached about a dozen or more deaf revivals, ministry events, and deaf conferences.

But amid all of that I want to talk about is my second passion as a minister…music. Music has always been on my heart ever since I learned my first country music song which was in the 6th grade…the name of the song was “Always and Forever” by Randy Travis. I guess growing up with parents that loved that type of music, I really didnt have much other exposure other than what my family was listening to.

But when I got involved in the deaf ministry world, the first deaf song I saw in ASL was “Praise Him…Praise Him…Praise Him in the morning…Praise Him in the noontime…Praise Him…Praise Him….Praise Him until the sun goes down”  Interesting song, yes but it also became a weekly habit to sing that song in ASL every week. Almost like the doxolgy song that some churches today sing on a weekly basis…no offense, its not what I enjoy as a Deaf person and it does not communicate anything of interest to me.

In 2000, I joined a church that changed the entire perspective of how Deaf people needed to be reached through the lyrics of a song….this is the part where I want to label as: Welcome to PowerPoint.

Powerpoint has blessed many churches today…but praise be to God who gave man the ability to develop this because it helps ALOT of deaf churches and deaf ministries today. Especially in the area of sermons and music. In the case for sermons, a normal hearing person could look down and hear the minister speaking the verses as he follows along…whereas in the deaf ministry or deaf church’s case, the deaf can look at the powerpoint slide of the verse, look back at the minister signing the verse and later record the verse for themselves to check later for their own personal reading. It has helped tremendously in my ministry for the last few years.

it also has helped in the case for music.  If there is NO music video or visual aids to show of a song that God has led me to sing in ASL…all I have to do is type up the lyrics in powerpoint and voila…the deaf can follow it. Almost similiar to a screen with subtitles.

There is also the option of creating a movie yourself which is time-consuming and very little do it that I have seen. Programs like MoveMaker or Macromedia Flash are the typical programs to use for these if a desire is placed in my heart to create a music video with a selected song inputted. I beleive I have done maybe 4 or 5 of these type of files and have greatly benefited from using them time and time again.

Probably the most popular that most Deaf churches use are from Integrity I-Worship DVDs which consists of song mixed from hymns to contemporary Christian music. Subtitles are optioned in as well as beautiful pictures of scenery from waterfalls to ocean-crashing beaches. I beleive as we speak, there are 7 DVDs of Iworship @ home which has 14 songs each DVD. This is widely used in many Deaf churches that I have visited in various parts of the region.

Now the question is…after hearing about all the options that Deaf churches can us for music and visual aids…the question that may pop up frequently is “Why do Deaf NEED this?”

The answer is really quite simple…Deaf depends on visual because they can’t HEAR. Now some of us like myself and Stephen can hear a little bit but still the visual impact of a song makes the experience much more inspiring to worship. I cannot explain in words how much more my worship has been heightened through the use of visual aids. But then the next question pops up would be, “Isn’t using technology in churches the same as worshipping technology?”  No, not really. We appreciate techonology because it helps the worship alot more for Deaf. Although, I am a technology freak but I say that because I am always looking for better improvements to help the Deaf be more inspired through a Deaf Worship.

A hymnal book in a Deaf church is a great traditional way, but in today’s world..we need to get out of the “old wineskins” and start thinking new changes and new methods to reach the lost Deaf. In our case, the breakthrough would be through the use of powerpoint, visual aids, and things to exalt our Savior through the worship experience.

Closing this topic would be hard but I will for now…the last thing I would like to add, however, is that in the last 4 years that I have worked with Deaf ministry….I have seen more Deaf people remember Christian music through the use of a subtitled video or DVD that was used at a worship event. I can remember maybe 3 songs growing up by singing from the hymnal books or the paperback bulletins at church on sunday mornings….but I can remember almost an entire DVD of music from I-worship. 

Also, many of you may be asking “Deaf..music..sound…How can Deaf hear the music?” Do not worry, some of us can hear it and some of us can feel it. The key thing is: Bass.  If we turn it up enough, we can feel it so that the person signing the song on stage can be more inspired to sign with all their hearts…and the people in the congregation can sing with all their hearts too. Everything in a deaf church doesnt have to rely on sound, many Deaf churches today use no music…and sing in ASL only from the heart. Every singer has their own giftedness in music. Some are pure ASL, some are a mixture of ASL / English signs, and some are just directly from the heart with no music. All are used in Deaf worship. I personally do not do a song in ASL until I have studied the song for a few weeks. For example, I Can Only Imagine by MercyMe was the first song I did in ASL in 2003 for a deaf ministry event…..today, I totally do the song differently. What does that mean? The ASL version of songs can change from time to time….If God is in it, who can be against it?

Deaf212 Event

Just to let everyone…this Friday is our church’s Deaf212 event (Deaf Social event) We will have dramas, music, games, fellowship, fun, and a guest Deaf speaker. We will also have a dessert contest too. Come and join the fellowship!

Where?     at Southeast Christian Church in AT 106-109

When?     April 18th, 2008 (Friday)

Time?     6:30-9:30pm

A-H  bring a dish of meat to share (ravioli, sausage links, meatballs, ham, turkey)               

I-Q  please bring a dish of vegetables to share (corn, green beans, carrots, broccoli, etc.)   

R-Z please bring a bowl of salad and things for salad (cheese spread, dressings, bacon bits, etc.)         

And everyone please bring a 2-liter drink.