Deaf Ministry and Deaconess Internship

Beginning on July 1st of 2022 Concordia Theological Seminary Deaconess Student Camille Cox assisted Pastor Fuller during her Internship at Christ Lutheran in providing Deaf Bible study and joint services of Hearing and Deaf at Christ Lutheran Church. Deaf Ministry through Christ Lutheran sought to build community through ASL classes for the hearing, and monthly fellowship activities and events for the Deaf community at large.

Deaf Ministry beginning in the Fall of 2023 has focused on providing ASL interpretation for worship and pastoral care needs on select Sundays often through the same interpreter through Luna Language service .

Stained glass art currently from the former building for Peace Lutheran Church for the deaf in Indianapolis

For more information about deaf ministry at Christ Lutheran email Pastor Fuller at: christlutheran.indy@gmail.com

Goals:

Transcript::

Hello! It’s me again, deaconess intern Camille Cox, here at Christ Lutheran Church.

Pastor Fuller, Christ Lutheran Church, and I want to thank you all for your prayers and support, they are much appreciated. 

And now, we have several goals I want to explain.

The first and most important goal, obviously, is that we are able to share the Gospel with the deaf. We hope and pray the Holy Spirit will use us to share His gifts with the deaf. We want to share that God’s own son, Jesus Christ, came down from heaven and died for them. We are doing this by inviting the deaf to church, holding events for the deaf and hearing people who are learning sign, praying for them, visiting them, and in general serving them. This first goal is our most important goal, and the one that guides the other two goals we have.  

Now for the second goal. We want to support the work of different churches around Indiana in their work. Some of these churches also have deaf ministries. We are supporting them with prayer of course, but also through the internet, we are helping the pastors learn sign or putting them in contact with those in their area who know sign, and I am also traveling to these other sites to help out.

Our third goal centers around students, who we believe it is important to support. Both deaf and hearing students, really any student who wants to serve the deaf later on, we want to support them. For example, if a deaf student wants to become a pastor, deaconess, or worker- church worker, we want to support that. Or if a hearing student want to become an interpreter and work for the church to serve the deaf, we want to support them. We want to do this by helping them financially, helping with their studies, or really any way we can help, we want to do that. For example, if a deaf student wants to go to a church conference like Higher Things, we want to help ensure interpreters are there. If they need financial help, we want to have funds available for awarding them a scholarship. In those different ways, we want to be helping and supporting students. That’s it for our third goal.

These three goals are very important for deaf ministry, so please continue praying and supporting us. And… have a good weekend! Bye!

Resources:

Deaf Bible App:

https://deaf.bible/ASLV/GEN.1.1

NAD (National Association of the Deaf):