We believe that Deaf believers are the best people to reach unreached Deaf communities. However, due to a lack of resources, Deaf Christians have almost no access to God’s Word. Deaf-friendly training in evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and leadership development is even rarer.
DOOR’s 2-by-2 program seeks to remedy this. We help recruit and train teams of two Deaf leaders (an evangelist and a teacher), called a 2-by-2 team.
These teams are trained, equipped with a translation of God’s Word in the local sign language, and then sent into a city to do the following:
- build relationships with local Deaf
- share God’s Word in the local sign language
- disciple new believers
- help form local Deaf believers’ fellowships
- identify and train Deaf evangelists, teachers, and leaders
- help the Deaf form their own national Deaf Christian association
The goal is a model of Deaf-led church planting that is reproducible and sustainable. These local fellowships are not “DOOR churches,” but instead are led and run by local believers.
The 2-by-2 teams follow the practice of the Apostle Paul, staying in a given city until fellowships and leaders have been established (and can reproduce themselves), and then moving on to new cities to continue the process.