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Deaf Believers' Fellowship

DOOR’s Deaf leaders and staff worldwide choose to sign “believers’ fellowship” rather than church. Deaf leaders feel that the term “church” often denotes a dedicated church building with a full-time paid pastor. Using the term “believers’ fellowship” helps them remember the that not all churches have to be modeled after a particular stereotype which can often be ineffective in the Deaf world.

Deaf people connect with God and worship Him very differently than hearing people do. There is one God, one Lord, and one body, but we are diverse. God receives and enjoys worship from hundreds of different cultures and languages all over the world. He rejoices to receive true worship from the hearts of Deaf people as well, and this happens best in the context of an indigenous Deaf believers’ fellowship.

Worship

In a Deaf believers’ fellowship, Deaf people create their own Deaf worship music, sometimes using a drum to keep the beat. Hearing music is tones, instruments, voices, and sounds, while Deaf music is motion, rhythm, hands and eyes. Hearing music doesn’t usher the Deaf into God’s presence the way that Deaf music does.

Prayer

Many Deaf people prefer to pray with their eyes open and their heads raised. Closed eyes in the midst of Deaf conversations are quite rude and disrespectful.

Fellowship

In a Deaf believers’ fellowship, Deaf people can experience true fellowship. They can communicate in sign language, develop friendships, encourage each other, listen to and understand pains and joys, and draw each other closer to God. In a hearing church, despite the very best of intentions, this is usually not practical or possible for Deaf people, simply because of the language barrier between Deaf and hearing members.

God's Word

Deaf people are consummate storytellers. They pass on information, values, and traditions through stories told in precise chronological order. In a Deaf believers’ fellowship, they are free to teach God’s Word in story format as well, rather than thematic teaching involving various Scriptures. The stories are repeated in drama and song, with the goal of everyone in the fellowship learning the story by heart. Deaf people also learn best interactively. In a Deaf believers’ fellowship, they are free to ask questions, seek clarification, discuss meaning, and ponder application together. Most hearing worship services are not set up with such an opportunity for interaction.

Outreach

A Deaf believers’ fellowship can focus time, energy, finances, and other resources on specifically reaching their local Deaf community, the Deaf of their country, and the Deaf of the world. Deaf people will find a Deaf Believers’ fellowship an attractive, exciting, and welcoming place, where they do not have to overcome cultural or linguistic barriers, or watch an interpreter, to understand the message. Strong, healthy Deaf believers’ fellowships reproduce and effectively begin to penetrate the Deaf world with the gospel.

Spiritual Gifts

Every believer is given spiritual gifts. In a hearing church setting, often Deaf people can only be objects of someone else’s ministry. But God has created all of us to be ministers, including the Deaf. In a Deaf believers’ fellowship, each person is free to use their spiritual gifts, talents and passion to serve in the work of the ministry.

Deaf people best understand the Gospel when a Deaf believer shares it with them in the local sign language. Furthermore, Deaf people prefer to learn new information in a chronological order. They like to “see the big picture” from beginning to end.

That’s why our Deaf staff chose Chronological Bible Translation as the most culturally appropriate way to communicate God’s Word with Deaf communities. We’ve found CBT to be a very clear, accurate, and natural way to teach unreached Deaf people about God. Because Deaf people can easily understand God’s Word when it is in narrative form, they are able to go and teach it to others.

Each Chronological Bible Translation consists of 110 biblical narratives from Genesis to Revelation. Each narrative is accompanied by an introduction to give context, and a section giving more information about the passage.

These 110 narratives are divided into three overlapping sets:

Evangelism (“Know God How?”) — 32 narratives from Genesis 1 through Acts 2
Discipleship (“Follow God How?”) — 77 narratives from Genesis 1 through Acts 2
Church Planting (“Serve God How?”) — 35 narratives from Acts 1 through Revelation
Deaf believers use the CBT to lead Bible studies, home groups, worship services, leadership training classes, children’s classes, camp programs, and much more.

Repeatedly, the Deaf say that they never really understood the Bible until they saw a Chronological Bible Translation.

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.