This post continues the Mission Table’s “Year of Partnership” highlighting the new and strategic ministries of the Minneapolis Area Synod. Bread of Life Deaf Lutheran Church is one of the strategic ministries and worships in Minneapolis.


By Janie Barlow
Communications and Office Manager at Bread of Life Deaf Lutheran Church

Bread of Life Deaf Lutheran Church may surprise some people. Some of you may be trying to picture in your minds how Deaf people can worship and how they honor God in their fellowship. For most of you, perhaps we are something new for you to learn about. For some of you, we are partners in ministry or have become acquainted with each other. Perhaps you have seen some of our leaders and members at different Synod events with American Sign Language interpreters. Here’s the scoop!

We are Bread of Life Deaf, also known as BOLD, and our number one focus is Deaf Ministry. We serve the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deaf Blind community in the Twin Cities area as well as the farther parts of Minnesota. In recent years, our livestreams have also reached Deaf individuals and Deaf ministries across the United States. We even connect with some Deaf and Deaf ministries in Africa! Our church has been Deaf-run, Deaf-owned for 70 years now! Psst, that means we are older than the ELCA and MAS. We had a building that we owned for 68 years. Recently, we moved to live under Minnehaha Communion Lutheran Church to live without the added stress and financial responsibility of maintaining a building with an aging congregation, as we decided to instead shift our focus and our ministry back to the Deaf community.

Through the years, we have had a number of hearing Pastors lead or take over our congregation (“hearing” is what we call the population that have full use of their ears). We have supported all the hearing Pastors in taking their time to learn our language, American Sign Language (ASL). We also teach and support them as they learn our culture and our needs. We have had two deaf or hard of hearing Pastors in our 70 years of ministry. We have had a Deaf Deacon, Dorothy Sparks, for well over 30 years. We have grown in numbers and we have declined in numbers. We are currently in the same situation that many small churches are in – we are working to figure out what and how our ministry works and what that looks like in this day and age while trying to do it all with a small group of regular people. We know that we want to serve our Deaf community and its members, and we can also serve our local community. Combining the two or serving the two are easier said than done. We also are in great need of supporting and lifting up potential future Deaf leaders to serve in Deaf Ministry. With all of this discerning and planning, it is easy to get overwhelmed.

 

One thing that has not changed in the 70 years of BOLD would be the way that we have worship. Worship is ALWAYS expressed in American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is our core, is our safety, is our culture, and is our connection to one another. Fellowship comes easy when it comes to the Deaf community. We all have different backgrounds, different degrees of hearing loss, different devices (or none) used to hear, and different skill levels of signing but that doesn’t stop us from being welcoming and connecting with one another. Our music is not your music. When we have music in our worship service, our music is loud and deep with bass and drums beating. We FEEL the music, and worship through this music. We also SHOW our worship as we sign to the heavens and praise our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. As we pray each week, our hands move in prayer as if we tell a story. Sometimes, a gospel story turns into a small performance – ASL can sometimes look like that! We cherish and fiercely protect our culture and Deaf ministry.

That’s not to say that we exclude others – quite the opposite. If we have visitors who are learning or want to learn ASL on any level, they’re welcome! If we find others that want to learn about us and truly want to understand how to be an ally for our church and our community, welcome! If you’re simply curious about how a Deaf church worships or you’re visiting by an invitation of one of our community members, we welcome you! Each one of us is a child of God, and through God, we are the family and body of Christ. We have been here for 70 years, and with God’s Blessings, we hope to be around for many more!