Issue: Summer 2014 | Posted: June 2, 2014

Breaking the Silence

Union Launches Theological Education for the Deaf

Aric Randolph, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church, speaks to the congregation at Brentwood Baptist Church.

It should have been a moment of unbridled joy and celebration.

Vesta Sauter remembers the day her deaf father went forward during the invitation at church. He wanted to make a public profession of his desire to enter full-time ministry.

But the family’s joy quickly turned to disappointment when the pastor let her father know that there was no way for deaf people to receive theological training, and therefore they couldn’t be formally certified for ministry work.

That disappointment, nearly half a century ago, led to a firm resolve in Vesta’s life.

She decided then that she would stand in the gap between the hearing and the deaf and work toward solving the problem. Union University is now a partner in that resolve.

Union is launching a program to provide theological education for deaf missionaries and church planters.

Through a partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, the Southern Baptist Conference for the Deaf, Brentwood Baptist Church and Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church, deaf believers can receive customized theological training for missions and ministry and earn a Certificate in Theology Education.

“A significant number of the world’s unreached people are deaf,” said Carla Sanderson, Union’s provost emeritus. “The CTE is giving deaf missionaries the tools they need to share the gospel through story-telling techniques so that deaf people can know the good news.”

An estimated 35 million people in the world are deaf, and each day 750 of them die without knowing Jesus. With no deaf-centric theological education available, some deaf Southern Baptists called to reach those who share their heart language have been unable to meet IMB requirements for career missionary status.

Sanderson said she believes God will use the center “to reach those millions of people that we’ve heard about today who need to hear the gospel story.”

Six students are enrolled in five classes taught in American Sign Language by fluent ASL signers: Old Testament, New Testament, biblical doctrine, biblical hermeneutics and missions/ church planting.

For years, Brentwood Baptist’s vision has been to become a global equipping hub for deaf missionaries, church planters, pastors and other men and women who want to receive deaf-centric theological training for missions and ministry.

Vesta and her husband Mark Sauter serve with IMB in creating global strategies to reach deaf people with the gospel.

Union Provost Emeritus Carla Sanderson (right) speaks at an April 13 service at Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church that celebrated a partnership to provide theological education to deaf missionaries and church planters.

“This is an opportunity, I believe, to prepare personnel for effective, practical church planting, evangelism and the reproduction of indigenous leaders,” Mark Sauter said. “I really don’t know how much better it gets than where we are today, and I’m very excited about the opportunity to help launch this.”

Grant Lovejoy, IMB’s director of storying strategies, said the Sauters helped IMB staff “realize that deaf people are part of a deaf culture that is unique and distinctive.”

“You really need teachers who understand deaf culture well [and] teach in the way that deaf people learn best, through stories and through lots of interaction and dialogue, through role-play and through active learning — learning by doing,” Lovejoy said.

Aric Randolph, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Deaf Church, said through an interpreter, “To be totally honest, we’re starting with five classes, but my vision is that we could become a four-year college.”

“That’s my goal, my dream, my passion, for deaf people to have the opportunity to receive the training they need, that they could be church planters, they could be pastors, leaders,” Randolph said.