It was our desire to make it possible for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to participate in worship and Bible study by sharing in the message presented each week, as well as the Lord's Supper and prayers. Thus the sign language ministry was started a couple of years ago.

All of the interpreters have Bachelor's degrees or higher. Most of those degrees are in education. Some of the interpreters have taken college-level or other accredited sign language classes, but for the most part all of them are self-taught. No one is ASL certified, although that is the eventual goal.

Some references used by the interpreters are: the website aslpro.com, "A Complete Idiot's Guide to Conversational Signing" book and DVD, "A Basic Course in American Sign Language", and various sign language dictionaries.

If you are someone or know someone that is deaf, we would like to invite you to join us this Sunday. Our interpreters are not preaching, they are only interpreting what is being preached. If you would like more information about this ministry, please contact Ron Crawford our Communications Deacon. He will place you in touch with the interpreters. Rscrawford@amherstchurch.org. See you Sunday and God Bless.