Miss-Delectable
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- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
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Signing of the cross
Brian Cross's hands and arms move quickly, his face etched with expression as he shares his views of Jesus' healing powers. He pauses often in front of his PowerPoint presentation for dramatic effect, catching the eyes and nods of the roughly 20 in attendance at his Wednesday night Bible study at Anchor Baptist Church.
The group is assembled in the church's basement choir room, and amid billowy white choir robes and shelves of black music hymnals, Cross doesn't speak a word. But his message of Jesus' authority to heal the paralyzed and the sick is soaked up by his rapt congregation.
Cross is deaf.
And, on this evening, so is every member of his audience. Together they form the Bluegrass Deaf Mission. BDM is thought to be the first church for the deaf and hearing-impaired run by the deaf in Lexington. The group began as an outreach ministry of Anchor Baptist in January 2005, and it hopes to become autonomous eventually. For now, though, the roughly 30 members of BDM are considered Anchor members, too.
"We're a church within a church," explains Beth Cross, Brian's hearing wife of 17 years, who on this particular night was serving, as she often does, as Brian's sign language interpreter for the group.
She speaks seamlessly as he signs, putting voice to the images he's evoking for the congregation via American Sign Language, or ASL. On this evening, it seems she's translating mostly for the benefit of the Herald-Leader reporter and photographer in attendance.
The rest of the group -- an unusually diverse mix of men and women, black and white, seniors and middle-age, many with Bibles in their laps -- are receiving the Good News solely through Brian's signs. Many say it's Brian and his expertise with ASL that brought them to BDM in the first place.
A pictorial language
"We come because Brian signs very well in American Sign Language, and that draws people," explains Connie Dotson, through Beth Cross's interpretation. "The language is much more pictorial. ... So people are fascinated by that, and can learn better by that."
Dotson says that because Brian Cross's first language is ASL, his deaf congregation can relate intimately with "the oral pictures" of his language, more seamlessly than they might to a hearing pastor who has learned ASL later in life. A hearing person's signing is often less fluid, because they come to ASL as a second language, she explained. "There is a big difference," she said.
The deaf mission began when Brian Cross approached Anchor Baptist Church's pastor, Paul Sisk, and expressed his belief that God was calling him to begin a ministry geared specifically to the deaf with him as a deaf pastor, said Sisk, who himself has signed for 12 years.
Because of Sisk's interest in communicating with the deaf, he'd "hoped that there would be an opportunity" to minister to that community once he became Anchor's pastor in 2000. But even he has been a bit surprised at the speed of BDM's growth.
The group began as a weekly Bible study in the Crosses' home, but within months it outgrew the space and moved into Anchor's choir room. Eventually, when Anchor's new, expanded facilities are completed in March 2009, BDM will have a larger meeting space as well as room to begin offering recreational and leisure activities for its deaf members, Sisk said.
In addition to ordaining Cross as its deaf pastor, BDM has established its own operating budget and recently ordained three deaf deacons.
"Originally we began this as a ministry, but when Brian came to this thing and really started to run with it, and to shepherd it, we said, 'Wow, I think God wants this thing to stand alone one day,'" Sisk said.
"We began to seek the Lord's wisdom and pray about it, and we feel very convicted that that is the direction he wants us to go in. And one day, I'm hoping that it will be (autonomous and renamed) the Bluegrass Deaf Church."
A place of their own
As the only deaf church in the area, the group draws from all denominations -- Baptist, Catholic, and Methodist, and from throughout Central Kentucky, with members from Lexington, Frankfort, Winchester and Danville, Beth Cross said.
Many of the BDM's members used to attend services provided through deaf ministries at other churches, but they say they enjoy the fellowship of now having a place of their own.
"It's very welcoming. I love all the people here," said BDM member Nancy Etherton, who is the group's Sunday school director. Etherton added, through Beth Cross's interpretation, that since she is deaf and her husband is hearing, the arrangement at Anchor is ideal for her family.
While deaf members converge downstairs for Sunday morning services and Wednesday night Bible study, a family's hearing members can meet upstairs at the same times in Anchor's main worship space, or they can choose to worship as a family together at BDM.
The arrangement has suited the Cross family well, too. Beth and Brian have two sons: Dave, 15, who is deaf, and Ethan, 13, who is hearing.
"Dave comes in and out of the deaf stuff, and does the hearing stuff when he wants to," Beth Cross said. "Sitting in here right now," she said, gesturing to the crowd at this particular Wednesday night Bible study, "there are four families who have (hearing) children, and the kids are off upstairs doing their things."
On Sundays, the BDM services often have hearing parents with their deaf children, or deaf parents with their hearing children in attendance. About 15 percent of BDM's active members are hearing, Brian Cross said. They draw on the assistance of Beth Cross or one of Anchor's four other ASL interpreters to hear Brian's sermons.
In turn, with the help of the interpreters, the BDM group occasionally worships on Sundays within Anchor's larger hearing congregation.
"We don't do it all that often, but when we do, it's a wonderful experience," Sisk said.
For Brian Cross, getting to watch his congregation's "eyes becoming open to God's works" as he teaches and shares about the Bible has been the best part of his work as Anchor's pastor of the deaf, he said.
Answering the call
Though you couldn't tell it from his current fervor, Brian Cross came to his calling to ministry reluctantly.
Formerly a computer operator at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Cross lost his job when the facility moved his department to Alabama. For the next 11 years, he managed his rental properties and tried to look for other jobs, but with little luck, he said through Beth's interpretation.
Cross says he "knew there was something God wanted me to do, but the vision was a little vague." Eventually, within a short span of time three women mentioned to him independently that he should become a minister. Each time, he adamantly said, "No, that's not for me. I'm not ready," he said.
But then he realized, when he was studying his Bible, that "Peter had denied Jesus three times, and that fit me to a T," he said.
"I denied him the same," he said. "Then I knew it was time for me to go do it. I had to be willing at that point."
Now Cross is enrolled in seminary extension courses through an affiliate of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
Sisk has been so inspired by the success of the BDM that he's working on proposals to begin a similar mission church to minister to the blind and visually impaired, he said.
"I'd like to be in the position to birth churches," Sisk said. "That's where our goal is, not to be a megachurch, not to keep growing to the point where I cannot shepherd the flock, but where we begin birthing new churches. We want to be an incubator, if you will."
For now, though, the partnership between Anchor and the Bluegrass Deaf Mission is nearly ideal, for all involved.
"It's perfect," said Beth Cross of the arrangement. "God provided it."
To learn more
Bluegrass Deaf Mission holds Sunday School at 9 a.m. on Sundays, followed by worship services at 10:20 a.m. Each Wednesday, it holds Bible study at 6 p.m. The group meets in the choir room at Anchor Baptist Church, 3601 Winthrop Drive, Lexington.
For more information, e-mail Brian Cross at Great.Escape@insightbb. com or call him via video-relay service by dialing 1-866-327-8877 and asking for phone number (859) 219-2194.
Brian Cross's hands and arms move quickly, his face etched with expression as he shares his views of Jesus' healing powers. He pauses often in front of his PowerPoint presentation for dramatic effect, catching the eyes and nods of the roughly 20 in attendance at his Wednesday night Bible study at Anchor Baptist Church.
The group is assembled in the church's basement choir room, and amid billowy white choir robes and shelves of black music hymnals, Cross doesn't speak a word. But his message of Jesus' authority to heal the paralyzed and the sick is soaked up by his rapt congregation.
Cross is deaf.
And, on this evening, so is every member of his audience. Together they form the Bluegrass Deaf Mission. BDM is thought to be the first church for the deaf and hearing-impaired run by the deaf in Lexington. The group began as an outreach ministry of Anchor Baptist in January 2005, and it hopes to become autonomous eventually. For now, though, the roughly 30 members of BDM are considered Anchor members, too.
"We're a church within a church," explains Beth Cross, Brian's hearing wife of 17 years, who on this particular night was serving, as she often does, as Brian's sign language interpreter for the group.
She speaks seamlessly as he signs, putting voice to the images he's evoking for the congregation via American Sign Language, or ASL. On this evening, it seems she's translating mostly for the benefit of the Herald-Leader reporter and photographer in attendance.
The rest of the group -- an unusually diverse mix of men and women, black and white, seniors and middle-age, many with Bibles in their laps -- are receiving the Good News solely through Brian's signs. Many say it's Brian and his expertise with ASL that brought them to BDM in the first place.
A pictorial language
"We come because Brian signs very well in American Sign Language, and that draws people," explains Connie Dotson, through Beth Cross's interpretation. "The language is much more pictorial. ... So people are fascinated by that, and can learn better by that."
Dotson says that because Brian Cross's first language is ASL, his deaf congregation can relate intimately with "the oral pictures" of his language, more seamlessly than they might to a hearing pastor who has learned ASL later in life. A hearing person's signing is often less fluid, because they come to ASL as a second language, she explained. "There is a big difference," she said.
The deaf mission began when Brian Cross approached Anchor Baptist Church's pastor, Paul Sisk, and expressed his belief that God was calling him to begin a ministry geared specifically to the deaf with him as a deaf pastor, said Sisk, who himself has signed for 12 years.
Because of Sisk's interest in communicating with the deaf, he'd "hoped that there would be an opportunity" to minister to that community once he became Anchor's pastor in 2000. But even he has been a bit surprised at the speed of BDM's growth.
The group began as a weekly Bible study in the Crosses' home, but within months it outgrew the space and moved into Anchor's choir room. Eventually, when Anchor's new, expanded facilities are completed in March 2009, BDM will have a larger meeting space as well as room to begin offering recreational and leisure activities for its deaf members, Sisk said.
In addition to ordaining Cross as its deaf pastor, BDM has established its own operating budget and recently ordained three deaf deacons.
"Originally we began this as a ministry, but when Brian came to this thing and really started to run with it, and to shepherd it, we said, 'Wow, I think God wants this thing to stand alone one day,'" Sisk said.
"We began to seek the Lord's wisdom and pray about it, and we feel very convicted that that is the direction he wants us to go in. And one day, I'm hoping that it will be (autonomous and renamed) the Bluegrass Deaf Church."
A place of their own
As the only deaf church in the area, the group draws from all denominations -- Baptist, Catholic, and Methodist, and from throughout Central Kentucky, with members from Lexington, Frankfort, Winchester and Danville, Beth Cross said.
Many of the BDM's members used to attend services provided through deaf ministries at other churches, but they say they enjoy the fellowship of now having a place of their own.
"It's very welcoming. I love all the people here," said BDM member Nancy Etherton, who is the group's Sunday school director. Etherton added, through Beth Cross's interpretation, that since she is deaf and her husband is hearing, the arrangement at Anchor is ideal for her family.
While deaf members converge downstairs for Sunday morning services and Wednesday night Bible study, a family's hearing members can meet upstairs at the same times in Anchor's main worship space, or they can choose to worship as a family together at BDM.
The arrangement has suited the Cross family well, too. Beth and Brian have two sons: Dave, 15, who is deaf, and Ethan, 13, who is hearing.
"Dave comes in and out of the deaf stuff, and does the hearing stuff when he wants to," Beth Cross said. "Sitting in here right now," she said, gesturing to the crowd at this particular Wednesday night Bible study, "there are four families who have (hearing) children, and the kids are off upstairs doing their things."
On Sundays, the BDM services often have hearing parents with their deaf children, or deaf parents with their hearing children in attendance. About 15 percent of BDM's active members are hearing, Brian Cross said. They draw on the assistance of Beth Cross or one of Anchor's four other ASL interpreters to hear Brian's sermons.
In turn, with the help of the interpreters, the BDM group occasionally worships on Sundays within Anchor's larger hearing congregation.
"We don't do it all that often, but when we do, it's a wonderful experience," Sisk said.
For Brian Cross, getting to watch his congregation's "eyes becoming open to God's works" as he teaches and shares about the Bible has been the best part of his work as Anchor's pastor of the deaf, he said.
Answering the call
Though you couldn't tell it from his current fervor, Brian Cross came to his calling to ministry reluctantly.
Formerly a computer operator at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Cross lost his job when the facility moved his department to Alabama. For the next 11 years, he managed his rental properties and tried to look for other jobs, but with little luck, he said through Beth's interpretation.
Cross says he "knew there was something God wanted me to do, but the vision was a little vague." Eventually, within a short span of time three women mentioned to him independently that he should become a minister. Each time, he adamantly said, "No, that's not for me. I'm not ready," he said.
But then he realized, when he was studying his Bible, that "Peter had denied Jesus three times, and that fit me to a T," he said.
"I denied him the same," he said. "Then I knew it was time for me to go do it. I had to be willing at that point."
Now Cross is enrolled in seminary extension courses through an affiliate of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
Sisk has been so inspired by the success of the BDM that he's working on proposals to begin a similar mission church to minister to the blind and visually impaired, he said.
"I'd like to be in the position to birth churches," Sisk said. "That's where our goal is, not to be a megachurch, not to keep growing to the point where I cannot shepherd the flock, but where we begin birthing new churches. We want to be an incubator, if you will."
For now, though, the partnership between Anchor and the Bluegrass Deaf Mission is nearly ideal, for all involved.
"It's perfect," said Beth Cross of the arrangement. "God provided it."
To learn more
Bluegrass Deaf Mission holds Sunday School at 9 a.m. on Sundays, followed by worship services at 10:20 a.m. Each Wednesday, it holds Bible study at 6 p.m. The group meets in the choir room at Anchor Baptist Church, 3601 Winthrop Drive, Lexington.
For more information, e-mail Brian Cross at Great.Escape@insightbb. com or call him via video-relay service by dialing 1-866-327-8877 and asking for phone number (859) 219-2194.