Florida Multicultural District’s Integrative Approach to Equipping the Deaf Community

In a collaborative and integrative approach to their School of Ministry, the
Florida Multicultural District supports and accommodates students from across the globe in a variety of
languages and formats including those from the deaf community. As a
multicultural district, offering courses for a diverse group of people is
nothing new for this School of Ministry. The school works hard to provide
courses to English speakers, Spanish speakers, international students, and the
deaf and hard of hearing.

Fifteen years ago, Abner Adorno, lead and founding pastor of
Viva Church and
district superintendent of the Florida Multicultural District, began to have a
burden for unreached people groups. Although his mind immediately went to
overseas ministry, when Adorno heard that the deaf community was the most
unreached and underserved group in churches, he knew that this was the group to
which God was calling him.

As he began to explore how to reach this underserved
community, he crossed paths with Brenda Flores. At the time,
Flores had been serving the deaf community for several years and was working
with a specific group who were in search of a church home. When they came to
the church, Adorno immediately began to ask Flores how they could make church a
better experience for them.

Flores explained that the majority of the time, those who
require a sign language interpreter are segregated by this specific ministry
instead of integrated in with the hearing body of the church. “We began to
explore how to integrate them in the church but also as servants in ministry,”
Adorno says. And as they explored, many began to respond to volunteer and
ministry opportunities. “We tend to lean towards praying for healing,” says
Flores, “but we need to equip people who are deaf to become ministers within
their own communities.” Adorno states that they had to start asking themselves
how they would prepare their congregants who were deaf for the ministry and the
calls they were receiving on their lives from the Lord.

Although the Florida Multicultural District School of
Ministry was operating bilingually in English and Spanish, it was not equipped
to receive members of the deaf community. “I knew we had to find a way so we
asked Pastor Brenda to interpret for the teacher which allowed our hard of
hearing friends to be part of the mainstream community,” he says.

The first seven deaf students completed their first year in
2014 and there was immediate growth and interest in the program. Over the past
several years, there have been continued developments making it easier for
persons who are deaf to become certified and eventually licensed ministers
through the Assemblies of God. Pathways are offered which lead all the way
through ordination. This year, there are over 40 individuals enrolled who are
deaf or hard of hearing. Leading the students as principal of the Equip for Life School of Ministry,
the extension of the Florida Multicultural District Theological Institute, is
Stephanie Fernandez, one of the five deaf graduates from the original
integrated class of 2015. “Our goal was always that a deaf person would take
over and now one of our original graduates has taken the ropes and is running
with it,” Flores says.

As Flores continued to grow her ministry, she became the
lead pastor of Viva Deaf,
a church for those who are deaf within the parent church, Viva Church. Despite
the church being small in numbers, they are big in heart. “Our church of only
around 35 people is doing incredible things, especially by way of missions,”
states Flores. Viva Deaf is sending out its first missionary this year, Mike
Geckle, who will be helping to translate the Bible into different sign
languages.  The church, alongside its
parent church, Viva Church, is also financially and operationally leading the
opening of a deaf school in Africa that will educate and minister to 130
children. “Viva Deaf is constantly going on mission trips, working on projects
to get the Bible translated into different sign languages, and is starting into
church planting as well,” says Adorno.

“We are so blessed that our district has done whatever we
asked to make all of these things happen for our friends in the deaf
community,” Flores says. She went on to say that the importance of such
ministries is vital. “If we don’t equip them, the world will,” she says, “and
it will equip them with wrong or inaccurate teaching.” Although Flores says that
the work was hard, the ministry potential that is being unlocked has been worth
every minute.