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Desire to Reach Out
Pastor Mark Winkelman, above, entered the seminary in 2004 desiring to reach out to a group in need of hearing the Gospel.
He says, "My first summer there, a friend invited me to attend Holy Cross Lutheran Church for the Deaf (St. Louis). I did not know sign language and struggled with languages but I heard God's call and immediately requested to be placed as field worker at Holy Cross. I began learning sign on my own and with the help of Pastor Richard Moody at Holy Cross."
Upon graduation in 2008, Winkelman sought placement in a congregation willing to start deaf ministry. "Many other churches saw my interest in deaf work and said they didn't need me because they didn't have any deaf members," he says.
Meanwhile, 95% or more of the people who are deaf and living in our communities are unchurched. In God's providence, his home congregation of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Morrison welcomed him back to initiate new deaf work in northern Illinois.
If you have a heart for sharing the Gospel with people who are deaf, please contact Pastor Mark Winkelman and let him know. |
New Model for New Deaf Missions
By Rev. Keith Haney, District Mission Facilitator
June 2010
There have been some exciting developments in starting new mission work among people who are deaf in the Northern Illinois. Pastor Mark Winkelman, new as pastor at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Morrison, but a son of the congregation (and the preacher's kid), has a "sign choir" at that church and is in the beginning stages of a new outreach, with the help of a seasoned pastor to people who are deaf, in South Wisconsin, and our district mission facilitators.
Pastor Winkelman says he's back at St. Peter because no other calling congregation was willing to work with him on starting a deaf ministry — a passion he developed while at the seminary.
Pastor Winkelman's desire is to raise up new leaders in the deaf population here to train and serve as missionaries among their own friends and acquaintances.
This would be similar to the Hispanic School for Missionaries started by Pastor Alex Merlo a couple years ago in Aurora, Illinois. Those missionary students are now going out into the community. A Spanish-language Bible study has been started in Yorkville, and a mission church (Rey de Gloria) launched in Chicago on Easter Sunday. More students are nearing completion of studies and more missions are being planned.
This is such a great model — very common on the foreign mission field, but little used in the U.S., even among our very diverse language groups.
Pray with me that a whole new thrust will begin to reach people who are deaf by training Christian deaf people from within their own community. The number of unchurched people in this group is staggering.
Deaf missions go way back in our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Northern Illinois District's history, but have really struggled in recent decades due to lack of money for staffing and just the changing culture that made it more and more difficult for someone from "the outside" to serve in this area. Several small clusters of deaf people still meet, but former district congregations to serve the deaf have all but closed.
Pastor Winkelman is holding a Deaf LITES (Lutherans in Training, Equipping and Serving) workshop at Walcamp the week of June 23-27. He says 95% of deaf people do not profess Jesus as their Savior; the need is great to reach them. This workshop will train both deaf and hearing people to start new deaf ministry within the NID. (Get a flier)
Anyone interested in any aspect of this mission work is urged to e-mail him or call 815-772-3386, or call Betty Jo Lucero at (VP) 866-948-9855.
If you have Christian friends who are deaf, please share this news with them.
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