But in a South Australian first, the Balhannah Uniting Church is overcoming the communication barrier by providing live captioning for its services.

The Rev Peter Morel already distributes copies of his sermon to the 10 hearing impaired or deaf members of his congregation.

Until now, they all missed the joke if he ad-libbed, and all other spontaneous moments of Sunday worship.

"We have members with varying levels of hearing loss from the profoundly deaf to those with hearing aids which don't work very well," he said.

"We wanted to include them, but we also hope to encourage those members of the community who don't attend church because of hearing impairments to join us."

Captioning operated for the first time during Sunday worship yesterday morning.

It was suggested by parishioner Lyn Beaumont, 60, of Littlehampton, who saw a captioning service in operation at services in Queensland. He has been deaf for four years and said it had opened up a whole new world for him.

"Now I can get the ambience, the feel of the service," he said.

"My wife and I were on holiday in Queensland and thought it was fantastic, as many people don't go to church or can't because they don't get anything out of it."

The church has hired a steno-reporter and bought $3000 worth of projection equipment.

Mr Morel said captioning would provide a better service than bigger churches with sign interpreters, since many people had suffered hearing problems later in life and had not learned sign language.

It is hoped to become a community facility to ensure hearing impaired people can be more active in meetings.

By Cara Jenkin, The Advertiser