"I like the pastor," Adolf said. He likes being able to sign to fellow members, he said.

The opportunities Adolf has had at Holy Cross may not have been available to him in another church, Moody said.

In any other church, deaf people would need sign language interpreters to communicate with others, Moody said. It would be hard for them to become involved in any church activities, he said.

But at a church where everybody signs, deaf members can make friendships and take charge at services like the Christian seder service on Maundy Thursday, Moody said.

Before the Christian Passover meal, tables were bedecked with blue plastic tablecloths and yellow flowers in vases. On foam plates were a hard boiled egg, horseradish, parsley and salt water, symbols of Passover.

Nearby was church member Jack Chapman of Granite City.

Chapman signed that he liked the church.

"He likes talking to the deaf people and fellowship, socializing with the deaf," said Moody, interpreting for Chapman.

Chapman also signed that God gives him strength and opportunity to do things around the church.

Chapman and Adolf are the exception. A large number of deaf people throughout the country aren't going to church, Moody said.

The number of deaf people in Moody's church is down and members are older, Moody said. However, the addition of hearing relatives of deaf members has kept overall membership the same as what it's always been, he said.

About half of the 60 or 70 who come to services at Holy Cross are deaf.

One reason why so few deaf people attend church may be that social services churches once provided for the deaf now are provided by the government, Moody said.

Another possible factor Moody mentioned is the difference between the grammar in sign language, the first language of deaf people, and English.

Sign language is all in the active voice, Moody said. Much of the Bible is in the passive voice. That may make it harder to understand the Bible, Moody said. He works to make sure scriptures, his sermons and his conversations are in the active voice and understandable to the deaf.

Moody has tried to help the deaf understand the gospel understandable for as long as he's been a minister. But he never met a deaf person until he was in the seminary.

"The language intrigued me. It was very easy for me to learn it," Moody said of sign language.

He started working at Holy Cross in 1978, even before his graduation from Concordia Seminary in Clayton the next year.

The church Moody joined was founded in 1930. However, Lutheran ministers have served the deaf on a full-time basis in St. Louis since 1892.

Holy Cross and a Lutheran Church for deaf blacks, St. Phillips in North St. Louis, took an early step toward integration when they merged in 1952. Both were led by the same pastor, the Rev. Francis Dyle.

Members come from throughout the area.

Two members who can hear are Kathy and Vince Trice of the city's Franz Park neighborhood. They've been in the church for three years.

"I like the people. They're very friendly," Vince Trice, 52, a welder, said. "Between our hands and lips, really we can communicate."

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2010/04/06/south/news/0407sc-deaf10.txt