We have a terrific team of interpreters at SoHills who use their giftedness in sign language to engage the hearing impaired in more meaningful participation in our worship assemblies. With great appreciation for these gifted servants, I share the following "news story" from Lark.com:REDLANDS, Calif. — Maria Sanford, a volunteer deaf interpreter at her church, used to play the piano, knit and paint with watercolors in her spare time. Now she spends most afternoons icing her hands.
The reason: the new pastor at her 3,000-member church uses "an unnecessary amount of long words and foreign words" each Sunday, says her furious husband.
"Does he really have to say ‘metamorphosis’ twenty-one times and ‘Thessalonica’ eighteen times in the same sermon?" he says. "Multiply that by four services and you understand why I’m upset."
Sanford noticed recently that his wife could not do simple tasks like fold the laundry or open a jar of his favorite horseradish after Sunday services. She would never mention it to the pastor, he says, so he decided to take up her cause.
"I don’t know if big words make him feel smarter, but it’s hurting someone I love," he says.
He submitted a list of fifty words to the church he wants the pastor to avoid, including "transformational," "eschatology," and "most names of ancient Roman cities."
"Ask yourself when writing your sermon: do I really need all those syllables?" her husband wrote in his letter.
If the pastor continues using lengthy words, he will disallow his wife from volunteering for the deaf ministry.
