[1]EVANSVILLE, Ind. (BP) – When Corey Harrison struggled with deep anger in college, wondering why God created him Deaf, a friend invited him to a men’s retreat. There, Harrison recalled the love he experienced when his childhood church hired Deaf pastor Paul Cannon.
“I remember the first time he signed to me,” Harrison, now himself a pastor, told Baptist Press. “I was speechless.”
Harrison is pastor of NorthWoods Deaf Church, which NorthWoods Church of Evansville launched May 17. Harrison made the difficult decision to leave his first pastorate, New Life Deaf Church in Clarksville, Tenn., to lead the Evansville church plant.
“Over the past two years, God placed a growing burden on my heart to reach more Deaf people with the Gospel,” Harrison said. “During that time, several people connected with NorthWoods Church in Evansville, Ind., reached out to me.”
Senior Pastor Bobby Pell and Missions Pastor Ryan Moore met Harrison through a lead from the North American Mission Board, Pell and Moore told Baptist Press. Through the two of them, Harrison saw an open door to respond to his godly burden and visited a Deaf community bonfire at NorthWoods last October.
“Listening to Deaf individuals share their struggles and desire for Deaf Bible study and church ministry deeply moved me,” Harrison said. “I began teaching an eight-week class called ‘The Church,’ and through that process God clearly confirmed His calling for us to plant NorthWoods Deaf Church.”
Pell and Moore learned the need for a Deaf church after area resident Julia Aregood visited NorthWoods around Easter 2025, they told Baptist Press. She visited with a Deaf friend, and in the following weeks began to sign the sermon and bring additional Deaf friends.
Aregood’s friends began to ask her such questions as whether the guy on the stage was telling the truth. “He keeps talking about sin. What is sin? You keep talking about heaven and hell and our need to know Jesus in order to go to heaven,” Aregood said her friends wanted to know.
[2]“We didn’t go look for this. This came to us,” Pell said. “I think the best things that have happened in Northwoods did not come from our strategies. They came from God at work. And then we saw it. We joined it. … What’s interesting is that I learned there’s a need for Deaf churches.”
While there are about 1,400 Deaf or hearing-impaired people in Clarksville, the community increases to between 4,000 and 4,500 in Evansville, the pastors said.
The mother church baptized two Deaf believers in the weeks leading up to the launch, the pastors said, and will baptize three more on May 31.
“We’ve learned a lot about this segment of the population,” Moore said. “It’s not uncommon for them to feel prejudice and like they are the outcast and they are not included as a part of normal society. And we have really tried to make them feel like they matter and they’re made in God’s image just as we’re made in God’s image.”
NorthWoods Deaf Church meets on the church campus, large enough to host the two congregations simultaneously. Families including Deaf and hearing individuals attend the new church, as do Deaf individuals and hearing friends. Harrison preaches in American Sign Language (ASL). Worshipers sign praises.
The new church has already held several fellowship events with more planned. NorthWoods Church members have requested an ASL class to learn to communicate with the new church, and Moore and Pell also plan to learn ASL.
And then there’s the music, or more succinctly, the music volume, which translates as a good thing.
“Oh it’s loud,” Pell said. “Very, very loud,” Moore added.
Loud music helps the Deaf community feel the music they can’t audibly hear.
“You wouldn’t think there’d be music, but they like music,” Pell said. “It has to be loud because they need to feel the music, right? And so the subwoofers are turned up as loud as they’ll go. When you’re walking in from the parking lot, you can feel it outside. And so they just can’t hear it, obviously, but they can feel the bass. They can feel it.”
Harrison wondered how God would use him as a Deaf pastor soon after he felt God’s call at the men’s retreat during college, he told Baptist Press.
“During that retreat, I surrendered my anger and fully sensed God calling me into ministry. At first, I struggled with the idea because I wondered how a Deaf person could become a pastor,” Harrison said. “I reached out to Pastor Paul Cannon, and he encouraged me, prayed with me, and helped me realize there was a great need for Deaf ministry and Deaf churches.”
In college, Harrison attended a Deaf Day of Prayer event in Louisville, Ky., he said. There, he learned that less than 2 percent of Deaf people were followers of Christ.
“That was my first experience attending a Deaf church and meeting Deaf pastors. I heard about the overwhelming spiritual need among Deaf people,” Harrison said. “That burden stayed with me.”
Pell and Moore encourage other churches to follow God’s guidance in planting congregations, whether to reach Deaf communities or other largely unreached people groups.
“All of our communities have people groups that are not currently being reached with the Gospel,” Moore said. “Just look at your community. Are there opportunities there for church planting to take place to reach this segment of the population? And then just step out in faith and start taking steps towards reaching them with the Gospel and just see what doors of opportunity God opens up.”
“And I think the only thing I’d add to that,” Pell said, “is in all of our churches, I think God’s saying yes to us for something. And I just think we have to be ready and willing to look to see what are the opportunities that are in front of us that we haven’t seen.”
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