The deaf population is growing smaller and smaller due to cochlear implants that are now being used for nearly 99 percent of deaf babies. A much bigger issue is ministering to people with hearing loss. At least 10 percent of the people attending services/Masses cannot understand what is being said due to hearing losses. Churches have terrible acoustics and even people with mile hearing losses cannot understand with the inherent reverberations and echo. The problem is that it is invisible and then there is the vanity that people dont want to appear old. That is all changing. My church recently installed an fm system and many of the users become very emotional when they can finally understand the homilies and enjoy the choir. Hearing Loss is at epidemic proportions due to the noisy world we live in. The Methodists have been ministering to the hearing impaired for a long time now.
Just because the size of the deaf population today is smaller than in the past doesn’t mean we should be ignored either.