When places of worship fill with holiday music this time of year, most people experience it through their sense of hearing. At Miami Valley Baptist Church for the Deaf in North Dayton, the congregation experiences music in a unique way.
The music here is louder than you'd expect. Concert-level in an intimate setting. That's intentional. This congregation is mostly deaf. They don't hear the hymns. They feel and experience them.
Pastor Dave Sollmann has led the small congregation for three years. He's been deaf since contracting measles as a baby.
"That sound system, it's really important for the vibration, for that bass, to really feel the bass during worship time," Sollmann said through American Sign Language interpreter Annette Paulus. "When I'm really close to the speaker, all that vibration just really hits my body, and I love it."
For some hearing visitors, the volume can be overwhelming.
"For hearing who come, that is really loud and it can hurt your ears," Sollmann said. "But we like it."
"When I'm really close to the speaker, all that vibration just really hits my body and I love it."Pastor Dave Sollmann
Pastor Sollmann's wife, Kellynn Sollmann, found the church through a newspaper ad 30 years ago. She is also deaf. She had been raised Lutheran but couldn't find a deaf-accessible congregation in Dayton. At hearing churches, she didn't fit in.
"A lot of hearing churches, they don't allow deaf to be involved at all," Kellynn Sollmann said. "And you just sit there doing really nothing and feeling deflated about it. Being able to be involved in drama, being able to get my hands involved in it, is amazing."
That involvement shapes how the congregation experiences music, Pastor Sollmann says. Worship songs are prayers being sung. Facial expressions carry the emotion. Hands don't just sign words. They sign feeling.
"Facial expressions, adding that emotion to your body, so you're really dramatic and theatrical with it, and really just covered in the Holy Spirit," he said. "It's amazing."
The congregation is small and, like most of its size, is older. Outside funding is rare. But whether it's a Sunday in June or Christmas Eve, they gather the same. Bass thumping, hands moving.
"Really, it's just a way to spread the gospel," Sollmann said. "That's all."
Culture Couch is produced by WYSO's Eichelberger Center for Community Voices.
