Some years ago, I had been swimming on a Saturday and found that my ears were all blocked up by pool water, to such an extent that I could barely hear anything. The problem sorted itself out by Monday, but I still needed to preach and lead services on the Sunday... It was such a disorienting experience being among people with such limited hearing and a real, albeit brief taste of the struggles that people with hearing challenges face every day.
Numbers of our members use hearing aids to help with hearing loss, but even with a hearing aid, it can still be challenging to pick up all that is happening in worship services and feel fully included in what is going on. We don't want anyone to feel left out and so we are investigating installing a hearing loop in the sanctuary. The system we are looking at requires laying a cable under the carpet around a designated area of the church (approx 10m x 10m) so that people seated in that area with the T-coil setting enabled on their hearing aid will be automatically connected to the loop. This is the most widely used technology and avoids the additional complexity and expense of blue-tooth pairing (buying and installing the system should cost in the region of R20 000).
On a related subject, you may notice that we have simplified the song lyrics displayed on the screen (by removing background images and using white text on a black background to improve readability and better include those of us who are struggling to see). If you have any questions about any of this, or any thoughts about how we can better include all our people, please let us know.