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Minute for Mission: Health Awareness
Health awareness can begin very simply in our congregations and spread throughout our communities. It may only take one interested individual who will serve as lay health minister or parish nurse of a congregation.
Health ministry is an intentional effort to help individuals achieve a state of wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. A parish nurse is a registered professional nurse called by God and the congregation to use his or her professional knowledge and leadership skills to achieve that end. A parish nurse might be found accompanying an elderly person to a doctor’s visit, teaching a church school class, writing an article on a health topic for the church newsletter, researching a health condition for someone newly diagnosed, reading Scripture and praying with a hospitalized patient or terminally ill member at home, advising about home care, or arranging
a flu shot clinic at church on a Sunday in the fall. Often, the greatest gifts are those of presence and listening. “Walking humbly with God” while holding the hand of an individual in crisis brings healing to all.
I am the parish nurse of my congregation, Bradley Hills, in Bethesda, Maryland. In addition to serving my own congregation, I invite members of the Bethesda Jewish Congregation, which meets at Bradley Hills, to attend the annual flu shot clinic at church, and I have consulted with their members about health issues. As a health ministry/parish nurse consultant, several other parish nurses and I are available to help churches start and maintain a health ministry program at the local level. The eventual goal is for a consultant in every presbytery to spread health ministry across the United States.
—Joanie Friend, parish nurse, Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, and health ministry/parish nurse consultant, Presbyterian Health Network
Loving God, thank you for being with us as we seek to bring healing of body, mind, and spirit to those in our congregations and communities. Help us to bring your spirit of hope and presence to those in need through our acts of loving-kindness and advocacy. Like the disciples, encourage us to go forth and so spread your word through this ministry. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Acts 4:32–35
Blest Be the Tie That Binds
PH 438, HB 473
Ps. 133
There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit
PH 398
1 John 1:1–2:2
Hear, O Lord, Your Servants Gather
PH 465, WB 417
Christ for the World We Sing
HB 489
John 20:19–31
We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight
PH 399
Daily Lectionary
Ps. 93, 150 Ps. 136, 117
Isa. 43:8–13
1 Peter. 2:2–10; John 14:1–7 |
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