What Churches Can Do

Love toward sick members should have a special place in the Christian congregation. Christ comes near to us in the sick.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In light of the health-care crisis in the United States, as well as in the entire global village, it is significant that many churches are experiencing a renewed awareness in health care as a mission. Increasingly, churches are perceiving themselves as healing fellowships, wellness centers, and caring communities for the wounded, the disabled, the afflicted, and the dying. The compassionate and healing ministry of the church’s Lord has become a prime motivation again as we move toward the end of the twentieth century.

Although not all congregations, denominational bodies, or interchurch agencies have caught the vision, the movement is gathering momentum and deserves the attention of all those who would be faithful to Christ’s servant mission. This movement reminds us that every human being is created in the image of God and thereby carries a dimension of transcendence. Likewise, it reiterates the apostolic mandate to bear each other’s burdens.

What follows are concrete examples of the church’s modeling of health care. Many of the models are drawn from America’s Midwest, but they are representative of what is happening across the country. In addition, many of these examples are Lutheran, primarily because Lutheran bodies have been at the forefront of hospital and church-based health-care programs.

Churches In Partnership

Health needs are so massive that their alleviation calls for heightened and deepened levels of cooperation, not only between congregations but also between congregations and health-care institutions. For example, Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, has developed a health-care program with 16 Protestant and Catholic congregations in the Chicago metropolitan area. This Congregational Health Partnership is conceived as a new expression of the biblical injunction to the people of God to be a “healing community.” It is rooted in a wholistic philosophy that underscores the interrelationships of soul, mind, and body.

A strategic component of this health ministry is the parish nurse program in which registered nurses serve on the staffs of local congregations and seek to focus attention on a diversity of health needs.

Through the partnership of several institutions of the United Church of Christ, 12 congregations, 9 of them predominantly African-American, have joined forces to establish the United Church of Christ South Side Health Project in Chicago. Three wholistic health centers are being formed in the Kenwood, South Shore, and Woodlawn areas of the city. The primary foci of the three sites are to be, respectively, maternal and child health, the frail elderly, and general medicine. The Reverend Stephen Camp, project director, has indicated that at each site, services offered will include preventive medicine, stress management, AIDS awareness, parenting and grandparenting, nutrition, referrals for foster care, and social services. “We are seeking,” he comments, “to offer health care in intentional ways to people who are often ‘locked out’ of the system. Many of our clients have little or no income. The church is called to be an advocate for health care.”

In Nebraska, advocacy for health-care needs on a statewide basis is undertaken by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A constant presence at the state house is kept by the director of the Lutheran Advocacy Office in Lincoln, the Reverend James Bowman. As pending legislation that relates to health and health care is introduced into the legislature, information and often recommendations are sent to all congregations in the state synod. Over the past three years, subjects have included: health-care needs of the indigent, aid to the mentally retarded, Medicare provisions, Medicaid, child care, environmental issues, and nursing home standards.

The Northside Ecumenical Night Ministry in Chicago addresses the health-care needs of homeless youth and others on the streets. A team of a nurse practitioner, a Dominican sister, and a pastor combine their efforts on behalf of over 130 congregations. A motor van is on the streets several nights a week as a presence of the church. Videotapes are available on such subjects as substance abuse, AIDS, and other health-related issues. Most frequently, the ministry is one-on-one, or in twos and threes in conversation with one of the staff.

Program director Peter Brink speaks of establishing trust and relationship with people who have been alienated by society. “It is encouraging that many who have no church connections call us pastor,” Brink says.

Congregations As Caring Communities

One of the pioneers in the area of church and health is Granger Westberg. A Lutheran clergyman, Westberg encourages churches to become wholistic health centers—congregations that will be both “a wellness center to which people come regularly for prayer, worship, and serious discussions of life issues from a Christian perspective,” as well as a “place where task forces plan strategies for bringing health and wholeness to the immediate community, starting with congregation members.

Westberg helped develop the parish nurse program, an outgrowth of his conviction that every church should care for its own members as well as residents of the surrounding community. Under this program, a nurse affiliated with the church serves as a personal health counselor, a health educator, a referral source or liaison to community services, and as a facilitator who can recruit and train volunteers and support groups within the congregation. Each church is encouraged to form a “Health Cabinet” in which lay members can offer helping services.

One model is exemplified by the Lutheran Church of the Atonement in Barrington, Illinois. For five years the congregation has been yoked with Lutheran General Hospital in meeting health-care needs, as well as accenting wholeness in daily living. The nurse, Lois Coldeway, speaks of her role in these terms: “The most valuable thing I do is listen for what a person’s needs are, seeking to be a reflection of God’s love. The activities grow out of the expressed needs.”

One important activity of the parish nurse program is to provide services for the elderly in the congregation and community. The church offers a meal, followed by Bible studies and social activities. Blood pressure screening is frequently done before and after services. According to the pastor, Said Ailabouni, there is a quarterly service of healing, often related to confession and forgiveness. One sermon consisted of a dialogue between the pastor and a cancer patient. Community referrals and resources are utilized, including hospice care when needed.

“Problems arise faster than we can handle them,” Ailabouni says. “There simply is no end to how broad the program can be. It will require vigilance, education, and prayer.”

Two congregations just two blocks apart on Chicago’s north side, Lake View Presbyterian and Lakeview Lutheran, participate in a joint parish nurse arrangement. Sue Cox, a registered nurse, divides her working time between the congregations and the community, and has stimulated a variety of endeavors: a lunch meal for senior adults, accompanied by brief talks on such subjects as hypothermia, safety in the winter, living wills, grieving, medication, adjusting to limitations, diet and nutrition, cancer prevention. Cox also spends time with children of the parishes, encouraging them to take care of their bodies and make informed health-care decisions. In a drop-in center, she has discussed personal hygiene, sex education, AIDS, smoking, drinking, stress, and diet.

A congregation that has sought to deal compassionately and insightfully with persons struggling with addictions is the Covenant Church of Long Island, New Rochelle, New York. A smaller congregation of 60 members, there are upwards of 300 who participate regularly in the various meetings scheduled: AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), NA (Narcotics Anonymous), OA (Overeaters Anonymous), Al-Anon (spouses or significant others who live or work with alcoholics), and Co-Da (codependency). According to the pastor, Michael Hardin, these activities serve to fulfill the biblical mandate to care for the poor and marginalized. Hardin believes that “reaching out to addictive persons is one form of the church’s being a healing community. We are under obligation to bring the gospel to those who need it. Being the church in this way has taught us much about compassion.”

A half-century after Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “Christ comes near to us in the sick,” churches are returning to their roots of care for the sick and afflicted. For those who think it might be too difficult to get involved in the health needs of the church and community, Bonhoeffer offered an ideal way to start: “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them.”

Selected Bibliographical Resources

An expanding volume of literature is available to the pastor, Christian educator, church leader, and congregation in grappling with the current health crisis. Many of these titles relate directly to the role of the churches in linking religion with medicine.

Robert H. Blank, Rationing Medicine (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). A focus on problems and stresses in the health-care system of the U.S.

Larry R. Churchill, Rationing Health Care in America: Perceptions and Principles of Justice (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987). A case is made for justice and compassion in health care.

Joseph C. Hough and Barbara G. Wheeler, The Congregation As a Focus for Theological Education (Decatur, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1988). See especially “Pastoral Care and the Study of the Congregation.”

Bruce Hilton, First, Do No Harm: Wrestling With the New Medicine’s Life and Death Dilemmas (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991). This volume, to be published soon, explores from a Christian perspective several bioethical issues—transplants, life-support systems, genetic engineering, surrogate parenting, euthanasia, right to privacy, durable power of attorney, abortion pill.

Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey, eds., On Moral Medicine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). A diversified collection of essays that offer theological perspectives in medical-ethical issues.

Bruce Larson, There’s a Lot More to Health Than Not Being Sick (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1981). A book about “wellness” and “wholeness” rather than about illness, written to encourage the Christian community as “a fellowship of priests.”

Martin E. Marty and Kenneth L. Vaux, eds., Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982). A collection of essays concerned with the interface of medicine and religious faiths.

See especially the contributions by Vaux, “Topics at the Interface of Medicine and Theology” and “Theological Foundations of Medical Ethics” and by F. Dean Leuking, “The Congregation: Place of Healing and Sending.”

Granger E. Westberg and Jill Westberg McNamara, The Parish Nurse: How to Start a Parish Nurse Program in Your Church (Park Ridge, Ill.: Parish Nurse Resource Center, 1987). An indispensable manual for any congregation that may consider implementing the parish nurse plan.

Walter E. Wiest, ed., Health Care and Its Costs: A Challenge for the Church (New York: University Press of America, 1988). A collection of essays commissioned by the Task Force on Health Costs/Policies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). All 14 essays are worthy of study and discussion in the churches.

For your church

As churches develop their own resource centers to offer materials to congregants on the current health-care crisis, these journals and packets may assist:

AIDS and the Ministry of the Church. Published by the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship, P.O. Box 189, Nashville, TN 37202.

Harvard Medical School Newsletter (monthly). Department of Continuing Education, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115.

Hastings Center Report (bimonthly). The Hastings Center, 255 Elm Road, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510.

Health Care and Caring: Aids for Study Groups (1989), edited by Barbara Peterson. From the Covenant Resource Center, The Evangelical Covenant Church, 5101 N. Francisco Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625.

Nutrition Action: Health Letter (10 times a year). Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1501 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036–1499.

Responding to the Challenges of AIDS: A Resource Guide for Congregations, edited by Mary E. Klassen. Mennonite Mutual Aid, 1110 N. Main St., Goshen, IN 46526.

Second Opinion: Health, Faith, and Ethics (three times a year). The Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics, 676 N. St. Clair, Suite 450, Chicago, IL 60611.

A helpful visual aid on churches working together and individually in the field of health care is Congregational Health Partnership: A Focus on the Congregation as a Health Place. Parish Nurse Resource Center, Lutheran General Health Care System, 1700 Western Avenue, Park Ridge, IL 60068–1174.

Compiled by F. Burton Nelson.

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