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HEALTH MINISTRY
The Parish Nurse along with the Pastor and congregation, is part of Augsburg's
health ministry. Working directly with the Health Committee and with the
Pastoral Care Team, and indirectly with the Worship and Learning Committees,
the Parish Nurse plans learning opportunities and activities for personal
growth and healing. The Parish Nurse strives to model holistic health. The
Parish Nurse, is an advocate, educator, supporter and integrator of faith.
The Parish Nurse, welcomes parishioners and offers care,
advice, support and prayers for their health or health-related concern.
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WHAT IS PARISH NURSE MINISTRY?
Parish nursing is a health ministry that celebrates the church's tradition of serving the
spiritual, psychological and physical needs of individuals in community. The parish nurse brings
to the ministry of the church a desire to treat the whole person, and encourages the congregation
to view itself as a centre for health and healing.
Rooted in the vision of Christ the healer, this ministry follows ancient traditions wherein the
churches were centres of health and healing as well as places of proclamation. The communities
gathered together for wholeness in mind, body and soul (this is the original meaning of the word
salvation). Parish Nursing is a return to that traditional role, and a professional response to
the universal needs of health care. By providing a congregational-based source of preventative
and restorative care, the parish nurse addresses health as a balance of our physical, emotional,
cognitive and spiritual dimensions. Faith and health are integrated through programs and services
provided by the parish nurse, pastor, Health Committee and pastoral visitors. If you have any
questions or needs regarding your health care, the parish nurse can be an immediate, accessible
and familiar face in an increasingly impersonal health care system.
WHAT DOES A PARISH NURSE DO?
Specifically, a parish nurse is a registered nurse who is also a person of faith, and is able to express
this through conversation and prayer. The parish nurse is a person committed to ongoing theological
reflection and training, as well as working with our pastor, our congregation and the faith community in
the following ways.
- Educates towards health so that our congregation might grow
in seeing itself as a healing and redemptive fellowship, fostering new and
creative responses to health concerns.
- Integrates faith and health for people in a way
that is seldom offered outside of the church. The spiritual dimension
of the person is central to the practice of parish nursing.
- Refers people to community resources (bereavement
support, legal services, alternative medicines, etc.) and is
not involved in "hands-on" nursing or the duplication
of services that are already available.
- Coordinates community resources through networking
with individuals and agencies, being especially helpful to people
with multiple needs.
- Supports the involvement of volunteers in the
congregation's health ministry by linking people who can help,
encouraging us to build on and strengthen our capacities to
understand and care for one another.
- Counsels' individuals within a faith/health perspective
through a ministry of careful listening, conversation and prayer,
encouraging and empowering individuals to become more active
partners in the management of their personal health resources.
- Partners with the pastor, health committee and other
parish ministries to enhance the
life and ministry of our congregation through an interdisciplinary
team.
WHOLENESS & OUR HEALING LITURGY
1. In our Liturgy for Healing we celebrate Christ's healing. Christ is the one who helps and Christ's
healing is always at work in and among us to make us whole.
2. Our prayers for one another are never to be taken as substitutes for other ways God heals us, such
as through proper medical attention.
3. There is no simple connection between sin and sickness. We believe all sickness is a sign of the
brokenness of our world and our lives, but this does not mean only those who are sick are sinners and
those who look or seem well are sinless.
4. There is no simple connection between faith and healing. God heals us in many ways by grace, as a
free gift. Faith recognizes God at work but does not constitute the single cause of healing. Many
people have great faith but are not fully healed of visible infirmities. The apostle Paul was a good
example.
5. God heals us in many ways. Three forms of healing are: A) spiritual healing, our conversion itself;
B) the grace to endure an illness or infirmity; C) the removal of an illness or infirmity by some healing
cure.
6. One avenue of healing is through the prayers of those who love us and understand our needs. Our
prayers should be positive expressions of our confidence in God's healing ways.
7. The laying on of hands is a tangible way of expressing love and care. Jesus frequently touched
women, men and children through healing.
8. An appropriate place to celebrate God's healing is in the community of faith, which is the body
of Christ, the church. We are able to recognize and care for one another as whole beings whose
cries for health and wholeness incorporate all dimensions of life: spiritual, emotional, mental,
relational, physical!
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