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Health Ministry Expands! We are blessed at Jerusalem to have several members who are trained in various health care areas. Please watch your bulletins and newsletters for exciting changes to the Parish Nurse Ministry. Plans are in the works to make more health-care-related information available to you. The following members of our church family will be offering their professional training to answer your questions and provide information related to their fields. Registered Nurses: Lois Brunner, Dorothy Loughry, Laura Ebert Radiography: Vicki Brunner |
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Lois Brunner, our parish nurse, will begin to make visits to shut ins with Pastor Stacy.
Her presence will add another
dimension to our healing ministry. She continues to head our caring team and will be taking blood pressures after the second service of each month and overseeing the prayer chain. |
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Health ministry and parish nurse programs The church has historically been interested in health and healing. Today congregations are reclaiming their roles in healing through health ministry and parish nurse programs. Health ministry programs help parishioners and leaders embrace the idea of whole-person health of the body, mind and spirit, and integrate healthy choices and healing approaches throughout the life of congregations. Health ministry is about encouraging healthy life-style choices around diet and exercise, stress relief, the wise use of time, balancing work and home, and being centered on God. There are many ways for congregations to integrate health and healing ministries. Almost 800 ELCA congregations have begun using the parish-nurse model. The late Pastor Granger Westberg, serving as a chaplain at Lutheran General Hospital in Chicago, identified the need to address the spiritual health of patients along with their physical and mental health. Westberg created and developed the idea of asking nurses to work with doctors, patients and clergy to provide whole-person health care. The parish nurse is a licensed registered nurse, whose role can include education , developing support groups, training volunteers and serving as a health advocate, personal health counselor and agent. A parish nurse does not do hands on nursing. The health ministry team is another model that congregations are embracing. This team pulls together parishioners from various health care professions to support congregational members with identified needs. Some congregations have a parish nurse and the coordinator of their health ministry team. Both models are supported by parishioners (usually 8 to 12 members) who share the understanding that health is three dimensional-body, mind and spirit-and that there is a healing in the midst of disease. They are members who have a pulse on the congregation and recognize where the greatest needs are. The help to educate the congregation through newsletters, adult forums, temple talks and even children's sermons. Their work alongside supportive clergy is about helping the congregation live life abundantly, loving God and loving their neighbors. |