Parish Nurse/Health Ministry

The Health Ministry Nurse program is a Holistic health care ministry, providing spiritually focused nursing care for individuals and families in and through faith congregations.

In American society, the faith community is one of the institutions that strongly influence people’s values and personal life choices. It is able to reach people of all ages, races, and economic backgrounds. The development of health ministries within a congregation helps focus the members’ awareness on the essential ministry of health and healing.

As recently as a hundred years ago, Christian churches were leaders in the health field, building the finest hospitals the world has ever known, and educated thousands of religiously motivated women as nurses. Today, scientific medicine, aware of its limitations, is looking for assistance in preventative medicine, in health education, and in helping to motivate people to care for their own health. If holistic concepts are integrated with one’s religious beliefs, each will motivate the other. Moreover, at this moment in history, the church is sorely needed to help motivate people to put body, mind, and spirit together, and to convince them that the integration of all three can lead to true health and wholeness.