On Friday night she meets with the youth group to field their questions about sex and abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy.

On Saturday morning she performs free cholesterol screenings in the church basement for any church members who care to drop by for it.

That afternoon she stops by the home of an elderly woman who has just been discharged from the hospital after major surgery, offering her advice and prayers.

On Sunday morning she sits on the platform with the other members of the pastoral staff, ready to give her weekly "Faith & Health Moment" talk.

She’s a parish nurse. And that’s just one of her weekends.

Christians have been encouraging physical health at least since the day Paul advised Timothy to drink a little wine for his tummy troubles. Think of all the hospitals, leprosariums, and mission clinics that Christians have operated throughout the centuries. But there’s a new movement spreading around the world that binds physical healing and spiritual healing tighter than ever in the local church: the parish nursing movement.

It began in 1984 when pastor-theologian-chaplain Granger Westberg approached Lutheran General HealthSystem in Park Ridge, Illinois, with the idea of partnering with local congregations in a nursing project. This resulted in six nurses being hired to work with six congregations. From there, the idea caught on quickly.

Today, hundreds of congregations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and other parts of the world have nurses on their staffs. Several schools of nursing offer a parish nursing program. In 1997 the American Nursing Association designated parish nursing a specialty practice.

Parish nurses may be paid or volunteer, full-time or part-time. A parish nurse’s roles include educating church members on health matters, providing one-on-one health-care counseling, making home or hospital visits to the ailing, referring individuals to community and congregational resources, recruiting and overseeing volunteers in health ministries, developing support groups, and acting as an advocate for patients.

Granger Westberg was influenced by the wholistic health movement in the 1970s, and the ministry he started reflects the wholistic approach. According to the book Parish Nursing, "The parish nurse understands health to be a dynamic process which embodies the spiritual, psychological, physical and social dimensions of the person. Spiritual health is central to well-being and influences a person’s entire being."

This sort of wholistic approach goes right along with the new sensibility about human beings, which sees us as more than just meat machines. Even the medical establishment is recognizing the link between faith and health. In such an environment it’s only reasonable for Christians to merge spiritual healing and physical healing.

But bodyspirit ministry is not only trendy; it is also biblical. Bible scholars tell us that the Hebrews, unlike the more dualistic Greeks, conceived of humans as embodied souls or as ensouled bodies, that is, as physical-spiritual unities. Bodyspirit ministry is entirely consistent with the scriptural view of human beings.

Bodyspirit ministry is also consistent with the methodology of Jesus. For him, healing the sick and preaching the gospel were two sides of the same drachma. If we’re to be like Jesus in the world, circa 2000, we’re going to have to share his concern for the well-being of the whole person.

So far, parish nursing has taken root mostly in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations. But I see no reason why this and other forms of bodyspirit ministry can’t work in every sort of Christian church, including evangelical congregations like mine.

Got a health professional in your congregation? I bet you do—at least one. Why not spring for a latte and scone and sit down with this person to talk about how your church can minister more effectively to the needs of your church members?

Books

The Parish Nurse: Providing a Minister of Health for Your Congregation by Granger E. Westberg with Jill Westberg McNamara (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990).

Parish Nursing: Promoting Whole Person Health within Faith Communities, edited by Phyllis Ann Solari-Twadell (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1999).

Partners in Healing: Healthcare Organizations and Parish Communities by Robert L. Knaist and Lawrence G. Seidl (St. Louis: Catholic Health, 1995).

Web Sites

• The Interfaith Health Program—A program based at Emory University mobilizing faith communities around a wide range of health issues

• The International Order of St. Luke the Physician—A long-standing organization uniting Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant clergy and laity in a healing ministry

• The International Parish Nursing Resource Center—The successor to the organization set up by Granger Westberg in 1980s, providing information on parish nursing

• National Institute for Healthcare Research—An educational and research organization exploring and communicating the relationship of spirituality with health

• Parish Nursing Forum—A forum run by the Catholic Health Association of the United States facilitating an exchange of information about parish nursing