Such programs can improve physical and spiritual health, and they can occur in congregations of any size or budget.
“Spiritual and medical concerns are taken together,” said the Rev. Britt Olson, rector of St. Paul’s, Sparks, Nev.  “It’s a holistic approach.” Pattie Parent-Rackley works full time at the 400-member church, where she says she practices a different aspect of nursing than in a hospital.

“At the hospital, you’re really focused on the emergency right in front of you.  Here, at church, it can be more thoughtful.  You can see how God is working in and through the family and how a medical situation like cancer really affects the whole family.”

She provides education, including a column in the parish newsletter; coordinates visits for those homebound or hospitalized; and provides blood-pressure screening and flu shots at the parish health fair. She also maintains a well-stocked emergency aid kit that she or other nurses who are parishioners can use.

“Listening is the biggest service” that a parish nurse provides, said Bev Bennett, full-time parish nurse at St. Andrew’s Church, Saratoga, Calif., which has about 1,500 members. Offering blood pressure checks attracts many people, who then start talking about other health-care needs, she said.  She provides information on available resources and services.

“I never cease to be amazed that someone will trust me and share their life with me,” she said. “The question I like to ask is, ‘Where do you see God in this?’”

Bennett also participates in Sunday healing services. “Health-care ministry at St. Andrew’s provides compassion, efficiency and a great sense of closeness and sharing,” said Ann Marie Burger, parish treasurer, who calls herself “both an observer and a recipient of care.”

At St. Matthew’s in Fairbanks, Alaska, 50-year-parishioner Mary Margaret Davis retired from a career in public health and home care to become volunteer nurse for the parish, which has about 1,200 members. She provides blood-pressure screening, flu shots, information about respite care and referrals for health-care services. Parish volunteers provide transportation and organize meals and other services under her coordination.

Church family supports community
The Fairbanks program is developing into a community health-care ministry, Davis said.  St. Matthew’s participates with the Methodist, Jewish and Roman Catholic congregations in community health-care programs.

Providing such ministry “is what we as Christians ought to be doing for each other,” she said. Virginia MacDonald, wife of Alaskan Bishop Mark MacDonald, said she “was offered the kind of help you just can’t buy” during a difficult pregnancy.

Her family, as with many Alaskans, lives elsewhere. “The church functioned as my family, and they provided meals and did a lot of the things that I would have expected” from family members, she said. More recently, she was strongly encouraged to get a flu shot, something she normally would not have done. Davis helped her realize “that I have to take care of myself before I can take care of others,” she said.

The parish health program also includes a labyrinth, Davis noted. “Spiritual needs are met, too.” Recently, she became interested in clergy wellness and has trained clergy in the diocese.

For clergy, Bishop MacDonald noted, “there is lots of stress associated with being there because it is so isolated.”
Davis, he said, “has a very positive program.  She acts as a nurse to all the clergy.”

Congregational size needn’t limit nursing programs. At historic St. Paul’s in Virginia City, Nev., membership is no more than two dozen. The Rev. Jody Lediard was a nurse and served as parish nurse in the Comstock community for three years while serving as the congregation’s priest.  Now retired, she works as a chaplain.

As parish nurse, she got “very close to the people that I did parish nursing with,” she said.  “We worked to make people whole in body, mind and spirit.”

More information is available at:
http://www.st-andrews-saratoga.org/
http://www.stmatthewschurch.org/
http://www.stpaulssparks.org/