HOW DO YOU INTRODUCE A PARISH NURSE MINISTRY?

A health cabinet of four or five members, enlisted from physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, dietitions, physical therapists, health enthusiasts and the chronically ill, can identify needed health ministries in your congregation and give shape to a parish nurse ministry.

The cabinet may select the parish nurse.

The cabinet should recommend some parish nurse preparation before the nurse assumes office. Options available are:

1. Minimum: a four-day introductory workshop.
   
   
2. Preferred: a six weeks to three months course of study through a hospital or college, together with a parish internship.
   
   
3. Optimal: a comprehensive study program through a college or university.
   
   Continuing education: Attendance at one annual parish nurse conference is recommended.

CAN PARISH NURSING HELP MY MINISTRY?

Yes, in several ways.

• As a pastor, you declare Christ's foregiveness and love but also His healing ministry to the sick and His expectation of your care of the life he has entrusted to you. Professionally qualified, a parish nurse gives practical expression to this healing ministry.
  
  
• As a pastor you may delegate some of the Christian teaching and motivation for health practices to the parish nurse.
  
  
• The parish nurse can help you achieve your personal health goals.
  
  
• Healing ministries that provide care to the infirm, release the love of Christ into the lives of both the receiver and the giver of care. The parish nurse is a point of release for Christ's love into the congregation.
  
  
• Physical and psychological growth toward greater health is growth in the Christian life.
  
  
• A nursing assessment may add to your understanding of the person and her/his spiritual need. For example, a couple distancing themselves from the church may be having serious marital trouble. To an elder or the pastor they hint vaguely at work schedules, weekends in the country or extended family care needs. They don't want to go public with their conflict. A parish nurse, trained in hearing the message behind the words and blessed with a woman's intuition, in some cases, will be able to elicit the truth from the woman member.

HOW CAN I WORK WITH SOMEONE WHO COMES FROM A DIFFERENT NON-CHURCH-RELATED PROFESSION?

This question has two answers.

Parish nursing is not a community clinic opened in a church facility; parish nursing is more than nursing practice set up on a church. Parish nursing is a ministry, a 21st century extension of Christ's healing ministry, Christ's compassion and love for His people, His suffering and death to make people whole in body, mind and soul, His Spirit's striving within us to enhance the gift of life--these witness to and serve our Lord in parish health ministry. Fortified by this credo, the congregation, through a health cabinet or similar group, sets up the health ministry. The needs/opportunities present in the congregation and the integrity of the nursing profession will be honored.

For an effective working relationship between pastor and parish nurse these additional observations can be made.

In the congregation's healing ministry, the pastor and parish nurse are professional peers. Each has their own competence. As a pastor, you are called to a Law and Gospel ministry administered through Word (teaching and preaching) and Sacrament. Educated and qualified for ministry by your seminary and then certified for pastoral ministry and rostered by your church body, you are a professional person.

The parish nurse is by education a health-care professional. Many nursing procedures are independent judgments that do not require the physician's direction. This is true of most of the procedures the parish nurse is likely to do. Parish nurse preparation programs include content in team ministry. The parish nurse, too, is legally accountable to the nurse practice act of the state where licensed. But in a larger than human sense, the nurse has a health ministry to which God has called her/him.

Pastor and parish nurse have separate yet contributing functions in Christian health ministry. At their common point of meeting, they are bound to confidentiality by their professional ethics. Anecdotal material and information given in confidence to either the nurse or the pastor may not be shared. Professional assessments may be shared for the better care of the parson served.

WILL PARISH NURSING BENEFIT OUR MEMBERS?

• Illness is an isolating experience. A woman confined for eight weeks with pneumonia commented, "No one called. I thought the church had forgotten me." A parish nurse or her volunteer will break that isolation, affirm the church's concern and reconnect the individual and congregation. This is a common experience among the homebound.
  
  
• A parish nurse encourages and supports the medical regimen through warm presence, reinforcement of the regimen through explanation of the purpose and expected results and through prayer. This support is often critical to patient participation and eventual healing.
  
  
• In the present health-care environment where the individual is increasingly responsible for his or her health, parish nursing connects personal responsibility with Gospel motivation and planned activity. Personal wellness should be a significant fruit of the Gospel.
  
  
• Members neglecting moderation and general stewardship of their physical health are often responsive to the invitation to join others in the Christian community in joint wellness programs.
  
  
• Some members--notably the bereaved, single parents, the divorced, the overweight and substance abusers--can profit from joining a support group initiated in the congregation or available elsewhere. A Christian health ministry can facilitate such participation.
  
  
• The parish nurse can initiate activities in support of healthy lifestyles, today's key to tomorrows health.

WILL THE CONGREGATION AS A WHOLE BENEFIT?

• In congregations committed to parish nursing, a deeper sense of Christian community than existed before has been a welcome discovery. In a society of transient relationships, the heart hungers for community.
  
  
• Parish nursing raises the awareness of the congregation to this ministry's effect on the spiritual, relational, emotional and physical health of the whole Christian community.
  
  
• Parish nursing organizes, trains and provides consistent volunteer service to the congregation.

WE'RE A MISSION-MINDED CONGREGATION. WON'T THIS EMPHASIS ON HEALTH CHANGE OUR FOCUS?

Proclamation and Gospel witness are the principal ways of declaring salvation in Jesus Christ. But demonstration of the Gospel's power in the lives of believers has always been a part of outreach. In America, congregational health ministries may be the significant demonstration in the early years of the 21st century. This hypothesis is currently being researched.

Numerous examples of out reach ministries that combine parish nursing with proclamation in the community exist.

• One pastor reports that on some nights people from the community outnumber members at health education functions.
  
  
• A Texas congregation has tailored parish nursing to community outreach.
  
  
• In some communities, unattached neighbors or family members have been drawn to the church by the parish nurse's service given a friend or extended family member.
  
  
• Support groups are one avenue to the heart of the community.