In the course of the conversation, he revealed that he was exhausted as a result of caring for his wife who was living with Alzheimer's Disease. These are not uncommon situations arising within a faith community. Stop for a minute and identify five health care facilities in your local community. People often don't consider their own community of faith as a health care facility. Yet, as people experience illness, burdens of care-giving or addictions, they often turn to churches for support and assistance.
Congregations do much to provide health services to the people of our communities.
Faith communities also guide the formation of values which could influence people's health. In these ways, churches serve as community health care facilities. Many churches are moving in this direction with the addition of a parish nurse. While parish nursing is only one of many ways that a church can be more intentional about its health and healing ministry, it is one we would like to share here. A parish nurse is a registered professional nurse who functions as a member of a congregation's ministry team, combining nursing and health expertise with theological concepts to facilitate the healing mission of a faith community.